First steps in 3d printing

I first saw a 3d printer in operation a few years back. I knew about the technology, but it was still fairly new outside industry and there seemed to be a lot of DIY involved with printers coming as a kit of parts and people making parts for each other. Now they seem to be everywhere and I know a few people who have them. I had not looked into them recently until I saw this post by Hive account@ashtv. He has the Bambu Lab A1 mini that is pretty cheap. I was thinking of getting that, but someone at work recommended I go for the slightly bigger A1 so I would be less limited on the size of objects.

It required some assembly with just two main parts of the base and the upright with a few screws and cables to be put in place. A cable reel clips on the top and there is a metal plate that the prints are made on attached by magnets.

Of course I wanted to use it straight away, but the rolls of filament I ordered at the same time came the next day. They do give you a tiny (20g) sample though. There are some models stored in the onboard memory that include the 'Benchy' boat that people use as a benchmark of printing performance. It came out pretty nice. I also printed a tiny whistle.

They have a mobile app to access the massive library of models and you can kick off prints direct from that. The printer has a camera so you can check on progress wherever you are.

Once my filament arrived I could try some bigger models. There are lots of accessories for the printer itself such as a scraper to get prints off the bed and various types of 'poop bin' to catch the waste filament that gets ejected before a print.

There are so many toys and other frivolous things you can make, but I wanted to make practical items too. I found various drumstick holders and this one fits on my Roland kit nicely. The print quality is really good and items are lighter than you expect as they are largely hollow. That cuts down on how much filament you need as well as making the print quicker. I also printed some clips to hold pairs of sticks together in my bag.

I have lots of ideas for things I want to print and those may include gifts for others.

This printer is upgradeable to print in four colours. I could have got the rig for that at the same time for a discount, but I thought I would see how it goes first. I have been watching a few videos that offer tips on how to get good results. They point out that multi-colour printing can be wasteful as each time it changes filament the old one has to be ejected from the print head. With some models there can be more waste than model.

Then there is the whole thing of doing your own designs. I have not done much 3d design, so I will have to look up tutorials. You can import models from other sources such as Thingiverse and Printables. That requires the desktop software that I have yet to try. I use Linux, but there is a version for that.

I feel I have entered a new world of possibilities and I hope to get plenty of use from my new toy. I know we have a few other users on Hive. I own a few printed items that I have purchased from the community and I have a Hive keyring from Hivefest that someone made.

You can expect more posts from me about this.