One of the toys my son has been after for some time is a Nerf gun, these are those guns that shoot foam darts that kids go mad for.
Find a gun!
Now we don't buy toys often and the Nerf guns seem a bit pricey to me, but he really wants one and I have a 3d printer.
I was quite sure I could get something usable online, so I headed on to https://www.thingiverse.com/ and set off in search of 'toy guns', not knowing what terms I should use. Turns out that was ok.
My search revealed a great many choices, which I spent quite some time scrolling through before settling on a simple looking design.
Why simple? Well I had an incident with the 3d printer and it was still not 'dialed in', so I was concerned that I would start a long print only to have it fail repeatedly.
The print...
Even with the simplest design I could find, it failed! After more reading and tinkering I stumbled upon settings that actually worked well.
This was of course late afternoon, after work.. can you see what's coming?
Ecstatic with my success, I fired off the print, full of hope that it would complete and print beautifully. Of course I did not look at the time it would take to print...
With a print time of close to 5 hours, it was still going as we were getting ready to go to bed, then while we lay in bed trying to fall asleep, we could hear the printer, hard at work in the next room. My wife did not share in my excitement at this point 😒
At some time past midnight I woke up, thinking that the print had completed, not wanting to waste electricity, I went to the room, as I opened the door I was met with the printer, still slaving away in the heat.
WUT?!?!? I looked at the display panel, 99%. Seeing as I was up, I may as well sit and wait for it to finish.
Mercifully I did not wait long, when it was done I uplugged the machine, then resisted the very strong temptation to pry the peice off of the printer and inspect it. That would have to wait until the next morning!
The big reveal
I woke up the next morning and went to go and make some coffee ☕ Whilst I was waiting for the kettle to boil, I heard whispering and little feet running around.
The kids came into the kitchen, over the moon that the gun had finished printing! Excitedly they told me how cool it was!
They seemed more overjoyed than I was 😁
Here are some photo's that I took before popping the gun off of the bed;
Here is the bottom of the gun with the brim still in place.
The video
I also went ahead and made a video on assembling the gun, please take a look and let me know what you think.
The end 🙁
But just for now...
I am truly fascinated by 3D printing, as a child I dreamt of being able to see something on TV, then have it materialise in front of me. Sure, this is not quite the same, but it is still ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!
Do you share my enthusiasm?
What would you like to see printed out?
