3 d printing the essential guide to 3d printers

Compiled by Anna Kaziunas France

Make: 3D Printing

Make: 3D PrintingCompiled by Anna Kaziunas France

Copyright © 2014 Maker Media, Inc.. All rights reserved.

Printed in Canada.

Published by Maker Media, Inc, 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

Maker Media books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online edi-tions are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For more information, contactO’Reilly Media’s corporate/institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or [email protected].

Editor: Brian JepsonProduction Editor: Christopher HearseProofreader: Rachel HeadIndexer: Judith McConville

Cover Designer: Jason BablerInterior Designers: Nellie McKesson and BrianJepsonIllustrator: Rebecca Demarest

November 2013: First Edition

Revision History for the First Edition:

2013-11-13: First release

See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781457182938 for release details.

The Make logo and Maker Media are registered trademarks of Maker Media, Inc. Make: 3D Printing andrelated trade dress are trademarks of Maker Media, Inc.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimedas trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Maker Media, Inc., was aware of atrademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assumeno responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information con-tained herein.

ISBN: 978-1-457-18293-8

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Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Part I. Hardware

1. Getting Started with a 3D Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Choosing a Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Buying Options: Turnkey, Kit, or DIY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Generating STL files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Slice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Fixup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Your First Print Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63D Printer Anatomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

3D Positioning System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73D Printer Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Choosing a Filament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Next Steps: What to Make . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2. 3D Printer Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15The Challenge Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Snake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Owl Statue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Nautilus Gears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Dimension Torture Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Afinia H-Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

iii

Table of Contents

Bukobot 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Cube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Felix 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21MakerGear M2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Printrbot Jr. (v1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Replicator 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Solidoodle 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Type A Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Ultimaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Part II. Software

3. Software for 3D Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313D Modeling/CAD Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Slicing/CAM Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Printer Control/Client Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35What Next? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

4. 3D Design for the Complete Beginner . . . 371. Create a Tinkercad Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372. Make a Hole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383. Make the Robot Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384. Align the Head and the Hole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395. Combine the Head and Hole into a Single Object . . . . . . . . 396. Make the Head Hollow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397. Make Your Robot’s Mouth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408. Make Your Robot’s Eyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

5. Getting Started with Slic3r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Step 1: Name Your Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Step 2: Print Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Perimeters and Solid Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Infill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49The Skirt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Support Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Notes and Miscellaneous Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Advanced Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Step 3: Filament Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Cooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Step 4: Printer Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Custom G-Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Extruder Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Retraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

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Step 5: Return to the Plater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Working with Multiple STLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Have Fun! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Part III. 3D Scanning

6. Creating and Repairing 3D Scans . . . . . . . . 61What Is 3D Scanning? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63123D Catch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

123D Catch Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Taking Photos with 123D Catch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Uploading Your Photos to the Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Downloading Your Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

ReconstructMe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67Installing ReconstructMe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Tips for Reconstructing Yourself (or Someone Else) . . . . . . . 68

Cleaning and Repairing Scans for 3D Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70netfabb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70Autodesk MeshMixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71MeshLab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Pleasant3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Repairing Most Scans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72Repair and Clean Up in netfabb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72Smoothing Out the Surface of Meshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75Removing Bumps and Blobs with MeshMixer . . . . . . . . . . . . 76Final Cleanup/Repair in netfabb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76Print Your Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Repairing Relief Scans by Capping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Fixing Holes, Non-Manifold Areas, and Disconnected

Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Closing Large Areas of Missing Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Scan Your World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

7. Print Your Head in 3D! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 851. Register with Autodesk 123D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 862. Take Digital Photos of Your Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 863. Create a New Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 874. Open Your 3D Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 875. Edit Your 3D Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 876. Make It “Watertight” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887. Embellish It (Optional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 888. Share Your Model (Optional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 899. Save Your Final Model as a Printable File (Optional) . . . . . . 89

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10. 3D Print Your Head! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Part IV. Materials

8. Plastics for 3D Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93Polylactic Acid (PLA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93Polylactic Acid (Soft/Flexible PLA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93LAYWOO-D3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93LAYBRICK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94Nylon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94Polycarbonate (PC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94High-density Polyethylene (HDPE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95Polycaprolactone PCL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

9. Industrial Materials and Methods . . . . . . . . 97Composites and Ceramics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97Plastics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Stereolithography (SLA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Photopolymer Jetting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Metals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Direct Metal Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Indirect Printing Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Part V. Services

10. 3D Printing Without a Printer . . . . . . . . . . . 103

11. Service Providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107Upload Files and Order Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Shapeways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107Ponoko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Sculpteo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108i.materialise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Kraftwurx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Staples (partnering with Mcor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Makers Producing Parts Locally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108makexyz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

vi Make: 3D Printing

3D Hubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109Find Me a Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Print Chomp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109Professional-Grade Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

ZoomRP.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109RedEye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1093D Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Boutique 3DP Design and Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1093dPhacktory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109Solid-Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Part VI. Finishing Techniques

12. How to Dye Your 3D Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1131. Gather Your Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1142. Soak Your Pieces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143. Add Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1154. Rinse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1165. Dry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1166. Show It Off! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

13. Post-Processing Your Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . 119Tools and Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120Tricks of the Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121Friction Welding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121Friction Welding Mismatched Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

1. Prepare the Rotary Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1222. Prepare Two Parts for Welding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1223. Tack-Weld the Parts in Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1234. Plug Gaps with Filament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1245. Friction Weld the Seam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Friction Welding to Repair a PLA Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125Riveting: Friction Welding Blind Rivets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Using Filament to Make Solid Rivets and Hinges . . . . . . . . . . 131Gluing and Filling: Creating ABS Slurry for Filler and Glue . 135Sanding 3D-Printed Plastic Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

14. Weathering Your Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1391. Pick a BaseCoat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1392. Pick a Metallic Paint for Worn Edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1403. Start Drybrushing over the Piece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1404. Add Bigger Scrapes and Chipped Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1415: Add Dirt and Grunge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

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6. That’s It! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Part VII. Applications

15. The Promise of 3D Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

16. 3D Printed Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147Practical Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1473D Products Now on the Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1513D Printing in Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154Novel and Artistic Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

17. Dream Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

18. Desert Manufacturer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

19. How I Printed a Humanoid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167Lessons Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169DIY vs. Commercial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172What’s Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Part VIII. Other Ways to Make 3D Objects

20. Milling 3D Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177The Subtractive Equivalent of 3DP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177What Do You Want to Make? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178DIY CNC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Plans Avaliable from Buildyourcnc.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178Even More Mills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Othermill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180Shapeoko 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Linear Motion Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180MakerSlide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181OpenBeam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181OpenBuilds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

21. White Chocolate Skulls in PLA Trays . . . 183Bill of Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1841. Print the Mold Maker on a 3D Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1852. Mix and Pour the Smooth-Sil 940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1853. Demold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1864. Add Slits to the Mold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

viii Make: 3D Printing

5. Extract the Soy Lecithin from the Softgels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1886. Melt The Chocolate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Bamboo Steamer + Glass Bowl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188Bamboo Steamer + Squeeze Bottle (Best Way) . . . . . . . . . . 189

7. Let the Chocolate Cool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1898. Pour the Chocolate into the Mold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1909. Put the Mold in the Refrigerator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19010. While Waiting, Start Printing the Candy Trays . . . . . . . . . 19111. Carefully Demold the Chocolate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

22. Printcrime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Appendix A. 3D Printing Resources . . . . . . . . . . 195

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

ixTable of Contents

WRITTEN BY ANNA KAZIUNAS FRANCE

Additive Personal Fabrication

Welcome to Make: 3D Printing. I’ve compiledthe best projects, tutorials, and stories about3D printing from MAKE’s print and onlinepublications, refreshed them for the latestdevelopments, and added a few new piecesyou haven’t seen elsewhere.

Personal Fabrication

This book contains stories and tutorials fromand about makers who have embraced ad-ditive personal fabrication, a term that en-compasses 3D printing activities at home,work, or school. Some of these makers areexploring not only DIY 3D printing, but cre-ating scalable small businesses through theuse of fabrication services for small batchcustom manufacturing. Others create justwhat they need, just in time, from their desk-top factory.

As it turns out, the “killer app” in digitalfabrication, as in computing, is person-alization, producing products for a mar-ket of one person.

— Neil Gershenfeld Foreign Affairs Novem-ber/December 2012

Although additive manufacturing has beenthe subject of some irrational media exuber-ance, it’s only part of the digital fabrication

equation. As an instructor at the Fab Acade-my, a globally distributed rapid prototypingcourse where we turn codes into things, Itaught a wide variety of digital fabricationtechniques, often using subtractive meth-ods and machines to achieve desired results.

This in no way diminishes the opportunitiesfor creativity and expression that are madepossible by 3D printing. Through 3D scan-ning and printing I have been able to quicklymodel and fabricate a variety of completelybespoke (and often last minute) items; fromcostumes to artwork to functional molds.

Part of the power of personal fabrication isdirectly tied to having easily accessible per-sonal machines. Machine access combinedwith creativity and time pressure can lead tointeresting mashups and materials choices.

When working on the scanning chapter ofGetting Started with MakerBot (see Chap-ter 6), I created a scan of a prop skull. I laterdecided to use the scan to create the tradi-tional necklace of skulls or “garland of Kali”as costume for Halloween. Because I had twodesktop printers at my home, I was able toprototype my sizable Kali necklace in a singleweek by running them continuously. I alsoused the skull scan to create batches of mol-

xi

Preface

Figure P-1. Self Portrait as Kali

ded skull chocolates (see the Chapter 21 tu-torial).

A month later, the Kali necklace was joinedby a belt and I incorporated it into a fourarmed sculpture I titled “Self Portrait as Kali”(see Figure P-1). I created the body of thesculpture from several self scans that I com-bined digitally to create two sets of arms ona single torso. Both sets of arms are brokenoff at the forearms, as if the original scan wasof an ancient statue that has been damagedover time. The final 3D model was sliced into125 individual routed slices of 1/2” mediumdensity fibreboard (MDF) that I fabricated ona large CNC (computer numerically con-trolled) router. I then assembled and paintedthe slices by hand. The belt and necklace, Ialso painted by hand and strung them overthe assembled body. The finished sculpturehas been displayed at several exhibitions, in-cluding the “Bits to Its” 3D printed sculptureshow and the RISD Museum.

In many ways, 3D printing is currently themost personally accessible of all types of dig-ital manufacturing. Prices have come downenough for many to afford to own their ownprinters, and desktop machine print qualityhas dramatically improved. Online printingservices are readily available for those whocannot afford printers or whose materialsneeds go beyond printed plastic.

The world of personal fabrication is rapidlyevolving—and you are now part of it!

xii Make: 3D Printing

Who This Book Is For

If you are interested in creating your own oneof a kind or small batch customized creationsusing 3D printing processes, this book is foryou.

If you’re absolutely new to 3D printing anddon’t know a thing about it, you’ll want toread this book cover to cover.

If you’ve already got a 3D printer, but areready to go beyond just printing designs youdownloaded from the Internet, you’d wantto start by creating your own printable ob-jects by learning 3D design with Tinkercadand creating 3D scans. Also check out thefinishing section for tips on how to refine theappearance of your 3D prints.

Are you more comfortable with softwarethan with hardware? If you are a designerwho wants to prototype in a range of mate-rials other than extruded plastic or a desktop3D printer is out of your budget, check outthe services and materials sections for a run-down of the range of companies that willprint your designs in a rapidly growing num-ber of exotic materials.

Contents of This Book

Part I is an overview of the 3D printing hard-ware; the printers themselves, the basics ofhow they work, and what to expect in yourexperiences with them.

In Part II, you’ll learn about the software tool-chain required to take 3D printed designs tofinal printed object and how to design yourown objects.

Part III takes 3D model creation a step furtherwith several tutorials on how to capturephysical objects around you with 3D

scanning. You’ll also learn how to clean thescanned models for 3D printing.

Part IV discusses a the ever-expanding rangeof plastic filament available for desktop 3Dprinting. You’ll also learn about industrialprinting materials (and methods) for ceram-ics to metals available from 3D printing serv-ices.

Part V deals with how and why to use 3Dprinting services instead of desktop manu-facturing and details about the different ser-vice provider options available.

Several methods for finishing your for 3Dprinted objects are covered in Part VI, includ-ing changing the color or your prints withfabric dye, repairing broken prints and tech-niques to “weather” your prints to look likebattered metal.

Part VII explores the plethora of possible per-sonally fabricated creations that are possiblethrough additive manufacturing; from hu-manoid robots to scanned artwork to fullycustomized prosthetics.

Part VIII describes other ways to create 3Dobjects, from milling to creating food-safemolds for chocolate casting.

Anna Kaziunas France is the Digital Fabrica-tion Editor of Maker Media. She’s also the Deanof Students for the Global Fab Academy pro-gram and the co-author of Getting Startedwith MakerBot. Formerly, she taught the “Howto Make Almost Anything” rapid prototypingcourse in digital fabrication at the ProvidenceFab Academy. Learn more about her at herwebsite and check out her things at her Thing-verse page.

xiiiPreface

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This book is here to help you get your jobdone. In general, if this book includes codeexamples, you may use the code in this bookin your programs and documentation. Youdo not need to contact us for permission un-less you’re reproducing a significant portionof the code. For example, writing a program

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PART I

Hardware

WRITTEN BY BILL BUMGARNER

An introduction to 3D printer hardware and software.

Early in 2012, I picked up an Ultimaker, put ittogether, and joined the growing ranks of 3Dprinting households. It has been an adven-ture both filled with reward and rife withfrustration. The goal of this article is to sharewhat I’ve learned while studying the DIY por-tion of the 3D printing realm. The focus is onbudgets less than $2,500, with a goal of pro-ducing parts out of various kinds of plastic.

Plastic parts are wonderful for prototyping.You can print that engine part in plastic,make sure it fits perfectly, and then send the3D model off to a company like Shapewaysto have your prototype turned into a pro-duction piece in the metal of your choice.

Most of the printers discussed here are hack-able. Their designs are amenable to beingmodified and tuned to fit your needs. Thesoftware used to drive these printers is al-most all open source, though there are com-mercial slicers and modelers commonlyused in the 3D printing community.

Choosing a Printer

The 3D printers discussed here are of theadditive manufacturing variety. They createparts by adding material together and arethe new hotness in the field of manufactur-ing. So hot, in fact, that the Obama adminis-

tration created the National Additive Manu-facturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) to fos-ter innovation in this field.

There are three approaches to additive man-ufacturing in common use: photopolymeri-zation (using light to cure a liquid materialinto solids of the desired shape), granularmaterials binding (using lasers, hot air, or oth-er energy sources to fuse layers of powderinto the desired shape), and the focus of thisarticle, molten polymer deposition or MPD(extruding molten material in layers to buildup the desired shape).

In short, MPD, aka fused deposition model-ing (FDM) or fused filament fabrication (FFF),describes pushing a filament of solid plastic(or other materials like metal or chocolate)into a hot-end that then extrudes a thinstream of molten material in layers to buildup the desired piece.

Of these technologies, MPD is the most com-mon and most accessible (though EMSL’sCandyFab definitely bears mention becauseany printer that smells like crème brûlée de-serves a shout-out).

Focusing on MPD, there are a handful of dif-ferent styles of printers. The differentiation islargely focused on exactly how the printer

3

Getting Started witha 3D Printer 1

Plastic Prototyping

Bathsheba Grossman’s beautiful (and incredibly pop-ular) Klein Bottle Opener is a perfect example of theprototype-in-plastic, print-in-metal process that al-lows for lots of cheap plastic drafts before commit-ting to the relatively expensive process of procuringa finished metal part.

On the left is a 3D print of Grossman’s bottle opener.On the right is the same model printed in stainlesssteel and brass from Shapeways. You could tune andprint the model all day long for very little money (lessthan $1 in plastic per print) and then commit to themetal version once fully satisfied with geometry, fit,functionality, etc.

1. A draft print of the Klein Bottle Opener stillattached to the print bed with the supportvisible at the bottom

2. Removing the support

3. The finished draft beside the final piece

moves the extruder to a particular point toextrude the plastic.

Buying Options: Turnkey,Kit, or DIY

With this information in hand, it’s time tochoose a printer! There are many turnkeysolutions that go well beyond our targetedprice range. And there are some that arequite affordable. The Up 3D printer (the sameas the “Afinia H-Series” on page 18) is anexample of a “ready-to-print” device that re-

quires relatively little maintenance. The Mak-erBot Replicator is similarly focused, but isboth more versatile and may require a bitmore maintenance.

A word of warning: when buying a turnkeyprinter, be wary of “razor vs. blades” businessmodels. 3D printers exist that are seeminglycheap, but which require proprietary fila-ment cartridges, where the consumable fil-ament costs two to three times the goingmarket rates.

4 Make: 3D Printing

Buying Options: Turnkey, Kit, or DIY

Moving to kits, both the Printrbot and Ulti-maker are examples of printers that arrive askits to be assembled by the end user. Bothfeature great instructions, and assembly isfocused on mechanical construction, sinceboth include all electronics pre-soldered andready to go.

If you’re interested in the full DIY experience,both the RepRap and the Rostock printersare entirely DIY. Both printers are composedof a combination of 3D-printed parts andvarious metal or wood bits, along with someelectronics. You can order preprinted partskits from a variety of sources (eBay included).Electronics and/or mechanical packs areavailable, too. Generally, the more cutting-edge the printer version, the more partsyou’ll need to source.

In “3D Printer Anatomy” on page 7, you’ll findan overview of 3D printer anatomy, breakingdown positioning systems, parts, and fila-ment.

Software

The workflow for turning an idea into a 3Dprint can be summed up as model (or cap-ture), fixup, slice, and print. At each step, thereare multiple software solutions to choosefrom.

Generating STL filesSTL files are the lingua franca of the 3D print-ing world. If an application can export a 3Dmodel as an STL file, then that STL file can besliced and printed. STL files can be generatedusing a CAD program. SketchUp is quitepopular, as are a number of open source 3Dmodelers.

Regardless of which modeler you choose,expect the learning curve to be steep. Thekey challenge is to translate what you want

to make into a set of primitive shapes andelements in the modeler, such that the resultis possible to print. For example, any over-hang shallower than about 45° cannot beprinted without support material (whichconsumes material that will be tossed, in-creases print time, and requires significantcleanup) because the plastic will sag (the ac-tual angle varies from printer to printer anddepends on how you configure the slicer).

Alternatively, models can be generated us-ing a parametric CAD program, of whichOpenSCAD is quite popular. Instead of draw-ing what you desire, you write code in a sim-ple language that tells the CAD system whatyou want.

Many of the mathematics-targeted pack-ages like Mathematica can also produce STLfiles.

Models can also be generated from photo-graphs or videos. Autodesk’s 123D Catch canprocess a series of photos and turn them intoa 3D model (see Chapter 6). With an iPhoneor iPad, you can take up to 40 pictures of amodel using 123D and then upload them toa server that processes the images into a 3Dmodel. Note that Autodesk also released123D Make, which slices 3D models intoplans for constructing the model out of card-board or paper.

Often the model for what you want has al-ready been created by someone who sharedit online. The most popular repository forpre-made models (and full-on projects) isThingiverse, where you can find thousandsof printable solutions for everyday prob-lems: phone cradles, earbud holders, silver-ware dividers, quadrocopters (yes, printablequadros), camera parts, game pieces, print-able 3D printers, etc. You name it, there are

5Chapter 1

Software

http://sketchup.com

http://www.openscad.org/

http://123dapp.com/catch

http://123dapp.com/make

http://thingiverse.com

Five 3D-Printed ReplacementParts for My Ultimaker

Five 3D-printed replacement parts for my Ul-timaker: a new drive gear, the white knob hold-ing the gear on, the Bowden tube clamp (thewhite piece at the top of the extruder assem-bly), the orange piece on the left that holds theextruder in place, and a filament spool holder(hidden).

likely at least a few good starting points onThingiverse.

SliceThe slicer is what turns an STL file into a seriesof commands—typically G-code—that tellthe printer where to move the print head andwhen to extrude plastic. While the printer’sdriver software is dictated by the printer, it’sactually a critical piece, as the printer soft-ware will often model the motion dictatedby the stream of commands and will vary theacceleration of the motors to eliminate printartifacts.

Slicing is a critical phase of the print. It’s acareful balance between quality, speed, andamount of material used. In many cases, thechoice of appropriate slicing parameters isthe difference between a successful printand a pile of spaghetti.

FixupDuring fixup, the STL to be printed is oftenchecked for errors (modelers sometimesdump 3D descriptions that look OK, but can’ttranslate directly to a 3D print because thestructure is invalid). The model may be rota-ted or scaled, or it may be duplicated to printmultiple copies simultaneously. Often, slic-ing and fixup are contained in the same pro-gram (sometimes with the printer driver,too). Cura and Slic3r combine slicing withlimited fixup, offering the ability to rotate,scale, and print multiple different STL files ina single print run. Netfabb, a commercialpackage, has extensive mesh debuggingand fixup capabilities, along with basic lay-out tools and a powerful slicer (see “Cleaningand Repairing Scans for 3D Printing” on page70).

Your First Print Job

Now that you have a background on allthings 3D printing and have bought or builtyour first 3D printer, how do you go aboutcreating useful things (or creating useless,but very cool, things)?

The first step is to know your tools. If appli-cable, download and print all of theupgrades and replacement parts for yourprinter. For the Ultimaker, I’ve printed a num-ber of parts, some of which can be seen inthe image shown in the sidebar “Five 3D-Printed Replacement Parts for My Ultimaker.”

Then download and print some useful thingsfrom Thingiverse. Start with small items—but not too small—like an earbud holder, abottle opener, or a simple character. Choosesomething where lots of folks have uploaded

6 Make: 3D Printing

Your First Print Job

http://wiki.ultimaker.com/cura

http://slic3r.org

http://netfabb.com

photos of their own versions (under the“Who’s Made It?” section). By starting with aknown, working model with lots of exam-ples, you can compare your product toothers and will have a much better basis forfixing any problems and tuning your work-flow (likely the slicer, in particular) to maxi-mize print quality from your printer.

Each type of 3D printer has a particularsound of a successful print. Learning it canhelp you identify problems before they be-come serious. I can be in a different room andstill tell when a print on my Ultimaker isabout to fail just because it starts to soundout of whack.

Have a look at how various models are con-structed. The key challenge in creating a 3Dmodel is how the desired real-world objectcan be broken down into a series of com-mands—“draw a line and a curve,” “extrudethis surface,” “fillet that corner,” “cut a holehere”—that you can use to create the object.If you can find some models on Thingiversethat are in a file format you can edit, try yourhand at editing them to see if you can add afeature you desire.

Once you’re ready to start from scratch, thefirst tool you’ll need is a set of calipers. Digitalslide calipers with 0.01 mm accuracy can behad for less than $20. Try creating hangers orhooks that require a precise measurement tofit snugly on an already existing object (likeover a door), giving both a feel for using thecalipers and helping you dial in how yourprinter maintains dimensions throughoutthe printing process.

One unique challenge is learning to think ina 3D-printer compatible way. As mentioned,objects with structures that tilt at more than45° can’t be printed without support mate-rial because the object will sag. Note that

bridges—linear spans of plastic over a gap—work surprisingly well, but print them sothe first layer of the bridge is on the inside ofan object and won’t be seen.

While you can turn on “support material” inmost slicers, doing so often causes a lot ofextra material to be used, which is bothwasteful and requires a ton of post-printcleanup. Note that with a dual extruderprinter you can print PLA or ABS on one ex-truder while printing with water-soluble PVAon the other extruder, making cleanup a sim-ple matter of soaking the piece in a bucketovernight.

There is also a balance between creatingwalls that are too thinly and too thick. Thinwalls can lend elegance to an object, butprint too thin and that single or double layerof linear plastic filament will fail quickly. Nat-urally, this all becomes more intuitive withpractice and experience.

3D Printer Anatomy

There are a lot of parts, moving and other-wise, that you’ll find inside a 3D printer.

3D Positioning SystemWithin the build volume, the printer must beable to position the hot-end at any point tobe able to precisely extrude material withinthe layer being printed. However, motiondoesn’t have to be limited to the hot-end.

3D printers may move the hot-end or theprint bed in a number of different ways. Hereare three primary designs in use today:

GantryThis style of printer moves the extruderin the x- and y-axes, while the bed movesonly in the z-axis. Both the Ultimaker(Figure 1-1) and the MakerBot Replicator(Figure 1-2) use a gantry to move the

7Chapter 1

3D Printer Anatomy

extruder. However, the similarity endsthere. The Replicator integrates the ex-truder with the hot-end. The Ultimakeruses a Bowden cable to separate thetwo. The Replicator has a simpler design,whereas the Ultimaker greatly decreasesthe weight of the print head, allowing forgreater print speeds (at the cost of ad-ditional maintenance issues).

Figure 1-1. The Ultimaker

Figure 1-2. The Replicator

Moving bedInstead of moving the print head in xyspace, one of the axes is changed bymoving the print bed itself. Usually, amoving-bed printer will move the printhead in the z-axis. This is a mechanicallysimpler design in that the x- and y-axesare managed independently using en-tirely linear motion. It has the disadvan-tage of requiring the printer to move asignificantly heavier print bed, whichcould knock loose the printed part. It’sslower, but simpler. Printrbot’s models(Figure 1-3) are examples of moving-bedprinters that trade print speed for lowcost and ease of maintenance.

8 Make: 3D Printing

3D Printer Anatomy

Figure 1-3. A Printrbot

DeltabotIndustrial pick-and-place robots typical-ly use this design. A deltabot has threecontrol rods connected to the toolhead,and these rods can be moved to controlthe position of the head. Recently, Jo-hann Rocholl adapted this technologyto 3D printing and created the Rostock(Figure 1-4). Hard to explain, it looks likean alien probe is printing your favoritemodel.

The Rostock printers (so far) use a Bow-den setup to separate the hot-end fromthe extruder, allowing for very quick andprecise head positioning with relativemechanical simplicity. The downside isincreased complexity in the driver; thehot-end positioning is not a linear set ofsteps because of the non-linearity of themotion between the vertical axis andthe planar positioning of the hot-end.

Figure 1-4. The Rostock

3D Printer PartsPrint bed

This is the bed upon which the printedpart rests during production. Bed tem-peratures can be ambient or heated. Anon-heated bed is often covered inpainter’s tape, as seen in the Ultimaker(Figure 1-1), to which the printed mate-rial adheres. Heated beds, as seen in thePrintrbot (Figure 1-3), keep the partwarm during the print and preventwarping. Depending on the material, aheated bed will maintain a temperaturefrom 40°C to 110°C throughout the print.

9Chapter 1

3D Printer Anatomy

Let it be noted that the insides of a 3Dprinter are not a finger-friendly zone(and I have the blisters to prove it)!

ExtruderThe extruder is not actually the part thatsquirts out plastic. The extruder is thepart that feeds the plastic filament intothe hot-end. Extruders may be integra-ted into the hot-end or they may be re-mote, typically pushing the filamentthrough a stiff PTFE (Teflon) tube (this isthe Bowden cable) into the hot-end(Figure 1-5).

With a dual extruder (Figure 1-6), youcan print two different materials or col-ors simultaneously. This versatilitycomes at a cost of complexity (andprice), as it requires an extra extruder,hot-end, and all the bits in between.Some printers, like the Ultimaker, can beupgraded from single to multiple ex-truders. Others cannot.

Figure 1-5. A Bowden extruder

Figure 1-6. A Replicator sporting a dual extruder

Hot-endThe hot-end is comprised of a heater, atemperature sensor, and an extrusionend through which the plastic filamentis pushed to deposit molten material(Figure 1-7). Hot-ends are often assem-bled within an aluminum block or areconfigured in a barrel-type shape.

Note that the interface between the hot-end and the extruder—be it directlyintegrated or with a Bowden cable be-tween the two—can be exceptionallyproblematic on some printers or on aprinter that is not adjusted properly.

Figure 1-7. The Printrbot hot-end / extruder

The hole in the nozzle may range in size,typically between 0.2 mm and 0.8 mm.

10 Make: 3D Printing

3D Printer Anatomy

The smaller the nozzle, the more de-tailed the print, but the longer it takes.

Plastic filamentThe filament is the consumable of theprinter. Like an inkjet squirts ink, a 3Dprinter squirts melted filament.

Choosing a FilamentThere are a handful of plastics that are com-patible with MPD-based printers. Each has itspros and cons. I choose to print exclusivelywith PLA because of its low toxicity and gen-eral environmental friendliness.

All printers are not compatible with all ma-terials. Some materials may really stress aprinter, as the temperature range for extru-sion may vary from 160°C to 305°C, depend-ing on the material. A printer designed forPLA/ABS at a max of 250°C may fail entirelyat 300°C.

With that in mind, the three most commonmaterials are PLA, ABS, and PVA. (Read moreabout materials choices in Chapters 8 and 9.)

ABSABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene),the cheapest of the three, is typically ex-truded at between 215–250°C, and doesbest with a heated bed to prevent warp-ing. ABS creates mild, generally tolerablefumes that may be dangerous to sensi-tive people or certain pets (personally:fume hood, please!). ABS can be quiteversatile. It can be sanded, and by mixingABS with acetone, it can be easily gluedtogether or smoothed to a glass-like fin-ish.

PLAPLA (polylactic acid or polylactide) is abiodegradable plastic typically madefrom corn or potatoes. PLA filament isextruded at a lower temperature of 160–

220°C and does not require a heated bed(painter’s tape is just fine). When heated,PLA smells a bit like sweet, toasted corn.PLA tends to be stiffer than ABS. WhilePLA does not require a heated bed, it canwarp a bit during cooling, somethingthat a heated bed can greatly improve.Note that there is a “flexible PLA” variantthat, while trickier to use, will result inobjects that are squishy.

PVAPVA (polyvinyl alcohol) is a specialtyplastic used on multiple-extruder print-ers to print support material. PVA is typ-ically extruded at 190°C, is water soluble,and can be used to print support mate-rial in complex 3D prints with lots ofoverhangs. PVA absorbs water like asponge, which causes problems in high-humidity environments.

Alternative MaterialsWhile MPD printers are generally tunedto filament printing, it’s not hard toadapt them to support other materials.A common mod is to add a syringe-styleextruder that handles materials such aschocolate, frosting, and various kinds ofclays.

Next Steps: What to Make

Once you start to get the hang of 3D printing,a world of possibilities opens up. I’ve givenmany of these things away as gifts. The ma-terial costs are very cheap and the look ofsurprise when you say, “Yeah, I printed that.You want it? Different color? Nah, no prob-lem, I can print as many as you want easily,”is priceless! With my Ultimaker, I have printedthe following handy bits, and many, manymore (see Figures 1-8 through 1-15).

11Chapter 1


Figure 1-8. Replacement screw cap for a large bottleof Jack Daniels (http://thingiverse.com/thing:18194)

Figure 1-9. Ultimaker tool holder (http://thingiverse.com/thing:18098)

Figure 1-10. Raspberry Pi case (http://thingiverse.com/thing:25363)

Figure 1-11. Nautilus-shaped earrings (http://thingiverse.com/thing:13450)



http://thingiverse.com/thing:18194







Figure 1-12. Aeroponic grow pods for a winter herb/salad garden (http://thingiverse.com/thing:32613)

Figure 1-13. Fan shroud with spacer(http://thingiverse.com/thing:16530)

Figure 1-14. Case for a Teensy-based IR Blaster(http://thingiverse.com/thing:19315)

Figure 1-15. Drawer divider for my son’s screw sort-ing efforts (http://thingiverse.com/thing:32614)

Bill Bumgarner plays with high voltage, cookswith fire and water, incubates microbes, hackscode, corrals bugs with his son, and tries tomake stuff do things that were never intended.

13Chapter 1







http://friday.com/bbum

Figure 2-1. During the testing, the MAKE offices became a vortex of 3D printers and the geeks who love them

Hands-on experiences with 11 3D printers.

In September 2012, MAKE invited Matt Grif-fin to put together a team of reviewers fromthe 3D printing community to advise MAKE’sreaders about the 3D printing state of the art.

The team investigated 15 of the most prom-ising fused-filament fabrication (FFF) print-ers on the market—devices that melt andextrude plastic filament to form solid ob-jects, layer by layer—the most popularmethod of 3D printing. We reached back to2010 and into the future, previewing still-under-wraps machines weeks before theirlaunch at World Maker Faire New York.

A lot has changed since those tests: there arenew printers on the market, some printersare no longer for sale, and many have im-proved. This chapter distills the original re-views into stories of hands-on experienceswith the 11 3D printers that, at the time ofthis publication, are still for sale. If you wantthe most up-to-date reviews, check out thelatest edition of our Make: Ultimate Guide to3D Printing; if you want to learn what it’s liketo explore a printer from the moment itcomes out of the box, read on!

15

3D Printer Guide2

http://makezine.com/volume/make-ultimate-guide-to-3d-printing/


The Challenge Prints

Here are the objects we used in our testing.

Snake

by Zomboe

This reinterpretation of a classic wooden toyfeatures flexible ribs that are a great test forboth horizontal accuracy on the plate (arethe ribs evenly spaced and complete out totheir tips?) and vertical registration (doeseach layer match perfectly with the one be-neath?).

Owl Statue

by Tom Cushwa

Designer Cushwa borrowed stone-cuttingtechniques to render feathers and characterfeatures for this popular owl figurine and

modeled them to look great on a well-tunedprinter. Printers that choke on these detailsmay not be suitable for character and sculp-tural work.

Nautilus Gears

by Misha T.

This model gives character to the classicsnap-together gears that are a popular testobject for 3D printers. It’s quick to print, andyou can tell instantly how well the machinereproduced the parts from how accuratelythe teeth mesh and the snaps snap, andwhether the gears can rotate through morethan one revolution without binding.






Dimension Torture Test

by Cliff L. Biffle

To create a real “torture test”—a model guar-anteed to challenge all FFF printers—engi-neer Cliff L. Biffle built a Frankenstein’smonster containing all the geometry weneeded to see in one small package. Thin andfat features, slopes and overhangs, bolt holeswith precise dimensions, arcs, and separatetowers all conspire to push a machine to itslimits.

17Chapter 2


http://makezine.com/3dprinting

Afinia H-Series

• http://afinia.com

• Written by Keith Ozar

• Tested by Keith Ozar and Eric Weinhoffer

The compact H-Series is a version of PP3DP’sUP! Plus 3D printer, rebranded for the USmarket. It’s got a single extruder and runs viaUSB off Mac or Windows machines, with noonboard controls except an initialize buttonand a flashing status indicator. But despitethe no-frills hardware, it’s a surprising littleperformer that’s ideal for beginners.

The printer sits about 10"×10"×14” high onthe desktop, weighs just 11lbs, and is sturdyfor transport. It ships fully assembled andtakes only a few minutes to set up. Loadingthe filament, leveling the platform, and cali-brating the machine were easy, thanks to itsstraightforward documentation.

The Afinia 3D proprietary software packageslices, generates support, duplicates, andcan place multiple models for printing—all

automatically. Once your design is to yourliking, it’s as easy as pressing Print.

Print quality was quite good—we were sur-prised by how great the first print looked (thesnake). And subsequent prints like the owlconfirmed it: sharp corners, clean overhangs,and true vertical and horizontal surfaces. Di-mensional accuracy was off by about 1% onour torture-test object, with holes slightlyundersized, though this might be due toshrinkage of ABS plastic. The Afinia was reli-able, too; we didn’t have to babysit it.

Unfortunately, there is no SD card or USBflash drive on the Afinia. You can print fromyour computer via USB and disconnect oncethe job has started printing, though.

The status light indicators can be confusingif you don’t have the manual in front of you,and are a constant reminder of the lack of anonboard control panel. The machine alsomakes a loud beeping sound as it beginsprinting, which reminded us of a truck back-ing up, though it prints quietly.

Though it printed slower than many of theprinters we tested, the H-Series stood out asone of our favorites. Straight out of the box,using the default 0.2 mm resolution settings,we printed some of the best-looking chal-lenge prints.


Afinia H-Series

http://afinia.com

Bukobot 8

• http://deezmaker.com

• Written by Matt Griffin

• Tested by Matt Griffin and John Abella

We tested the Bukobot 8 Vanilla version, witha single extruder; the Duo version offers twoextruders. Setup took only about a half hour,and the documentation included with theprinter provided most of the informationnecessary to tune the machine, though wedid have to seek help to figure out the baudrate.

A great touch: printed cable tensioner disksmake it easy to perform small dialing-in ad-justments. The version we tested had no SDcard reader, but the current version includesit for untethered printing. The Budaschnoz-zle hot-end has an idler latch for easy fila-ment swapping mid-print.

While we felt confident the gantry wassquare to the plate, we had adhesion trou-bles with both ABS and PLA until we coveredthe platform with blue painter’s tape—acommon solution out in the field for printersthat extrude PLA. This improved adhesionsignificantly, and we were able to print a fine-looking snake using Printbl’s new DiamondAge PLA, which Deezmaker included withthe unit.

After shifting to the printed fan shroud at-tachment, which allows for active cooling ofthe top printed layer, we had our best suc-cesses printing PLA. The torture-test resultswere promising: adhesion issues knocked offthe base of the unsupported arch, but thevertical and horizontal surfaces were all true.

Printing results generally were better thanaverage, and the owl statue in particular,while not the best in our test, promises thatthis unit, when really dialed in by an operator,will compete aggressively for quality at itsprice point.

19Chapter 2

Bukobot 8

http://deezmaker.com

Cube

• http://cubify.com/cube

• Written by John Abella

• Tested by John Abella and Matt Griffin

The first thing you notice about the Cube isits style. No plywood, loose wires, or zip ties:it’s more a consumer appliance than a hackerplaything. This level of design quality carriesinto the included documentation, which wasamong the most thorough.

The Cube brings a mix of unique features aswell, including the ability to print via WiFi orUSB, a well laid-out touchscreen control pan-el, and a completely new item that no othermanufacturer had: “Magic Cube Glue.”

The Cube can use your WiFi network, but wehad better luck printing via its ad hoc net-work. You’ll have to disconnect briefly fromany other WiFi network to use it, though.

Like most ABS printers, the Cube uses a heat-ed build platform to help prints stick and toprevent warping. Also, the included “magic

glue” worked great to keep prints stuck tothe build surface. This mystery substancewashes away with water to cleanly releaseprints from the removable platform.

The device is driven by a touchscreen inter-face that allows the user to configure nozzleheight, WiFi settings, and other details, aswell as showing the status of current printprogress and other system indicators.

Out of the box, the Cube was a bit slow. Bydefault it enables rafts and support struc-tures, both of which add to printing time andpost-processing time, but which helped inthe most demanding print tests. Both op-tions can be turned off, but doing so willgenerally degrade the print quality. Whilemany 3D printing software packages allowfor endless tweaking, the Cubify package hasbasic switches for toggling support and rafts,but not much control over other settings.

The Cubify software works with standard STLfiles but also supports proprietary .creationfiles. 3D Systems has a website where youcan buy creations. Each new printer comeswith 25 free files, and some additional de-signs are free. The Cube works with filamentcartridges available only from 3D Systems.At $50 for about 1 pound of usable ABS, theyare pricier than other suppliers.


Cube

http://cubify.com/cube

Felix 1.0

• http://felixprinters.com

• Written by Eric Chu

• Tested by Eric Chu and Brian Melani

The Felix is based on RAMPS 1.4 electronics,has a rigid frame made of aluminum extru-sion, and has a generous build volume. Ittook us longer than the estimated 5–10hours to finish this build, and we’ve built kitprinters before.

The Felix version of Repetier bundles Skein-forge and Slic3r under the Repetier frontend,so you can choose one or the other whenslicing your STL file. Felix came with a handfulof slicing profiles, as well.

Leveling the bed and setting the Z heightwere a bit of a challenge. You use a wrenchto loosen a nut under each of the three lev-eling screws until the aluminum bed isleveled.

The Z limit switch is an optical endstop that’striggered when an opaque object blocks its

IR beam. An LED on it should turn off whenthe endstop is triggered, but ours only gotvery dim, making it hard to know exactlywhere the Z home position was triggered.However, the X and Y belts are extremelyeasy to tension: just turn one screw on eachaxis to tighten them.

The Felix’s extruder uses a spring-loaded ten-sioning mechanism that presses a ball bear-ing against the filament and extruder gear.We finally got the proper tension when weset it so that the ball bearing rests against theextruder gear before putting in the filament.

The Felix is a pretty speedy machine. Its printquality is great when the belts and Z leadscrew are properly tensioned and aligned.Aligning the Z lead screw is the hardest partof getting a great print; if it’s off, there will beridges between the layers, an effect knownas Z wobble.

The Felix was designed to print in PLA. Whileit has a heated bed, its open-case designdoesn’t allow the bed to get hot enough forprinting ABS. The bed also needs to be slight-ly leveled every couple of prints, and it canwarp due to the flexing of the aluminum.

Felix’s best feature is that it’s extremely quiet.DryLin polymer bushings glide along the lin-ear rails so stealthily that even at highspeeds, it’s quiet.

21Chapter 2

Felix 1.0

http://felixprinters.com

MakerGear M2

• http://makergear.com

• Written by Paul Leonard

• Tested by Paul Leonard

This printer’s frame is stainless steel, and therest of the structural elements are stainlessand anodized aluminum. The print volumeis 8"×10"×8”—one of the biggest in its pricerange. The rest of the printer is built withpremium parts, and its motion is smooth.

MakerGear’s geared stepper motor extrudercomes with their groove-mount hot-end.The heated build platform is a sandwich ofcork insulation, polyamide heating element,and laser-engraved aluminum, topped offwith a sheet of borosilicate glass.

UltiMachine’s RAMBo board, a refinement ofthe popular RAMPS, controls the printer. Itsupports dual extruders, so you could up-grade to dual-extruders without upgradingthe electronics.

The kit is very well organized and includesevery tool you need except an adjustablewrench. Kit documentation is very nice—animated videos, subassembly drawings, ex-plicit instructions for critical steps—but alsohas confusing gaps. That said, MakerGeartech support answered questions quickly onIRC.

Setup is simple: you can unpack, adjust thestops, load the software, and start printingthe included samples in less than an hour.Find a sturdy table—the M2’s metal con-struction makes it reassuringly heavy, and itshakes a bit when it runs at high speeds.

The M2 ships with an SD card reader and acard loaded with sample G-code files to ver-ify that your printer is working. They also in-clude a 1 kg spool of PLA. Although it shipswell calibrated, there’s a learning curve. Be-fore you print, visit MakerGear’s GoogleGroups to learn about the settings and op-tions available, especially for different mate-rials and build surfaces.

After I positioned the Z endstop and leveledthe bed, the M2 printed great. I experimen-ted with different layer heights, speeds, andtemperatures, and I’ve yet to experience theM2’s full capabilities. Not only can I adjust thesoftware settings to get even better output,but because the machine accommodatesimprovements in extrusion technology, I’llbe able to keep on upgrading!


MakerGear M2

http://makergear.com

Printrbot Jr. (v1)

• http://printrbot.com

• Written by Lyra Levin and Matt Griffin

• Tested by Lyra Levin, Cliff L. Biffle, Em-manuel Mota, and Blake Maloof

One of the tiniest and least expensive 3Dprinters, the Jr. is a baby-scale version of theoriginal Printrbot. (Some of the other print-ers could probably print a full-scale model ofthe Printrbot Jr. in one go.)

When fully open, the diminutive machine fitseasily on a corner of your desk, and most ofits footprint is the 4"×4"×4” printing volume.When folded for travel, a good third of thevolume is packed in, with most of the fiddlybits protected by the bed. It easily slips intoa backpack.

The unit comes with a standard PC ATX pow-er supply, but there’s another option forpower: a rechargeable lithium polymer(LiPo) battery as an optional add-on to sup-ply power when printing in the field. We ransome of our final test prints using a LiPoquadcopter battery (soldering required),and were amazed to realize we could just aseasily be printing them on top of a mountainsomewhere.

Simplicity is a design feature for this printer,and while it ships assembled, videos ofDrumm quickly disassembling and reassem-bling the unit demonstrate how carefully themachine has been reduced to the fewestmoving parts possible.

In his quest for simplicity, however, Drummsacrificed some bells and whistles: the Jr.prints only PLA, doesn’t have a heated plat-form or a fan, and has a simplified gantrysystem.

The first prints we rolled off the Jr. were offi-cially “not bad.” Following these, we tooktime to carefully level the platform by eye,running the nozzle horizontally across theplate to make sure the path was parallel.

The torture test printed decently on a thirdattempt, but the slicing profile was perhapstoo conservative in terms of layer height, sothe results were coarse; and the printer ex-truded more plastic than necessary,resulting in constrained bolt holes and runnyvertical features. The printed nautilus gearsworked immediately upon assembly, show-ing off the Jr.’s ability to print thin, stablewalls.

23Chapter 2

Printrbot Jr. (v1)

http://printrbot.com

Replicator 2

• http://makerbot.com

• Tested by Emmanuel Mota and EricWeinhoffer

• Written by Emmanuel Mota

Faster, quieter, and with a paper-thin 100-micron minimum layer height, the Replica-tor 2 is worthy of its 2.0 badge. It sports a newsteel frame, oil-impregnated bronze linearbearings, and a 37% larger build volume, andit’s optimized for PLA.

The Replicator 2 has a sleek modern lookwith an all-black powder-coated steel frameand has kept the same overall footprint andbasic design while enlarging the build vol-ume. A larger, more responsive LCD panelwith a keypad on the front-right corner al-lows for easy control and monitoring of themachine.

A highlight is the new Cold Pause featurethat pauses the print, cools the extruder, andwaits for you to resume where you left off,which can come in handy.

Another fun, though perhaps less useful,function of the keypad is the ability to select

the color of the interior LED lighting to suityour mood. The build area of the Replicator2 is now inhabited by a quick-release, frostedacrylic bed specifically made for use with PLA(polylactic acid) plastic.

Without the need to wait for a heated bed,the Replicator 2’s warmup time to start aprint is much shorter than MakerBot’s previ-ous ABS-printing models.

Bed leveling is easier, thanks to the newthree-point bed leveling system. Instead ofone adjustment screw in each of the fourcorners, three screws are arranged in a trian-gular shape, widening the center point; atwist of two screws can quickly level the bed.

The upgraded features on the machine arecomplemented by brand-new software.MakerBot’s new MakerWare replaces Repli-catorG, with a cleaner and more intuitiveuser interface that lets you scale, rotate, andarrange multiple models on the build plat-form. Slicing is now performed by theMiracle-Grue engine within MakerWare,which is significantly faster than Skeinforge.

The Replicator 2’s initial setup, out-of-box tofirst print, was simple and quick—it took usless than 15 minutes, including attaching theextruder and loading the filament.


Replicator 2

http://makerbot.com

Solidoodle 2

• http://solidoodle.com

• Written by Ethan Hartman

• Tested by Ethan Hartman and Eric Chu

Solidoodle is the company started by SamCervantes, an early MakerBot alumnus. Sol-idoodle has adopted what’s become a pop-ular standard: Sanguinololu electronics andRepetier Host.

To keep the price low, it cut some corners,and for the most part, they were the rightones. The frame is a basic welded box. Rodsare secured by hose clamps. A number ofbrackets and parts are 3D printed and ugly,though this is standard practice for RepRaps.(We’d like to see designs for these madeavailable, just in case.) The Solidoodle isn’tthe prettiest, but none of this should haveany functional impact: score one forfrugality.

While it’s doubtful that unboxing will gener-ate the sort of loving pictorials given to newApple products, the basics are there: assem-bled printer, USB cable, printed startupguide, one replacement Kapton sheet for thebuild surface, and a tiny supply of 1.75 mm

ABS filament. (The Solidoodle will also takePLA, but ABS is recommended.)

There are a few pain points, however. Youcan’t load or change filament with the metalenclosure in place, so grab your screwdriver,and be careful—tilt too much as you’re re-moving the top, and you’ll tweak the USBconnector on the electronics sitting exposedon the back of the machine.

So how does it print? Not too bad, though abit more tuning could go a long way. Thesingle profile included with the Solidoodleresulted in prints that were below averagefor the printers we tested. Extruder temper-ature seemed very high, despite nominallybeing set to a low 190°C. The output was wa-vy, and overhangs dropped a bit: the owlfeathers were among the worst of the bunch.

Dialing down the temperature improvedthings, but we could have spent a lot moretime tweaking. On the upside, the machinewas fast and reliable; once we figured outthat the build plate temperature has to beset manually, we had no trouble. The buildplate was well leveled from the factory.

Visit the websites associated with the printer,and you’ll see that the community is hard atwork improving the default profiles. For ex-ample, http://solidoodletips.wordpress.comabounds with tweaks.

25Chapter 2

Solidoodle 2

http://solidoodle.com

http://reprap.org/wiki/Sanguinololu

http://solidoodletips.wordpress.com

Type A Series

• http://typeamachines.com

• Written by Eric Weinhoffer

• Tested by Eric Weinhoffer and Keith Ozar

Type A Machines’ Series 1 is one of the largest3D printers we reviewed. Based in San Fran-cisco, Type A’s tiny crew of Andrew Rutterand a handful of hackers out of Noisebridgeand TechShop began constructing Series 1prototypes in August 2011. By the time Mak-er Faire Bay Area 2012 rolled around, theteam had several iterations of their machineon view.

The Series 1 is an open hardware product,meaning you can download the pertinentcase and equipment files, build your own,and make modifications at will. Like Maker-Bot’s Replicator 2, the Type A Series 1 is op-timized to print in PLA plastic.

The machine’s 9"-cubed build volume is sobig (1.2 liters) that one of the “bonus” printswe did during our review weekend was a full-scale, wearable hat. The jumbo volume is al-so perfect for printing multiple parts or evenwhole assemblies at once. The build plat-form is made of laser-cut acrylic, and it’s held

in place on the Z stage between the head ofa bolt and a spring at each corner. To level it,you simply adjust these four bolts; to removeit, just pull it toward you to move larger slotsover the four bolts, and lift it free.

Changing filament is a breeze: pull the leverback and slide the filament out. It’s com-pletely exposed, which leads us to believeit’ll be easy to troubleshoot.

Another benefit of the Series 1’s construc-tion: speed. The Type A crew claims theirframe design can clock in at printing speedsof 90 mm/sec and travel speeds of 250 mm/sec. It’s also quite accurate—it will printbeautifully at a layer thickness of 0.1 mm andwill happily go all the way down to 0.05 mm(50 microns), where the stepping of layers isdifficult to detect.

The Series 1 performed extremely well in ourtest prints. The large bed let us print all theparts of the nautilus gears in one go, the owlcame out beautifully, and achieving a per-fect snake print was no challenge. However,like many of the other machines, the Series1 wasn’t able to handle the extremely smallarch in our “torture test.”

The Series 1 has a few downsides. Our demounit was loud, especially when moving athigh speeds—a problem that might be mini-mized with grease and the tightening ofbolts.


Type A Series

http://typeamachines.com

Ultimaker

• http://ultimaker.com

• Written and Tested by John Abella, EricChu, and Matt Griffin

Ultimaker was founded in the Netherlandsby one of the most active RepRap advocatesand developers, Erik de Bruijn, joined by SiertWijnia and Martijn Elserman. The first Ulti-maker kits shipped in early 2011, and thecompany has grown to more than 20 people.

The Ultimaker was the only printer we re-viewed to feature a Bowden-style extruder,where the filament drive mechanism is phys-ically separated from the extrusion nozzle.As a result, none of the motors add to thetoolhead’s weight. A low-mass toolhead andstationary motors results in a lightweightgantry system, ideal for fast prints.

Updated parts, including new drive boltsand the new V2 hot-end, show a constantdrive to improve the product and extend itslife. The electronics have been redesigned

and updated numerous times. Our reviewunit also included the UltiController, an add-on that lets you adjust print speed and tem-perature on the fly, print from an SD card,monitor builds, and do other maintenancetasks untethered to a computer.

While the Ultimaker can print in ABS or PLA,it’s engineered primarily for PLA, so thereisn’t a heated build platform—a near-requirement for large ABS prints.

The Ultimaker remains a great kit for buyerslooking to get under the hood. The newestkits ship with the latest parts, and makers canupgrade as new parts become available.

Setup was moderately easy. The print bed’sleveling process is less fussy than that ofsome other printers, and it tends to stay levelwithout much intervention. Belts for the x-and y-axes are tensioned with just a hex driv-er and tend to stay calibrated, but there’s noeasy way to finely adjust the z-axis limitswitch.

We achieved excellent quality prints aftergetting the Ultimaker dialed in—once cali-brated, it’s the most accurate of the DIY print-ers. The snake and owl came out great, butthe torture test had lots of stringing, mainlydue to retraction being disabled by default.

27Chapter 2

Ultimaker

http://ultimaker.com

John Abella is an obsessive hobbyist and 3Dprinter enthusiast who has run 3D Printer Vil-lage at World Maker Faire New York since 2010.He’s currently teaching 3D printer assemblyworkshops with BotBuilder.net.

Cliff L. Biffle is an engineer at Google and amember of Ace Monster Toys, a hackerspace inOakland, California. He enjoys using science asa verb.

Eric Chu is a MAKE Labs Alumnus, an engineer-ing student, yo-yo hacker, robot builder, andfried rice aficionado.

Matt Griffin is the Director of Community &Support at Adafruit Industries, a former Mak-erBot community manager, and author of theforthcoming MAKE book Design and Model-ing for 3D Printing.

Ethan Hartman is a customer service and doc-umentation specialist for technology compa-nies. He worked for MakerBot from 2009 untilAugust 2012.

Lyra Levin is a climber, aerialist, contortionist,parkour noob, and Ninja 500 rider. She is acompulsive builder of things and member ofindustrial arts collective Ardent Heavy Indus-tries.

Blake Maloof is a game designer at Toys for Bob(Skylanders).

Brian Melani builds 120-pound robots in hisfree time. He is a MAKE engineering intern.

Emmanuel Mota is the Director of Maker Campat Maker Media, filmmaker, photographer, andfull-time geek. He got into 3D printing in 2012when he built a RepRap from scratch.

Keith Ozar is a creative marketing professionalfrom Brooklyn, NY. He empowers makersthrough special projects that highlight the po-tential of 3D printing.

Eric Weinhoffer is MAKE’S product develop-ment engineer for the Maker Shed. He’s beenan owner-operator of 3D printers since intern-ing at MakerBot in 2009.


Ultimaker



PART II

Software

WRITTEN BY MATT METS AND MATT GRIFFIN

An overview of the necessary design, slicing, andclient software.

You’ve got a shiny new 3D printer and a bril-liant idea for your first original design—nowwhat?

Creating and printing your own unique 3Dmodels requires three kinds of software.First, there’s the 3D modeling program usedto design the shape of your creation. Tradi-tionally, the use of software to prototypephysical objects has been referred to ascomputer-aided design (CAD). Second, there’sthe computer-aided manufacturing (CAM)program (commonly referred to as a slicer)that converts your model into specific, me-chanical instructions for the printer robot.Third, there’s the printer control software, orclient, that sends those instructions to theprinter at the right time, and provides a real-time interface to the printer’s functions andsettings.

3D Modeling/CADSoftware

Probably the most important softwarechoice you’ll make is what kind of modelingprogram to use. There are many to choosefrom, but they fall into four basic types: sol-id, sculpting, parametric, and polygonal. Each

type will help you turn your idea into reality,but one may be handier for, say, designing amechanical part, and another for sculptingan action figure.

Solid modeling programs mainly use a meth-od called constructive solid geometry (CSG),or similar techniques, to define complex 3Dshapes. Popular free solid modeling pro-grams include SketchUp, Autodesk 123D,and Tinkercad (which runs entirely in yourweb browser and is shown in Figure 3-1; reada tutorial in Chapter 4). In a solid modelingprogram, simple “primitive” shapes like box-es, cylinders, and pyramids are manipulatedto make more complex shapes, often usingBoolean operations. For instance, a hollowbox can be modeled by drawing two over-lapping cubes, one slightly smaller than theother, and “subtracting” the smaller from thelarger.

31

Software for 3DPrinting 3

Figure 3-1. Basic Boolean operations illustrated inTinkercad. From back to front: union, two possibledifferences, and intersection of concentric cube andsphere.

Solid modeling programs have three big ad-vantages. First, the solid modeling designprocess tends to be more intuitive than othermethods, and is often the easiest way for be-ginners to get started. Second, the interfaceusually makes it easy to set precise measure-ments between objects, which is handy forcreating mechanical parts. Third, the soft-ware handles most issues of manifold integ-rity (“water-tightness”) for the user automat-ically, despite the very large number ofoperations that may go into shaping a com-plex form.

Sculpting modeling programs, such asZBrush, Sculptris, and Mudbox, use a morefreeform interface to slice, tug, twist, andpress the surface of a “blob” into the desiredshape. This makes them great for formingorganic surfaces such as faces or figures, butless suitable for precise parts or flat surfaces.A great tool to start with is Sculptris(Figure 3-2), little brother of the more expen-sive ZBrush. (Many polygonal modeler ap-plications such as Blender, Modo, and Mayaare beginning to offer built-in sculpting toolsas well.)

Figure 3-2. Pixologic’s Sculptris allows you to sculpt3D models like blobs of clay. Tooltips have names likecrease, inflate, smooth, pinch, and flatten.

Parametric modeling programs, such asOpenSCAD, are fairly unique; instead ofdrawing shapes using a mouse, objects aremodeled by writing simple programs thatdescribe how to combine different shapestogether. Because each dimension can bespecified precisely, this kind of tool is greatfor quickly creating things, such as technicalparts like enclosures, gears, and other me-chanical objects.

On the other hand, parametric modelers arealso useful for producing generative art-work. Tools such as Marius Watz’s Model-Builder and the Grasshopper editor for Rhinoare geared toward generating unexpected,abstract forms by processing other objectsor data, or by pure math. Designers like Nerv-ous System use them to create complexorganic shapes (Figure 3-3) that would bepractically impossible to model by hand(Figure 3-3).


3D Modeling/CAD Software

Figure 3-3. Nervous System’s “Convolution” bangle,stainless steel, based on simulated forces in a cellu-lar network.

Polygonal modeling programs represent ob-jects using thousands of tiny triangles ar-rayed together in a mesh that defines modelsurfaces. Notable examples include Blender(Figure 3-4), 3ds Max, Maya, and Modo.They’re great for 3D graphics and animation,but require a bit of care when used for 3Dprinting to make sure that meshes remainmanifold or watertight (i.e., without missingpolygons or disconnected vertices). If a mod-el is not manifold, the slicer may not be ableto tell its inside from its outside and may re-fuse to process the model at all, or may pro-duce G-code containing serious errors.

Figure 3-4. Blender is a free, open source polygonal3D modeling program that is extremely powerful, butchallenging to learn.

Polygonal modeling programs offer a tre-mendous amount of control, but are oftenchallenging to learn. Effective mesh model-ing requires mastering a number of some-times counterintuitive principles like work-ing with “quads” (instead of triangles or“n-gons”), developing “edge-flow” to quicklymanipulate models with operations likeedge-cutting and loop-cutting, and using“subdivision” tools to automatically smoothjagged surfaces into more organic forms. Ex-tensive tutorials covering these topics inmost of the major programs can be foundonline. Watching a few videos demonstrat-ing best practices early on can save you a lotof trouble as your skills develop.

Your CAD program will produce a 3D modelin some file format, commonly STL. Depend-ing on what software was used to produce itand how complex it is, your STL file may con-tain errors, such as holes or reversed normals,that will need to be corrected before it willprint correctly. Your CAM software may de-tect these errors automatically, and someCAM packages—notably Slic3r—include re-pair routines that will try to automatically fixsimple errors, but you cannot always rely on

33Chapter 3

3D Modeling/CAD Software

these to produce reasonable toolpaths.Models can also be repaired manually usinga polygonal modeler. Another option isMeshLab, an advanced, open source STL pro-cessing and editing tool that is very powerfulbut may be intimidating to beginners.

One type of modeling program may behandier for, say, designing a mechanical part,and another for sculpting an action figure.

As you become more experienced with 3Dprinting, you might want to consider invest-ing in a commercial STL analysis and repairtool such as Netfabb Studio. While their Basicsuite works well for solving manifold issuesquickly and effectively, the Professional ver-sion allows you to target specific elements ofthe model for manipulation, decimation,and re-meshing, as well as offering stableBoolean operations to split up a model intomultiple parts. The Professional package al-so offers built-in slicing utilities and driversfor operating some of the printers directly, insome cases entirely replacing the CAM/client pipeline.

Slicing/CAM Software

Once you have a manifold, error-free 3Dmodel, it must be converted into specifictoolpath instructions that tell the printerwhere to move the hot-end, when to moveit, and whether or not to extrude plasticalong the way. This process is sometimes re-ferred to as skeining or slicing. The standardformat for these instructions is a simple pro-gramming language called G-code.

Historically, most printers have relied on theopen source Skeinforge engine for prepar-ing G-code from model files. Recently, how-ever, alternative slicing programs have start-ed appearing, most notably Slic3r, which hasbeen slowly overtaking Skeinforge as the

tool of choice. For more on how to use Slic3r,see Chapter 5.

A fairly recent closed-source utility calledKISSlicer, available in free and pro versions,boasts some unique features, such as adap-tive sparse infill (using more material nearthe edges of a print and less in the center)and multi-extruder support (using differentmaterial for separate models, support struc-tures, and infill).

Though most slicing engines can be run asstandalone programs, they’re commonlybuilt into integrated printer client packageslike ReplicatorG (Figure 3-5) and Pronterface,so that the same interface used to control theprinter can also be used to load and slice 3Dmodels directly.

Figure 3-5. Laying out a build plate in ReplicatorG.All of these parts will print simultaneously.

Note that because a 3D print proceeds layerby layer, the G-code to print a single copy ofa model is very different from the G-code toprint, say, four copies side by side. If you wantto print multiple parts per job, one option isto simply lay out build plates, as they’recalled, directly in your 3D modeling pro-gram. Another option, which many findmore convenient, is to lay out build plates atthe CAM level. Many slicing engines, as wellas integrated print environments like


Slicing/CAM Software

ReplicatorG, now provide tools that alloweasy scaling, repositioning, and duplicatingof CAD models before slicing. These usuallyinclude a virtual environment that showshow everything will fit into the printer’s buildchamber.

The slicing program will provide an interfaceto adjust a number of variables related toprint speed and quality, such as layer height,maximum print-head speed, infill density,number of “shells” surrounding the infill ineach layer, and whether or not to print sup-port structures or “rafts.” Many slicingengines have built-in profiles to get youstarted, and most work well right out of thebox. Eventually, you’ll probably want to ex-periment with these settings to suit specificgeometry or design challenges.

A handy practice when getting familiar withslicer settings is to use a G-code visualizer topreview the print. A visualizer will display theG-code commands as a series of lines to rep-resent the print-head toolpaths. Scrollingthrough the layers can help you learn howthe slicing software tackles the geometry ofthe original object, and will reveal errorswithout using up any plastic. Saving a seriesof G-code “drafts” of a figure before actuallyrunning a print job is a great way to gaugethe effect of adjustments to the various slicersettings. If you’re using ReplicatorG, grabPleasant 3D (for Mac, shown in Figure 3-6) orGCode Viewer for Blender (cross-platform).Both Pronterface and Repetier-Host havebuilt-in G-code viewing utilities.

Figure 3-6. Visualizing G-code in Pleasant3D. Theinterface allows you to scroll through the toolpathsone layer at a time.

Printer Control/ClientSoftware

Finally, there’s the client, which is basicallythe printer’s real-time control panel. It pro-vides a software interface where you canstart, stop, or pause the printing process atwill, as well as set the temperature of the ex-truder nozzle and the bed heater, if present.The client will usually provide a set of direc-tional buttons that allow you to incremen-tally move the print head in any direction,which can be useful for bed leveling, calibra-tion, and manual zeroing.

Historically, many machines relied on Repli-catorG for machine control. Recently,though, some alternatives have appeared,and the amount of innovation is impressive.The Printrun suite (featuring Pronterface)and Repetier-Host are the most actively de-veloped and used. Ultimaker has been de-veloping the open source Cura packagewhich is feature-packed and easy to use.Some closed-source printers, such asPP3DP’s Up and MakerBot, ship with customclient software that will usually include asimilar set of features.

In use, the essential function of the client isto send toolpath instructions to the printer

35Chapter 3

Printer Control/Client Software

over a WiFi or USB connection. Many printersare designed for operation in “untethered”mode, in which the printer runs on its ownwithout a computer connection. In unteth-ered mode, no client program is necessary;the printer automatically reads and followsCAM instructions from an SD card or USBthumb drive plugged into it directly. Unteth-ered printing can be useful, for instance, forlong-running prints during which you maywant to use your computer elsewhere, or ifyou have more printers than computers torun them. CAM information is usually storedon removable media as G-code instruc-tions. For a rundown of all the available print-er control and slicing software, see “3D Print-er Frontends” on page 197 and “Slicing Soft-ware” on page 198.

What Next?

Your printed object will inspire improve-ments and new ideas. The design pipeline isreally a cycle.

Now that you’ve got the basic workflowdown, you’re ready to make anything! Re-member that 3D design and printing is aniterative process, and that things rarely turnout perfectly the first time around. If youaren’t comfortable with any of the tools thatyou tried, be sure to look at others—there’sno reason to limit yourself to only one work-flow. Experiment, tweak, observe, repeat! Tryto learn something from each mistake, andalways remember to have fun.

Matt Mets is a maker who uses electronics tocreate playful objects that teach and inspire.

Matt Griffin is the Director of Community &Support at Adafruit Industries, a former Mak-erBot Community Manager, and author of theforthcoming MAKE book Design and Model-ing for 3D Printing.


What Next?



WRITTEN BY BLAKE MALOOF

Understanding Positive andNegative Space

To utilize Tinkercad to its full potential youneed to understand the concepts of positiveand negative space. For example, you canplace a box, which represents a solid, positiveshape, and you can also place a hole, a nega-tive shape. Holes remove any solid materialwithin their shape.

This will become very important when yousubmit your model for printing. Because thecost depends on the solid volume of the print,you’ll want to make the object as hollow as youcan.

Use Tinkercad to design a robot-head pencil topper inminutes.

Three-dimensional printing offers excitingapplications, from art to product design torolling your own replacement parts. But ifyou’re new to this technology, the modelingsoftware and printer hardware can be intim-idating. The learning curve is steep as you gofrom concept to 3D model to printed object.If only you could create a simple design onyour desktop, have it printed on a high-end3D printer, and delivered to your door. Turnsout, you can!

Tinkercad is an intuitive, browser-based CADmodeling application that allows you toquickly box out your design and hit a Printbutton to send it off to 3D printing serviceslike Shapeways or Sculpteo. You can go fromconcept to ready-to-print 3D model in mi-nutes with little to no modeling experience.

To get you started and to show just how easyit is to make something fun and unique, I’llwalk you through the process for creating arobot-head pencil topper. All you need is acomputer with an Internet connection.

1. Create a TinkercadAccount

Create a Tinkercad account. Then click the“Design a New Thing” button. Tinkercad willgive your new thing a name; change it byclicking the gear icon.

37

3D Design for theComplete Beginner 4

http://tinkercad.com

2. Make a Hole

To make the hole that your pencil will fit into,measure the width and height of a pencileraser. It’s about 8 mm at the widest point,so click and drag a cylinder onto the Tinker-cad “workplane” (the blue grid) and scale itto 10 mm diameter. This will provide 1 mmof wiggle room all around the pencil. To scalesomething in Tinkercad, first select it by click-ing on it, then click on one of the small whiterectangles situated around the object—these are called handles—and drag it.

To scale the shape uniformly in all directions,hold the Shift key while dragging.

The height of the eraser is about 20 mm, sostretch the cylinder to 20 mm using the tophandle. Don’t use the Shift key here becauseyou want to stretch only the height, not thediameter.

Now, with the cylinder selected, click theHole icon (next to Color in the upper-rightcorner of the workplane window). This willturn the cylinder into negative space, indi-cated by gray stripes (see Figure 4-1).

If you make a mistake, use the Undobutton or type Ctrl-Z (Cmd-Z on aMac) to undo the step.

It’s often useful to view your designfrom a different angle. To do this,click on the arrow buttons in theupper-left corner of the window.The + and – buttons are for zoom-ing and unzooming.

Figure 4-1. A negative space object

3. Make the Robot Head

Make a box for the robot head. You can makeit any size, as long as the width and depthwill encompass the negative cylinder with atleast 1–2 mm on each side. I made a headthat was 34 mm wide × 24 mm deep × 24mm high, and placed it alongside the hole(Figure 4-2).

Figure 4-2. Make the robot head


2. Make a Hole

4. Align the Head and theHole

To make sure the hole is in the center of thebox, use the handy Align tool. Select both thebox and the hole cylinder by Shift-clickingeach object, or click-dragging your cursor tocreate a Select box around them, or usingCtrl-A (Cmd-A on a Mac) on your keyboardto select everything. Look for the small graycircle with three white lines next to your se-lection. Click it and select Align.

Tinkercad will highlight both objects withalignment dots. Click the two middle dots onthe horizontal plane to position the hole inthe center of the box (Figure 4-3). Don’t cen-ter the hole on the vertical axis because thatwould seal the hole entirely inside the box,which would make it impossible to fit a pen-cil in the bottom.

Figure 4-3. Align the head and the hole

5. Combine the Head andHole into a Single Object

Select both pieces and combine them into asingle object by clicking the Group icon(Figure 4-4).

Figure 4-4. Combine into a single object

6. Make the Head Hollow

Make a hole box to put inside the robot’shead. Size it 4 mm smaller than the head inboth width and depth. This will leave thehead with 2 mm-thick walls.

We don’t want the inside to be completelyhollow, as we need material at the bottom tohold the pencil in place. So, leave about 10mm of material at the base by making yourhole box 10 mm shorter than the head. In mycase, the interior hole is 30 mm wide × 20mm deep × 14 mm high (Figure 4-5).

Figure 4-5. Create an interior hole

Use the Align tool to align the hole box to thetop of the robot head, by selecting the top-most vertical dot (Figure 4-6). Now select justthe hole box and use the arrow handle tomove it down 2 mm (Figure 4-7).

39Chapter 4

4. Align the Head and the Hole

Figure 4-6. Select the topmost vertical dot

Figure 4-7. Select the hole box and use the arrowhandle to move it down 2 mm

Select the hole box and the head box again,and align them on the horizontal plane (butagain, don’t click the vertical align buttonsor else the hole box will move to the top orbottom of the head box).

Select all the pieces and combine them intoa single object by clicking the Group icon.You now have a nice 2 mm border on the topand sides of your hollow robot head.

By default, the workspace has agrid snap size of 1 mm, so whenadjusting the space between twoobjects, you can use the arrow keysto move the selected shape in 1 mmincrements.

Notice that a selected shape castsa shadow on the blue gridded plan

of your workspace. Use this shadowto help you place your pieces intotheir proper locations.

7. Make Your Robot’s Mouth

Start by making a mouthpiece with a boxthat’s smaller than the robot’s head.

To create the speaker-grill ridges, make a ser-ies of even smaller hole boxes. You can makeone and create copies by clicking the Copybutton; using copy-paste keyboard com-mands; or clicking on the original, holdingthe Option key, and dragging off a clone.Space them evenly apart and slide them intothe mouth box (Figure 4-8).

Then, with only the hole boxes and themouth box selected, click Group. This willapply the hole objects to the box, cutting outthe negative shapes, and turning them intoholes (Figure 4-9).

Figure 4-8. Construct the mouth ridges


7. Make Your Robot’s Mouth

X-Ray Vision

How can you verify that the hole box is posi-tioned correctly inside the head? Here’s a littlehack that provides a clearer view inside yourwork.

Drag a box onto the workplane, turn it into ahole, and change its dimensions until it’s largerthan one side of your design. Move the holebox so that it intersects your design, select allthe objects, then click Group. Voilà! An interiorview. Now, just Undo your way back to whereyou left off.

Figure 4-9. Create the mouth ridge holes

Place the mouthpiece so it sticks out fromthe front and bottom of the head box. (Don’tpush it in so deep that it intersects the pencilhole.) Group the head and the mouthpiece(Figure 4-10).

Figure 4-10. Group the head and the mouthpiece

8. Make Your Robot’s Eyes

To make the eyes, drag two cylinders into theworkspace and make them holes. See thosecurved arrows next to the cylinder? Click anddrag them to rotate the cylinder into theproper orientation (Figures 4-11 and 4-12).

41Chapter 4


Figure 4-11. Get a cylinder

Figure 4-12. Position it into the proper orientationfor eyes

You need to raise the cylinders above theworkplane grid so you can place them abovethe robot’s mouth. Use the black arrow han-dle above the cylinder to do this. Make thecylinders different sizes to add a little per-sonality. Be sure the cylinders intersect withthe head by 1 mm. Select the cylinders andthe head and Group them (Figures 4-13,4-14, and 4-15).

Figure 4-13. Intersect the cylinder with the head by1 mm

Figure 4-14. Select and group cylinders

Figure 4-15. Completed print-ready robot head pen-cil topper

Tada! You now have a print-ready robot-head pencil topper (Figure 4-16). Just hit the



Print 3D button, select a printing service, andorder yourself a new toy that you designed!

Figure 4-16. Finished!

Check out the 3D model here.

Blake Maloof is a game designer at Toys for Bob(makers of Skylanders), and he sometimeswrites about games for MAKE.

43Chapter 4


http://makezine.com/go/topperbot

WRITTEN BY ERIC WEINHOFFER

Slic3r is a free program that prepares STL files forprinting.

So you have a 3D printer and a 3D file, butnow what? Well, you have to slice it up intolayers and create a G-code file, which you’llthen send to your 3D printer. There are manysoftware options for slicing 3D models inpreparation for 3D printing including: Slic3r,KISSlicer, CuraEngine, MakerBot Slicer, andSkeinforge. (See “Slicing Software” on page198 for more on each of these options). Someof these “slicers” are integrated into printercontrol software and some, like Slic3r andKISSlicer can be used independently of con-trol software.

Slic3r has become a popular option becauseit’s open source, cross-platform, free to use,relatively quick, and extremely customiza-ble.

I’ll describe how each of the many settingsrelates to the actions of your 3D printer, andhow to correctly adjust them to optimizeyour machine for your application. I don’thave experience with tweaking all of thesesettings (there are a lot), but I’ll do my bestto describe what they do.

I recently read RichRap’s fantastic guide,“Slic3r is Nicer”, and I recommend that yougive it a read as well. Although Rich has a lot

of nice photos and great explanations in histutorial, it is almost a year old, and a lot hasbeen added to Slic3r since then. Unlike me,he does cover extruder calibration in his tu-torial, which is an optional, although bene-ficial, process.

The manufacturer of your 3D printer willmost likely provide you with some defaultslicing settings: hopefully as an export-ed .ini file that you can import, but theymight instead give you a list of numbers thatyou have to manually enter into Slic3r. If theysupplied a .ini profile file, I’d recommendstarting with that and tweaking settingsfrom there (you can import a profile in Slic3rby going to File→Import Config).

Despite the fact that I provide goodstarter settings here, there is no setformula that will work well for allmachines, so experimentation isrequired if you really want to opti-mize your prints.

You can download Slic3r for free from theSlic3r website. Now open it up and let’s getstarted!

45

Getting Started withSlic3r 5

http://richrap.blogspot.com/2012/01/slic3r-is-nicer-part-1-settings-and.html

http://slic3r.org

Figure 5-1. Picking a saved profile

Unless otherwise noted, photos ofprints in progress are from JohnAbella.

Step 1: Name Your Profile

The application is broken up into four tabs:Plater, Print Settings, Filament Settings, andPrinter Settings. The Plater tab is the mostself-explanatory, and typically the last placeyou’ll end up before slicing, so we’ll comeback to that later.

One of the neat things about Slic3r is howeasy it is to create, and recall, a bunch of dif-ferent profiles (Figure 5-1).

After changing any setting, clicking the Saveicon will bring up a text box, where you canchange the name of the profile (Figure 5-2).

Try creating a profile not only for each sepa-rate printer, but for each specific type of print

as well, like “Ultimaker Hollow Part” or “Ulti-maker Super Fast.”

Figure 5-2. Saving a profile

Step 2: Print Settings

The first subset of Print Settings is “layers andperimeters.” The layer height (Figure 5-3) isthe distance the z-platform (or extruder)moves between each layer. A smaller layer


Step 1: Name Your Profile

height will generally result in a better look-ing, smoother part, but it will also take longerto print. Anywhere between 0.2 and 0.3 mmis probably a good place to start.

Many machines on the market today willhandle a layer height of 100 microns (0.1mm) without a problem.

A print with a layer height 0.1 mmwill have twice as many layers as aprint with a 0.2 mm layer height,and will therefore take twice aslong to slice and print.

Figure 5-3. Setting the layer height

The first layer height specifies the height touse for the first layer you print. It can be en-tered in mm or % (a first layer height of 200%will be twice the standard layer height). Youcan use a thicker first layer to make sure yourprint has a stronger base for all successivelayers.

Perimeters and Solid LayersPerimeters (or shells) are also important(Figure 5-4) in that they add to the strengthof your print. A perimeter value of two speci-fies that the printer will draw two solid out-lines around the edge of the part it’s printing,

on every layer (Figure 5-5). I’ve found thattwo is usually a good place to start, but three-perimeter prints are common as well.

Figure 5-4. Setting perimeters

Figure 5-5. The effect of perimeters

Randomizing the starting point of perime-ters will prevent a visual indentation fromappearing on the side of your part, so I’d rec-ommend keeping that box checked. Allow-ing Slic3r to generate extra perimeters whenneeded is also a good idea.

Solid layers are completely filled in with plas-tic (Figure 5-6), which is why it’s usually smartto have a few of them on the bottom and topof your part. I’d recommend doing at leasttwo solid layers on the bottom, and stick withat least one on the top.

47Chapter 5


Figure 5-6. Solid layers

Keep in mind that if you’re printing a verylarge part, each solid layer will take up a goodchunk of time, so dial those values down ifyou value print time over part strength.

InfillFill density (Figure 5-7) is the percentage ofeach layer that will be filled in with plastic(0.2 = 20%). You shouldn’t have to go above60% for any reason, unless you want a reallydense part. A 20% fill is just fine for your ev-eryday prints, but adjust at will and play withthe parts once they’re complete to feel thedifference in structural stability.

A density of 0 will only print the perimeter(s)of your part, so it will be completely hollow.

Figure 5-7. Setting fill options

The fill pattern (Figure 5-8) is the path thatthe extruder takes when doing the infill.These don’t have a huge impact on the struc-tural stability of the part. The “Top/bottomfill pattern” is the pattern used on the top andbottom solid layers.

Figure 5-8. The fill pattern inside an object

The advanced settings give you even morecontrol over the infill, although I don’t thinkI’ve ever touched them. “Infill every 2 layers”will alternate between layers of filled (withthe fill density you chose) and hollow. “Infillevery 3 layers” will have two hollow layers



between every filled layer, etc. I’ve always leftthis at 1, the default.

You can also choose to insert a solid layerevery n layers, for extra stability. The fill angleis the angle at which the extruder will do itsfilling paths, based on the orientation of theaxes in your machine. I don’t see how chang-ing this will affect your part very much, butit may have varying levels of impact basedon the fill patterns you use.

I typically leave “Only retract when crossingperimeters” unchecked. We’ll learn about re-traction soon, and then this will make sense.

SpeedNow on to speed (Figure 5-9)! Perimeterspeed determines how fast the perimeterswill be printed. 50 mm/s is a good place tostart, but check your printer’s documenta-tion because some printers can go muchfaster while others must have this value setlower. The small perimeter speed is how fastsmall features will be printed. This is typicallyslower than your normal perimeter speed, togive the plastic more time to cool down.

External perimeters are the outer perimetersof your part—the most important ones. I’dstart with a speed similar to, if not exactly thesame as the standard perimeter speed, andgo from there.

Figure 5-9. Setting speed

Infill speed is how fast your machine willprint during the infill stage. Since clean linesand extreme accuracy aren’t paramounthere, crank it up! The speed I’m using here,80 mm/s, is quite conservative, especially forthe Ultimaker, but it’s probably a good placeto start.

Solid infill speed determines how fast thesolid infill layers will be printed. These pathsare more important than your everyday in-fills, so keep this slower than your standardinfill speed. Don’t bring the speed down toomuch, however, since 100% infill layers takea while.

The top solid infill speed is how fast the top,100% filled layer(s) will be printed. Since it’simportant that these look nice, keep thisspeed lower than your two other infillspeeds.

Bridges are used to fill in a gap, where theextruder stretches filament between twowalls over air. If the gap’s any greater thanaround 0.5”, you’re going to get drooping, nomatter how fast you move, but moving

49Chapter 5


quickly will prevent anything major. Printingmaterial and nozzle temperature will havean effect on plastic droop during bridging.Travel speed is the speed at which your ma-chine will move between two extrusionpoints. Since you’ll never be extruding at thistime, you might as well crank up the speedhere as well. I’d recommend starting at 175mm/s and moving up from there. Machinesthat use a light Bowden extruder (like theUltimaker) can move as quickly as 300mm/s.

First layer speed will modify how quicklyyour machine prints the first layer. I’d startwith 50% and go from there. Read the sec-ond part of Rich’s tutorial on getting your firstlayer to stick.

The SkirtThe skirt (Figure 5-10) is an outline aroundthe perimeter of your part, drawn by yourprinter before it does anything else. This is agreat opportunity to “prime” your extruder,make sure your nozzle’s at a good height, andkill the print before it gets too far if any ad-justments are needed.

Figure 5-10. Configuring the skirt

If your extruder typically takes a few secondsbefore the plastic appears, increase thenumber of loops so it will make its wayaround your part more than once. Typically,the skirt is kept at one layer high, and any-where from 3 to 10 mm away from the object(see Figure 5-11).

Figure 5-11. The skirt

Support MaterialAutomatically generating support material(Figure 5-12) during slicing will cause yourprinter to print scaffolding under overhangsand tough angles, giving you better overallresults once the support’s pulled away. Justcheck that box (Figure 5-13), and Slic3r willdo all the tough work for you.



http://richrap.blogspot.com/2012/01/slic3r-is-nicer-part-2-filament-and.html

http://richrap.blogspot.com/2012/01/slic3r-is-nicer-part-2-filament-and.html

Figure 5-12. Support material

Figure 5-13. Configuring support material

The overhang threshold is the angle pastwhich support will be generated. To preventthe machine from generating support for ti-ny protrusions that really don’t need it, startwith 45 degrees.

You can also select a pattern of support, justlike you did with the infill, but it’s probablymore important here, since certain patternsare easier to break away post-print than oth-ers. Rectilinear is a good place to start.

The pattern spacing will also have a majoreffect on the structure of the support—a

higher value will generate support that’s eas-ier to break away. The pattern angle is theangle at which the support will be printed,with respect to the x- and y-axes of your ma-chine.

Too low of a pattern spacing will yield sup-port that’s more similar to the rest of the part,and will be hard to break away. But, too highof a pattern spacing may not provideenough support for the overhangs.

Notes and MiscellaneousSettingsNotes (Figure 5-14) are useful for your ownrecords; they are completely optional andhave no effect on the print. After printing apart and noticing how your changes affectedthe output, type your notes in here so youknow what to change in the future.

Figure 5-14. Taking notes

You’ll only need to mess with sequentialprinting if you have an automated way to re-move parts from the print bed and want toprint many parts in sequence. I’ve neverbothered with changing the output options(Figure 5-15), but they’re useful if you’d liketo create a standard format for G-code file-names, for example.

51Chapter 5


Figure 5-15. Output options

The multiple extruders settings (Figure 5-16)are designed for machines with just that—more than one extruder. Here you can spec-ify specific tasks for each extruder, like sup-port and infill.

Figure 5-16. Configuring multiple extruders

Advanced SettingsI haven’t messed with any of the advancedsettings (Figure 5-17) except for the extru-sion width. With accurate plastic and nozzleinformation (which you’ll enter later), Slic3r

can adjust the height of the extruder to wi-den the width of extrusion.

Figure 5-17. Advanced settings

You may want to bump the first layer widthup past 100% in order to get the plastic tostick to the bed more efficiently, but I’ve nev-er felt the need to adjust the other widths.

Step 3: Filament Settings

Now we’re moving on to the next main tab,Filament Settings (Figure 5-18). Your ma-chine probably came with some plastic, oryou may have bought some other spools indifferent colors or materials. Your filament isprobably advertised as being 3 mm or 1.75mm in diameter, but that’s never quite right.



Figure 5-18. Filament settings

So, take a caliper or micrometer to your fila-ment at a few different positions, and aver-age your readings (Figure 5-19). Input theaverage into Slic3r.

Figure 5-19. Caliper measurement

The extrusion multiplier will simply alter thevalue you just entered into the diameter box.Unless you have a specific reason to do so,leave this at 1.

Extruder and bed temperature are also veryimportant. You can specify a different tem-perature for the first layer. If anything, runyour extruder hotter than usual to start, topromote extra gooeyness and stickiness.

For PLA, an extruder temperature of 185 isprobably as low as you want to go (this Ulti-maker profile is set for PLA printing). For ABS,I’d recommend starting at 220.

If you have a heated bed, use it at whatevertemperature you feel comfortable with,since anything will help. For PLA, 60 is prob-ably a good place to start, and 110 is goodfor ABS (although if your bed takes forever toget that hot, dial it down so you won’t haveto wait hours for a print to start).

If you don’t have a heated bed,keep the bed temperature at 0. If itisn’t at 0, the print will never start.

CoolingNext up is the cooling settings page(Figure 5-20). Start with the fan settings. Ifyour machine doesn’t have a fan directed atthe extruder or build platform (Figure 5-21),you can skip this step. If you have a fan, check“Enable auto cooling” and read the descrip-tion that pops up when you hover yourmouse over it—this setting will intelligentlycool only when needed, and keep the fan offat all other times.

53Chapter 5


Figure 5-20. Cooling settings

As you adjust the following settings, referback to the description under the enable au-to cooling box to see how your edits willchange the intelligent cooling activity of themachine during printing.

Fan speed is a percentage and is really up toyou. Do a few prints with cooling enabledand increase the minimum fan speed if younotice that your plastic is drooping or exces-sively sticking to the nozzle. Bridges fanspeed is how fast the fan will turn duringbridging—keep this high to promote cool-ing and minimize drooping.

Figure 5-21. The Ultimaker fan

I like to disable the fan for the first layer tokeep the plastic as gooey and liquid as pos-sible, to keep it stuck to the bed (this is es-pecially popular with PLA printing). You canalso check a box to keep the fan on at alltimes, from print start to end.

The cooling thresholds give you more ad-vanced control over when the fan starts. Ingeneral, layers with shorter print times (suchas the tip of a cone) are more difficult for theprinter to complete successfully, and there-fore benefit most from additional airflow.

The thresholds to set for decreased printingspeed will come with time and lots of exper-imentation, but I think these are a good start-ing point:

Enable fan if layer print time is below 60 seconds

Slow down if layer print time is below 15 seconds

Min print speed 10 mm/sec

You can set the minimum print speed fairlylow; this will result in a great variation in printspeed during more challenging prints.

You may find that separate cooling thresh-olds are necessary for different parts, so cre-ating a different slicing profile for each maybe the quickest solution—for example, onefor objects with lots of narrow columns, andone for hollow objects, one for busts (wheredetail is important).

Step 4: Printer Settings

Now we can move onto the Printer Settingstab (Figure 5-22). Before we start with gen-eral settings, break out the ruler. Measure theusable length and width of your print area,and enter the results into the bed size boxes.The print center should be half of the bedlength and width, so that the print starts atthe exact center of the build platform.



Figure 5-22. Printer settings

The Z offset is set at 0 mm by default, andshould be left there unless you frequentlychange to a build platform of a differentthickness. If, for example, your heated glassplatform is removable, you can set the Z off-set to its thickness so your machine will au-tomatically adjust for it when you slice a partwith that profile.

The G-code flavor should be fine at RepRap(Marlin/Sprinter), but definitely take a look atthe drop-down and select the one that mostaccurately describes your machine.

Leave the “Use relative E distances” box un-checked unless you’re absolutely sure thatyour machine uses relative positioning. Mostuse absolute positioning, which specifies theend point of the current move in the G-code,regardless of where you are.

The extruders value should only be changedfrom 1 if you have more than one extruderon your machine. If so, go back to the Multi-ple Extruders section of the Print Settings taband mess with those settings.

Custom G-CodeCustom G-code (Figure 5-23) can be used tooverride the default calibration settings

(steps per mm) and position the extruder ata specific point at the start of a print, amongother things.

Figure 5-23. Custom G-code settings

The custom G-code will nearly always bespecific to your model of machine, so youshould check the manufacturer’s documen-tation for these settings.

The start G-code often includes commandsto zero out all three axes, heat up the extrud-er and heated bed, do some sort of test ex-trusion, and start the print.

The end G-code typically turns off the ex-truder and heated bed, zeros out all threeaxes again, and lowers the z platform for easypart removal.

Extruder SettingsNow on to the Extruder 1 section of the Print-er Settings tab (Figure 5-24). The nozzle di-ameter should be provided by yourmanufacturer, but if not, take a pair of digitalcalipers to it and measure it yourself. It willmost likely be 0.35, 0.4, or 0.5 mm.

55Chapter 5


Figure 5-24. Extruder settings

Don’t bother with extruder offset unless youhave more than one extruder. If you do, thisis the horizontal and vertical distance be-tween your extruders.

Since there’s so much to talk about when itcomes to retraction, I’m devoting the wholenext step to it.

RetractionRetraction (Figure 5-25) is one of the coolestfeatures in Slic3r, and will greatly improvethe quality of your prints. By retracting thehot filament with the extruder motor duringtravel moves, plastic oozing is prevented.The length of filament to retract before mov-ing to the next extrusion path will dependwildly on the motor and gearing you have.

Figure 5-25. Retraction settings

If you have no idea what to put here, I’d rec-ommend starting with 0.75mm and movingup from there if you notice that you’re stillgetting stringing between gaps. The valueI’m using here is so high because of the Ulti-maker’s extruder gearing.

Lift Z will raise the extruder (or lower the bed)during retraction and before moving to thenext path, where it will lower, in order toavoid knocking the part off the platform ordragging plastic with it. If you’re building tallparts that may get knocked off the platformeasily, set this to one layer height. If not, Iwould leave this at 0.

Speed is how quickly your extruder motorwill reverse to retract the filament. You wantthis to be quick, so do some tests with yourextruder and see just how fast you can re-tract. I’d recommend starting at 15 mm/s andbuilding up from there, since once again, ex-truders will differ wildly in gearing and motorspeed.

Extra length on restart is the length of plasticyou’d like to extrude after traveling to a newpath and prior to moving again. I don’t useit, since it would just put extra plastic downwhere I don’t necessarily need it. The onlyapplication for this may be when your ex-truder has serious problems starting up



again after retraction, but in that case I’d justrecommend dialing down your retractionlength and/or speed instead of setting thisto anything other than zero.

Minimum travel after retraction is the mini-mum distance required for the printer toretract at all between paths. If you specify 3mm, for example, if the two paths are closerthan 3 mm the extruder won’t retract, to pre-vent the motor from doing tons of unneces-sary work during an extremely complicatedprint. I think 2 mm is a good place to start.

The last two settings here are for multi-extruder setups. When one of the extrudersis disabled, you can have it retract to preventit from oozing while the other one is working.You can also add extra length on restart here,where it may have more use, since extrudersin a multi setup are often idle for longer andmay require additional priming.

Step 5: Return to the Plater

Now we can finally move back to the Platertab! Load a part by clicking Add, or draggingit into the grid on the left. The part will au-tomatically snap to the center of your buildplatform (Figure 5-26).

Figure 5-26. Centered item on the plater

You can add additional parts in the samemanner, and then duplicate them by clicking“More” after selecting them (selected partswill be red). They’ll be automatically ar-ranged as you add them onto the plate(Figure 5-27).

Figure 5-27. Adding multiple parts

You can also rotate the parts with the 45° ccw(counterclockwise), 45° cw (clockwise), andRotate buttons. Clicking Rotate will bring upa text box (Figure 5-28) into which you canenter a specific angle. You can also scale anobject with the Scale button.

Figure 5-28. Rotating Parts

57Chapter 5


Working with Multiple STLsIf you import an assembly of multiple STLs,you can split it up into its separate STLs withthe Split button. See Figures 5-29 and 5-30.

Figure 5-29. Nautilus plate before splitting

Figure 5-30. After splitting STLs

This is useful if you needed to print a few ex-tra gears, but also wanted to print one singlepiece of another part (Figure 5-31).

Figure 5-31. Split STLs

Have Fun!That’s it! Enjoy using Slic3r.

The free in-browser G-code viewer used fora few of the photos is by Jeremy Herrman:GCode Viewer.

Eric Weinhoffer is a Product Development En-gineer at MAKE. He creates kits and sourcesproducts that we sell in the Maker Shed. Occa-sionally he writes about cool things for the blogand magazine.



http://jherrm.github.io/gcode-viewer/

PART III

3D Scanning


Use the Kinect, ReconstructMe, and 123D Catch to cap-ture 3D models of real world objects—then clean themup for 3D printing.

Excerpted from Getting Startedwith MakerBot by Bre Pettis, AnnaKaziunas France, and Jay Shergill.

This is all experimental. There is no “way.”

— Bre Pettis

You no longer need an expensive high-end3D scanner to create good-quality scans thatare suitable for 3D printing. There are now anincreasing a number of affordable ways todigitize physical objects. Some of them re-quire additional hardware with an RGB cam-era and depth sensors, like a Microsoft Kinector an ASUS Xtion shown in Figure 6-1 (see“Kinect vs. Asus Xtion” on page 61 for a com-parison), but you can also use your phone ora digital camera to capture images. Theseimages can then be converted into 3D mod-els, cleaned up using mesh repairing soft-ware, and then printed.

Figure 6-1. The Microsoft Kinect and ASUS Xtion

What Is 3D Scanning?

A 3D scanner collects data from the surfaceof an object and creates a 3D representationof it. The Kinect and Xtion both work bybeaming infrared light at an object, andmeasuring how far away each reflectedpoint of light is. It then turns each individualpoint into a collection of points called a pointcloud (Figure 6-2). Each point in the cloud isrepresented with an x, y, and z coordinate.

This point cloud is processed (or reconstruc-ted) using scanning software into a digitizedrepresentation of the object known as amesh (Figure 6-3). A mesh is similar to a pointcloud, but instead of only using single points

61

Creating andRepairing 3D Scans 6



Kinect vs. Asus Xtion

As soon as the community cracked open theKinect and made it do things it wasn’t intendedto do, 3D scanning was one of the first itemson the list. As wonderful and disruptive as theKinect was, it wasn’t the only device of its kind.In fact, other folks brought the exact sametechnology to market. Scanning with the Kin-ect is powered by hardware developed by anIsraeli company, PrimeSense. PrimeSense re-leased a software development kit (SDK)called OpenNI (Open Natural Interaction) thatsome people, such as the folks behind Recon-structMe (PROFACTOR GmbH), have used todevelop awesome software tools for Kinect.And the great thing about this is that theirsoftware can be made to work with other hard-ware that uses the PrimeSense technology.

One such piece of hardware is the ASUS Xtion($160), which has some advantages over theKinect:

1. It is much smaller (about half the size).

2. It’s lighter (half a pound).

3. It doesn’t require a separate power sup-ply (it can be powered over the USBconnection).

The Xtion has some disadvantages, though:

1. It’s more expensive.

2. It does not work with all software writ-ten for the Kinect.

3. It doesn’t have a software-controlledmotor (the Kinect has one you can usefor moving the camera around).

Still, if you’re looking for a portable depth cam-era for 3D scanning, the Xtion is well worthconsidering.

(or vertices), it groups each vertex withedges (straight line segments) that combine

to form faces (flat surfaces enclosed byedges) that describe the shape of a 3D ob-ject. STL files are comprised of these trian-gular meshes.

123D Catch works by analyzing a group(twenty to forty) of images of an object takenfrom different angles. (The analysis for 123DCatch is performed in Autodesk’s cloud-based systems.) By performing imageanalysis on the photos, 123D Catch is able toisolate an object in the photos and create a3D mesh from the collection of photos.

Figure 6-2. A point cloud


What Is 3D Scanning?

Figure 6-3. A mesh

LimitationsThe limitations of 3D scanning depend onwhat technology is being used. For example,optical scanners have trouble scanningtransparent or shiny objects, and digitizingprobes can only scan the top surface of anobject. All the software programs discussedhere also have strengths and weaknesses.

What software you use to scan your modeldepends on the size of the model and yourcomputer’s hardware configuration. Twopopular applications are 123D Catch and Re-constructMe. This chapter tells you how touse both of these. Each of these scanningpackages has its own set of advantages andlimitations.

In the past you needed to use a high-endscanner and expensive software, but thanksto these free programs, you no longer needto spend big bucks to get printable scans.

123D Catch

123D Catch is a free application from Auto-desk that enables you to take photos andturn them into 3D models. It is available as a

web-based application, an app for the iPadand the iPhone, and a desktop applicationfor Windows. It works by taking multiple dig-ital photos that have been shot around a sta-tionary object and submitting those photosto a cloud-based server for processing. Thecloud server uses its superior processingpower to stitch together your photos into a3D model and then sends the model back toyou for editing. You can download or access123D Catch at http://www.123dapp.com/catch.

123D Catch TipsThe quality of the scan that you receive from123D Catch is dependent on the quality andconsistency of the photos you provide. Hereare some general tips on how to select ob-jects to Catch and how to plan out your Catchso that you obtain desirable results:

Objects to avoidWhen choosing objects to scan using123D Catch, avoid reflective surfaces(Figure 6-4), objects with glare, and mir-rored or transparent surfaces. These ob-jects will not work well for generating 3Dmodels. For example, windows that arereflecting light will appear warped orbowed, like funhouse mirrors. Transpar-ent objects like eyeglasses will appear asholes in the model.

Figure 6-4. Avoid shiny objects—they will not Catchwell

63Chapter 6

123D Catch

http://www.123dapp.com/catch

http://www.123dapp.com/catch

Plan of attackBefore you start a capture project, planout the order in which you will take yourphotos. It is also important to decide ona focal length. If possible, position theobject that you want to Catch on a tablethat you can move around easily and re-main equidistant from the object at allangles. Planning out how you will ap-proach your subject is the key to successwhen using 123D Catch.

Mark your territoryConsider using some sort of markingsystem when your subject lacks discern-ible features or is highly symmetrical.123D Catch has trouble with symmetri-cal objects, and markers will help theapplication to register different sides ofthe object. You will need four points forregistration between any one image andtwo other images in the collection. Con-sider placing high-contrast tape orsticky notes on a large object. Placeenough markers so that at least four arealways visible from any of the positionsyou plan to shoot from.

Utilize background objectsWhen possible, utilize background ob-jects around the object you are captur-ing. This will help the software parsedepth. 123D Catch does not like a blankwall background with flat paint. Do notattempt to Catch objects on a flat col-ored surface, like a white tablecloth. Youwill get better results by using a back-ground with patterns (Figure 6-5) thathelp the 123D Catch software clearly dif-ferentiate between the object you areattempting to capture and the surface itis resting on.

Figure 6-5. Use a contrasting background

What kind of camera?Point-and-shoot cameras, like those in aregular digital camera, phone camera, orthe camera in an iPad of 3 megapixels orhigher will work well. We have been get-ting great Catches using an iPhone 4S.

Watch the Autodesk 123D Catch tutorialsAdditional tips on using the 123D Catchsoftware are available here: http://www.123dapp.com/howto/catch.

Taking Photos with 123D CatchYour first step after planning out your projectis to methodically take pictures of the objectyou want to Catch. Here are some tips:

Provide enough informationYou will need to provide enough infor-mation with your pictures for the recon-struction software to create a model.Rotate around your object, capturing aframe every 5-10 degrees (Figure 6-6).The goal is to get least 50% overlap be-tween images. Move the camera at reg-ular intervals and in a predictable pat-tern (from left to right and from top tobottom). Make sure each point in yourobject is appearing in at least four shots.When your photos do not have enoughinformation, your scan may have a solidmass where there should be empty


123D Catch

http://www.123dapp.com/howto/catch

http://www.123dapp.com/howto/catch

space or a gaping hole where thereshould be mesh.

Figure 6-6. Take photos every 5-10 degrees aroundthe object

Fill the frameTry to fill the camera frame with your im-age (Figure 6-7). It is helpful to work con-sistently from high to low, and from leftto right. This will help you to identify er-rors (should they occur) later, after themodels are created. Once you start cap-turing frames, avoid zooming in or out.Zooming distorts your capture and maymake it impossible for the application toalign your set of images.

Figure 6-7. Right way—image fills the frame

Uniform lightMake sure there is uniform light aroundthe thing you’re trying to Catch. Avoid

overexposed or underexposed images,as they hide the features you are tryingto capture.

Direct light alters the exposure by creat-ing shadows and reflective spots. Themore consistent the exposure of thephotographs is, the more consistentyour model will be. We found that manyof our best Catches were shot on over-cast days or at dusk. Consider planningyour outdoor Catches around these lightconditions for best results.

Maintain depth of field, focus, andorientation

Blurry images will not produce accurateCatches. Review your images beforeleaving the scene of the Catch, and if anyof them are blurry, retake the imagesbefore submitting the photos for pro-cessing. On the iPhone/iPad, you canreview and retake images before sub-mitting them for processing. If you areusing a digital camera, make sure to re-view your images before leaving thescene of the Catch.

In addition, your images must have aconsistent depth of field. If you are fo-cused on the item you are Catching andthe background is blurry in your photos,keep this consistent throughout theshoot. Also keep the orientation of thephotos consistent. Choose either por-trait or landscape and stick to it.

How many pictures?More pictures are not necessarily better.What is important is the regular intervalsand the capture of the overlapping an-gles of the object. Many pictures willtake much longer to process, and if theyare not capturing the object uniformlythey will still produce poor results. The

65Chapter 6

123D Catch

optimal number of pictures has been re-ported as somewhere between 20 and55 pictures, depending on the object. Ifyou are using the iPad or iPhone you arelimited to 40 images.

Capturing detailIf you need to capture fine details, firstcapture the entire object at a distancethat fills the frame. After you have com-pleted a full sweep of the entire object,then move in and capture the details.Make sure that you maintain the 50%overlap between the distance photosand the detail photos, so that the soft-ware can still stitch the photos together.Be careful when transitioning from shotsof the whole model to detail shots. Makesure to have transition photos that cap-ture 50% overlap between the transi-tions. Do not suddenly zoom in on thedetail, as this will either cause your scanto fail or produce poor results.

By taking a whole series of close uppictures just at one level, I got reallygood 3D detail. Really good repro-duction of very, very small depth.

— Michael Curry“skimbal”

With some large objects, like statues, itmay not be possible to get both very finedetail and the entire object. You mayneed to capture the fine detail in a sep-arate Catch. You will need to experi-ment. Occasionally, we have had catchesdone this way completely fail on theiPhone application, and a large white Xwill appear after processing the Catch.Because it can take some time to seehow your Catch turned out, always doone or two Catches of an object (espe-cially if you are on a trip and may notreturn to it), just in case the first one fails.

If your Catch fails, consider capturing theentire object in one scan and then cre-ating a new scan with the camerazoomed in on the fine detail.

Don’t be discouraged if your first few Catchesdo not come out as planned; keep practicingand you will quickly get a feel for the processand how to minimize problems.

Do not edit or crop photos be-fore uploading! Any size, color,or tone alterations will confusethe reconstruction softwareand lead to less than optimalresults. Upload your photos tothe cloud server as they wereoriginally taken.

Uploading Your Photos to theCloudTake your photos using the process outlinedabove and then submit them to 123D Catchvia your application of choice.

If you used the iPhone or iPad applicationSubmit the photos via the iPhone/iPadapp (Figure 6-8). The app will inform youwhen it has finished processing your123D Catch scan, or photoscene.


123D Catch

Figure 6-8. Completed photoscene on the iPhone

If you are using the Windows desktop appli-cation

Download your photos onto your com-puter. Then open 123D Catch and select“Create a New Capture.” A login windowwill open and you will need to log intoyour Autodesk account (or create one).

If you are using a camera and do not haveWindows

Download your photos onto your com-puter. Then go to http://apps.123dapp.com/catch to upload them. Itcan take some time for the 123D Catchcloud server to process your photos, butyou don’t have to wait around. YourCatch photoscene will appear in the“models” section of you account when itis finished.

When uploading images usingthe Windows desktop or onlineapplication, you can select allof your images and uploadthem at once. You do not needto upload them one at a time.

Downloading Your MeshAfter your photoscene is available, you needto retrieve the file in an editable format.

After the photos have been processed, andlog into your account. Regardless of themethod used to upload your photos, yourprocessed scans will be present under “mod-els & projects.”

Click on a model to open it. Then downloada STL file for printing at home or you can edityour model online using 123D apps.

The STL will often be named view-able.stl.

There are editing tools in the online anddesktop versions of 123D Catch that you canuse to slice off sections to prepare models for3D printing in both the online and desktopversions, although the online version is moreup-to-date and has better tools. You can alsoedit your mesh using the techniques de-scribed in “Cleaning and Repairing Scans for3D Printing” on page 70.

ReconstructMe

ReconstructMe is a 3D reconstruction sys-tem that gives you visual feedback as youscan a complete 3D model in real time. Itworks with the Microsoft Kinect (Xbox andPC versions) and the Asus Xtion Pro. Current-

67Chapter 6

ReconstructMe

http://apps.123dapp.com/catch

http://apps.123dapp.com/catch

Installing ReconstructMe on aMac with a Virtual Machine

You can install ReconstructMe on a Macwithout using Boot Camp by running Win-dows on a Parallels or VMware Fusion virtualmachine in the same way you would install iton Windows, with one exception. You will notbe able to upgrade your graphics driver for thevirtual machine by downloading an updatefrom the manufacturer. You will need to installOpenCL support separately. You can get theOpenCL CPU runtime for Windows from Intelhere: http://software.intel.com/en-us/vcsource/tools/opencl-sdk.

If you go this route, you won’t be able to per-form a live scan. Instead, you’ll need to first re-cord your subject with the ReconstructMe Re-cord tool, then complete the scan with Recon-structMe Replay.

Installing ReconstructMe on virtual machinesis experimental and your mileage may vary.

ly there is both a free/noncommercial ver-sion and a paid, commercial version of thesoftware. ReconstructMe is excellent forscanning larger objects, such as people, butnot great for small objects with fine detail.

ReconstructMe is currently the easiest wayto get quick and complete scans, but thereare a few unavoidable technical limitationsthat come with this type of real-time scan-ning. First, ReconstructMe is Windows-only,but it can be run cross-platform using virtualmachines or Boot Camp on a Mac. You alsoneed a fairly high-end graphics card to runthe software. It is also picky about the versionof OpenCL (a computer library that can runinstructions on your graphics adapter) in-stalled on your machine. ReconstructMe isconstantly being updated, so refer to theReconstructMe documentation and videocard specifications.

ReconstructMe QT is a graphicaluser interface alternative to the Re-constructMe console application.It uses the ReconstructMe SDK andis available in both free non-commercial and paid versions.

Installing ReconstructMeDownload ReconstructMe

Go to this download page and down-load either free Lite version the free de-veloper version.

Tips for Reconstructing Yourself(or Someone Else)Once you have ReconstructMe installed,refer to the ReconstructMe website to learnhow to launch the application. There are sev-eral different resolutions and modes avail-

able for scanning with ReconstructMe, andnew features are being added all the time.

If you experience crashes in both the stan-dard and highres modes, you may need torun the ReconstructMe Record tool. Aftersaving your scan, you can play back the re-cording with ReconstructMe Replay andsave your file as an STL.

When you have ReconstructMe up and run-ning on your machine, here are some basictips for scanning yourself (or someone else).

1. Sit in a spinnable office chair.

2. Position your Kinect or Xtion so that onlyyour upper body is visible in the scanarea.


ReconstructMe

http://software.intel.com/en-us/vcsource/tools/opencl-sdk

http://software.intel.com/en-us/vcsource/tools/opencl-sdk

http://reconstructme.net/projects/reconstructme-console/installation

http://reconstructme.net/projects/reconstructmeqt/

http://reconstructme.net/projects/reconstructme-console

http://reconstructme.net/pricing/

http://reconstructme.net/projects/sdk/

http://reconstructme.net/projects/sdk/

3. Slowly, spin yourself around in the chairwhile keeping your upper body in a stat-ic position.

4. Save the file as an STL (make sure to dothis after you finish your capture, whilethe console is open, or you will lose yourscan).

5. If your graphics card or memory con-straints are causing the program tocrash, try using the Record feature to re-cord your scan and then playback to re-construct the mesh.

When scanning yourself, sit withyour back to the Kinect/Xtion withyour computer in front of you. Thatway your arm movements will notbe captured when you press thekeys on your computer to start andend the scan.

After saving the STL, open it up in MeshLabor Pleasant3D and take a good look at it.Figure 6-9 shows a scan of Anna.

Figure 6-9. Scan of Anna Kaziunas France

All the ReconstructMe scans in thischapter were done using BootCamp on a mid-2010, 15-inch Mac-Book Pro running OS X 10.8.1(Mountain Lion) with a 2.66 GHzIntel Core i7 processor and 8 GB ofmemory. The graphics card usedwas an NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M512 MB. With this configuration, wewere able to run real-time recon-struction mode but unable to runthe high-resolution setting for Re-constructMe. The lack of definitionin the facial features in the scan re-flects these constraints. However,ReconstructMe is excellent at cap-turing folds in fabric, so Anna worea hat and scarf during the scan tomake up for the lack of facial defi-nition. Other smooth fabric items,like shirt collars, ties, and smoothhair, are also captured well.

69Chapter 6

ReconstructMe

Get a Handle On It!

If you are scanning other people or things, aKinect handle (like this) or a Kinect tripodmount (or such as this) can come in handy (seeFigure 6-10).

Figure 6-10. Kinect on a handle

Cleaning and RepairingScans for 3D Printing

While it is becoming easier to create high-quality scans, creating valid input files issometimes difficult. Before you can printyour 3D scans, you need to clean up, edit, andrepair the files to make them printable.

The most common problems with 3D scansare:

• Holes

• Disconnected parts

• “Junk” from the environment around themodel or used to map the object inspace that is not part of the model

• Open objects with faces that are notclosed

However, analyzing STL files for errors andbuildability has never been easier. Each ofthe following software packages hasstrengths that when used together, canmake it easy to edit and print great lookingscans.

Tony Buser created the seminal vid-eo tutorial on cleaning and repair-ing 3D scans that deeply informedthis chapter (you can watch here).

Tony had also created an new up-dated video with a streamlinedscanning cleanup workflow (here).

netfabbnetfabb (Figure 6-11) enables you to viewand edit meshes and provides excellent re-pair and analysis capabilities for your STLfiles. netfabb makes it easy to slice off bits ofjagged scans and quickly repair those scans.In most cases, you will want to slice off thebottom of your model to create a flat surfaceagainst the build platform.

Figure 6-11. 123D Catch scan of a stone face, shownin netfabb


Cleaning and Repairing Scans for 3D Printing

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:18125


http://www.vimeo.com/38764290

https://plus.google.com/101036414115172779753/posts/TFbYJ3Ldv44

netfabb is available as a desktop applicationand a cloud service. It is also available as anSTL viewer with connection to the cloud ser-vice on the iPhone. netfabb Studio is avail-able in both Professional and (free) Basic ed-itions. It runs on Windows, Linux, or Mac.

Autodesk MeshMixerMeshMixer is great for mashing up individualmeshes together into a new model(Figure 6-12). It works well for smoothing outbumps, blobs, and other strange artifactsthat can show up in scanned files. It is also anexcellent tool for capping models that aremissing a side/top/bottom to make themmanifold.

Figure 6-12. 123D Catch scan of a statue, shown inMeshMixer

MeshLabMeshLab can repair and edit meshes, but itsPoisson filter is great for smoothing surfacesto clean up scans for printing (Figure 6-13).It’s easy to rotate meshes with the mouse, soit also is an excellent STL viewer. It is availableas a cross-platform desktop application andas a model viewer for iOS and Android. Seealso “Smoothing Out the Surface of Mesh-es” on page 75.

Figure 6-13. 123D Catch scan of a stone face, shownin MeshLab

Pleasant3DPleasant3D, shown in Figure 6-14, is a greatMac-only application for previewing and re-sizing STL files by specified units (as opposedto scaling in MakerWare). It can also convertASCII STL files into binary STL. It shows G-code visualizations, which let you previewhow your model will print.

Figure 6-14. G-code visualization in Pleasant3D

71Chapter 6

Cleaning and Repairing Scans for 3D Printing

http://www.netfabb.com

http://www.meshmixer.com/

http://meshlab.sourceforge.net

http://www.pleasantsoftware.com/developer/pleasant3d/

Repairing Most Scans

Most scans you create using these softwareprograms will have a mesh that is mostlycomplete. However, these scans will usuallyhave holes, junk, and other issues that youwill need to fix. If your scan is missing largeareas of mesh and has huge gaping holes, oris just the front or relief of a building or sculp-ture, see “Repairing Relief Scans by Cap-ping” on page 77. To find out how to repairmore minor issues, read on.

Repair and Clean Up in netfabbOpen netfabb Studio Basic and open the STLfile of the model with Project→Open. (SeeFigure 6-15.)

Figure 6-15. ReconstructMe scan opened in netfabb

To repair and clean up the model, followthese steps:

Show the platformTo help you see your model’s orienta-tion, select View→Show Platform. If youcan’t see the yellow platform, then youmay need to zoom out.

Reorient the modelTo move the part to the origin of theplatform, select Part→Move, then selectthe To Origin button from the dialog boxand click Move.

Now zoom in on your model by selectingView→Zoom To→All Parts.

Click the selection tool (the arrow). Clickthe model to select it, then move the se-lection tool over the green corner thatappears around the selected model.

When the selection tool is over the greencorner bracket, it will appear as a rota-tion symbol. Rotate the model, tilting itso the head is pointing up and the bodyis pointing down towards the platform,as shown in Figure 6-16.

To pan in netfabb, hold down Altand drag the mouse.

Tweak the model alignmentYou will have to change your view androtate the model several times in orderto orient it on the platform. Try to placethe model so that the shoulders are atequal height.

You can change your view from the Viewmenu or click on the cube faces in themain toolbar at the top of the screen.Align the model within the box relativeto the platform.

Make sure to tilt the head back using therotate tools to help with the overhangthat can develop under a person’s chin.(Remember the 45 degree rule from“Generating STL files”.)



Figure 6-16. Scan reoriented

Watch Your Underhang

The model shown here has a severe chin un-derhang. Try to minimize this when creatingyour scan. The back of the head where the hatjuts out also has a severe overhang. We usedexternal support material to help print the hatback. The support material did not build underthe brim and chin, but it still printed prettywell!

Slice off the jagged bitsUse the Cuts tools on the right of thescreen to cut a flat bottom for the model.Drag the Z slider so the bottom of theblue cut line is cutting off the scan’s jag-ged edges. Click the Execute Cut button,then click Cut.

You can then click on the part of the cutmodel that you want to remove. The se-lected part will turn green, as shown inFigure 6-17.

73Chapter 6


Figure 6-17. Selected section to remove

Remove the jagged sectionGo to the Parts section that is now dis-played in the top-right corner of thescreen. Click the X next to the part youwant to remove (the jagged parts of thescan) to delete that part. netfabb will askyou if you really want to remove it. ClickOK.

You will now have a nice clean edge atthe bottom of your model.

Move to originMove the part to the platform by select-ing Part→Move, then selecting the ToOrigin button from the dialog box andclicking Move (see Figure 6-18).

Figure 6-18. The part moved to the platform

Repair the holesNext, we will repair the holes in the mod-el. There is probably a large hole underthe chin where the scanner could notgather information, and possibly a holein the top of the head.

Select the Repair tool (it looks like a redcross). The model will turn blue and youcan see the triangles in the mesh. Therewill be yellow spots where repairs arenecessary. To repair the model, click theAutomatic Repair button.

Then select Default Repair from the dia-log box and press the Execute button.netfabb will ask you if you want to re-move the old part. Click Yes.

Then click the Apply Repair button at thebottom of the righthand side of thescreen. In the dialog box that opens, se-lect Yes when asked if you want to re-move the old part. Figure 6-19 shows therepaired model.



Figure 6-19. Look at all those triangles!

Save in netfabb file formatSave your netfabb project, so you canedit it later (Project→Save As).

Export to STLExport it as an STL file using Part→ExportPart→STL.

netfabb may warn you that there are is-sues with your file. If you see a big red Xwhen you attempt to export your model,click the Repair button on the dialogbox. The X will become a green check-mark.

Then click Export to save the STL.

Smoothing Out the Surface ofMeshesSometimes you want a smooth surface on amodel so it makes a smooth, shiny print.MeshLab’s Poisson filter will smooth out yourmesh nicely.

If you are able to create a high-resolutionscan from ReconstructMe, you may want tosmooth it out a little for printing. For regular

resolution, ReconstructMe scans, skip thisstep to keep more detail in the model.

Open MeshLabCreate a new project using File→NewEmpty Project.

Then select File→Import Mesh to openyour STL file in MeshLab.

When the dialog box pops up that asksyou if you want to Unify Duplicated Ver-tices, click OK.

Turn on layersGo to the View menu in the top toolbarand select Show Layer Dialog.

Apply the Poisson filterSelect Filters→Point Set→Poisson Fil-ter→Surface Reconstruction Poisson. Inthe dialog box, set Ochre Depth to 11(the higher number, the better; “good”is 11). If you go any higher than 11, Mesh-Lab may crash.

Click Apply.

Hide the original meshAfter applying the Poisson filter, therewill be two layers: the original(Figure 6-20), and one labeled PoissonMesh.

Click on the green “eye” icon by the filename to hide the original file and keepthe Poisson mesh. You will see visiblesmoothing on the surface of the model,as shown in Figure 6-21.

Save as an STL fileGo to File→Export Mesh As. Use the de-fault export options.

75Chapter 6


Figure 6-20. Default mesh

Figure 6-21. Mesh with Poisson filter applied andoriginal mesh hidden

You can see a print of a skull in Figure 6-22.

Figure 6-22. Print of the scanned skull at WorldMaker Faire New York

Removing Bumps and Blobswith MeshMixerDepending on how your scan came out afterrepairing and (optionally) smoothing, youmay want to remove some bumps or blobs.If your model does not need any additionalsmoothing, you can skip this step.

Import your STLOpen up MeshMixer and import yourSTL file by clicking Import in the toptoolbar.

Smooth it outSelect Sculpt → Brushes and one of the“Smoothing Options” from the lefthandnavigation bar. Use the sliders to adjustthe brush size, strength, depth, and oth-er features.

Click and drag on the bumpy/lumpyareas to smooth them out. When you aresatisfied with the appearance, exportthe file as an STL.

Final Cleanup/Repair in netfabbOpen the STL back up in netfabb.

If you used the Poisson filter in MeshLab, theformerly smooth bottom of your model willbe bumpy. To fix this we need to recut the



bottom of our model to make it flat. Resliceoff the bottom.

Repair the model and export as an STL.

Print Your ModelYour scan is now cleaned, repaired, andready to print! Open it in MakerWare, thenresize or rotate it if necessary and print it out.See Figure 6-23.

Figure 6-23. Final printed ReconstructMe scan

Repairing Relief Scans byCapping

Sometimes you have a mesh of a building orsculptural relief that is missing a side, top orback and you need to create a closed modelby “capping” the object so you can print it.Meshes generated from 123D Catch scansoften have these issues when you are onlyable to scan the front part of a large object.MeshMixer and netfabb can easily help youfix this problem, as well as filling minor holesor removing disconnected parts.

If your model has a lot of extra“junk” in it, it is a good idea to sliceit off in netfabb before editing it in

MeshMixer. However, sometimeslittle parts will be impossible to sliceoff. When this occurs, you can usethe lasso tool in MeshMixer to se-lect and delete those stray bits ofmesh.

MeshMixer doesn’t have any labeled con-trols for panning and zooming around yourmodel—you need to hold down the keycombinations while dragging with yourmouse/trackpad to change your view (seealso http://www.meshmixer.com/help/index.html):

Basic MeshMixer view controls include:

• Alt + left-click: orbit camera around ob-ject

• Alt + right-click: zoom camera

• Alt + Shift + left-click: pan camera

Fixing Holes, Non-ManifoldAreas, and DisconnectedComponentsWhen you have a scan that is missing largeportions of the mesh, you first need to ad-dress the holes, nonmanifold areas, and dis-connected components. We will attack eachproblem in turn.

Open MeshMixer and import your STL or OBJfile (Figure 6-24).

77Chapter 6

Repairing Relief Scans by Capping

http://www.meshmixer.com/help/index.html

http://www.meshmixer.com/help/index.html

Figure 6-24. Scan opened in MeshMixer

In the side navigation bar, click “Analysis”.Your model will now have a number of col-ored spheres attached to it, as shown inFigure 6-25:

• Red spheres represent non-manifoldareas.

• Magenta spheres represent disconnec-ted components.

• Blue spheres represent holes.Find the sphere that indicates the largehole

Orbit around your model (Alt + left-click, drag your mouse) to identifywhich blue sphere is directly on theblue outlined edge that representsthe large hole in the model that wewant to cap. In the case of the modelshown, we want to cap the back ofthe fountain.

Take note of this particular sphereand make sure that you edit it last.In the case of the fountain model,the sphere that indicates the largehole is circled in the screenshot (see(Figure 6-26). You want to close all of

the other minor holes first. Leave thecircled sphere for last, we will get toit later when we cap the back of themodel.

Figure 6-25. Model shown with spheres indicatingmesh problems

When repairing meshes withlarge holes or missing areas, donot click AutoRepair All as thiscan cause the program to im-mediately crash. In addition,you want to close the back ofthe model ourselves to controlhow it is closed. You don’t wanta big autorepaired blob, youwant a nice, smooth cap.



Figure 6-26. Model shown with sphere indicatinglarge area of open mesh

Repair the problem areasClicking on a sphere will repair the prob-lem. Right-clicking on the sphere will se-lect the area and allow you to edit theselected part of the mesh. When youright-click, editing options will appearon the side of the screen.

First, left-click on any red or magentaspheres to close the nonmanifold areasand reconnect the components. Thesphere and indicator line will disappearafter you click on it, indicating that theproblem is resolved.

Next, close all of the holes by clicking onthe blue spheres, with the exception ofthe sphere that represents the large areaof missing/open mesh. Orbit around themodel to make sure you get them all.

Select the last sphereNext, right-click on the last blue spherethat represents the large area of openmesh (see Figure 6-27). The blue edgeswill now have a dark orange tint to themwhere the mesh is selected, as shown inFigure 6-28.

Figure 6-27. One sphere left—time to cap the hole

Figure 6-28. Selected edges

Smooth out the edgesFrom the menu at the top of the screen,select Analysis and then Smooth Bound-ary, as shown in Figure 6-29.

Then click Accept from the top menu.Figure 6-30 shows the result.

79Chapter 6


Figure 6-29. Smoothed edges

Figure 6-30. Done smoothing

Closing Large Areas of MissingMeshFirst repair the model and smooth theboundary, as outlined previously. Then:

Rotate the model (if necessary)For this example, the model needed tobe rotated so that the sides could be ex-truded (see Figure 6-31). You may needto rotate your model to get a better viewof the missing mesh area.

Figure 6-31. Rotated model

Select ExtrudeWith the boundary still selected, clickthe Select menu → “Edit” → “Extrude”.

Mesh selections in MeshMixer willstay selected until you manuallyclick Clear Selection/in the Selectmenu, or press Esc.

Extrude the modelFrom the extrusion options panel,choose Flat from the EndType drop-down menu.

Under Offset, choose an offset numberthat is negative. You can drag the greybar behind the Offset label to the left orright to change the offset extrusion.



You may also need to change the Direc-tion option to get a straight extrusion. Inthis example, the direction was changedto “Y Axis.”

When you are satisfied, click Accept thetop navigation bar. Our model nowlooks like Figure 6-32.

Figure 6-32. Extruded sides

Smooth, then rotateFrom the top navigation bar, click onModify Selection menu and selectSmooth Boundary.

Then click Accept.

Rotate your model so that you are look-ing head on at the open area. (SeeFigure 6-33.)

Figure 6-33. Rotated model

Sometimes MeshMixer willcrash at this stage. It will usu-ally allow you to open the mod-el again. Save often in the de-fault MeshMixer .mix format toensure that none of yourchanges are lost.

Transform facesFrom the Deform menu, select Trans-form Faces.

Arrows in the x,y,z plane will appear.Scale the extrusion in by dragging onthe white box between the arrows.Do not close the hole completely.Figure 6-34 shows this.

Then click Accept.

Erase and fillNow we need to close the hole. From theEdit menu (under Select), select Erase &Fill.

Then click Accept. The result is shown inFigure 6-35.

81Chapter 6


Figure 6-34. Closing faces

Figure 6-35. Erasing and filling

The model should be manifold and appear“capped” with a flat back.

DeselectThis model has some ridges in the roof-line resulting from the extrusion thatneed to be smoothed out and repaired.

Click on the Select menu in the naviga-tion bar and click Clear Selection, to clearthe previous selection. See Figure 6-36.

Figure 6-36. Preparing to reduce a ridge

Smooth with the Flatten and Reduce BrushesThese ridges will not smooth out withthe Smooth brush, so we need to useadditional brush tools.

Select and use the Flatten and Reducebrushes (Figure 6-37) to flatten out thebumps.

Then use the brush to soften it out.Figure 6-38 shows the results.



Figure 6-37. MeshMixer Brushes

Figure 6-38. Reduce brush results

Export your file as an STL and then open itup in NetFabb. See Figure 6-39.

Slice and repair in netfabbUse the same process detailed in “Repairand Clean Up in netfabb” on page 72 toslice off unwanted parts of the model,repair the mesh, and then export it as abinary STL. Your model should now becapped, cropped, and ready for printing(Figure 6-40)!

Figure 6-41 shows a photo of the final print-ed model.

83Chapter 6


Figure 6-39. The model in netfabb

Figure 6-40. Model ready to print

Figure 6-41. Printed scan of the gothic fountain out-side the Providence Athenaeum

Scan Your World

With the tools and techniques outlined inthis chapter, you’re ready to scan anythingthat you can convince to sit still for a while.And even if you end up with messy meshes,you can clean your can up well enough thatyou should be able to print almost anythingyou can scan. It’s time to digitize the worldaround you.

The scans and models from thischapter are available on Thingi-verse and 123D Gallery.



Scan Your World

http://www.thingiverse.com/akaziuna

http://www.thingiverse.com/akaziuna

http://www.123dapp.com/Search/Index.cfm?keyword=anna+kaziunas+france



http://kaziunas.com

http://kaziunas.com



WRITTEN BY KEITH HAMMOND

Use digital photos and a 3D printer to make a miniplastic replica of your noggin.

Here’s a great project to get you started in 3Dprinting—create a 3D model of your ownhead and then print it out in solid plastic(Figure 7-1).

Figure 7-1. A build plate full of heads

A 3D printer makes an object by squirtingout a tiny filament of hot plastic, adding onelayer at a time. Because it adds material rath-er than cutting away at it, 3D printing iscalled additive manufacturing. You send theprinter a file that’s a 3D model of something—an iPod case, a bike part, your head—thenit prints out the object for you. These ma-chines are becoming affordable for schools,labs, libraries, and families, and there’s lots of

software out there for creating 3D files toprint.

We chose Autodesk 123D software becauseit’s free, it’s web-based so you can use it fromany computer, and amazingly, it lets you cre-ate a 3D model directly from digital photos.That way, you can do it all from home, andyou don’t have to get yourself scanned by alaser scanner or fiddle with a Kinect.

When you’re done making your 3D model,you can print it even if you don’t have a print-er: you can take it to a makerspace wherethey have a 3D printer, or you can send it outto a service and they’ll print it and mail it rightto your home. We printed our heads on anUltimaker printer, using Cura as the printersoftware. It was easy!

Imagine what else you could 3D print withthese tools. Instead of printing your head,why not replicas of buildings or sculptures atan art museum? Or you could make modelsof your pets, your car—almost anything youcan capture in photos.

85

Print Your Head in3D! 7

Required tools

• Computer with Internet access and aweb browser.

• MeshMixer software (optional), free.

• 3D printer and computer with printersoftware (optional). If you don’t haveaccess to a 3D printer, just send your 3Dmodel to a service instead, and they’llprint it and mail it to you (see step 10).

1. Register with Autodesk123D

Go to http://123dapp.com and create a freeaccount. For this project, we’ll use the webapp for 123D Catch. It stitches your digitalphotos together into a 3D model.

Autodesk recently updated 123D Catch soyou can 3D print your head two ways: eithersend your model out to be printed for you,or download it so you can print it yourself.(There’s a powerful desktop PC version of

123D Catch, but you won’t need it for thisproject.)

2. Take Digital Photos ofYour Head

You’ll want a friend’s help with this part. Youcan use a cellphone camera or a nice DSLR—the better the camera, the better 123D Catchwill work. Shooting in full shade works best.

Sit still while your friend snaps 30 to 40 pho-tos of your head, in two separate loops mov-ing completely around you—one lowerloop, and one higher loop where the top ofyour head is seen clearly. This will preventunwanted holes in your head where the soft-ware is missing part of the scene. For bestresults, make sure your head fills most of theframe.

If you’re going to stick out your tongue ormake a face, ask your friend to work fast soyou can hold your expression. But rememberto keep the camera still and focused whensnapping each photo because blurry imagesmay confuse the software and cause weirdhorns on your head.


1. Register with Autodesk 123D

http://www.meshmixer.com

http://123dapp.com

3. Create a New Capture

In 123D Catch, upload all of your head pho-tos. In the Model Resolution pull-downmenu, select High (For Fabrication). Giveyour model a name and click Create Model.

Autodesk’s servers will automatically stitchall your photos together to make a 3D model,and then put the model in your My Projectssection.

4. Open Your 3D Model

You’re looking at yourself as a 3D model! It’sgot a realistic texture, like your original pho-tos. You can Dolly, Pan, and Orbit to moveyour view around, by using those three but-tons on the righthand toolbar.

On the same toolbar, select Material & Out-lines to see the 3D mesh that’s underneaththe texture. Cool!

5. Edit Your 3D Model

My 3D model had a crazy horn on the backof my head, maybe because we took somephotos that were blurry or too far away. Italso captured background elements

(Figure 7-2) that we didn’t want to print. Toremove major unwanted features, use theSelect Faces tool to highlight them, and thenDelete them. (Or highlight your model, clickInvert Selection, and delete everything butyour model.)

Figure 7-2. Background elements

To snip a horn (Figure 7-3) from your head,use the Delete & Fill tool, then use theSmooth Brush to round it off (Figure 7-4).Trim your model to size and save it under anew name.

87Chapter 7

3. Create a New Capture

Figure 7-3. Finding a horn

Figure 7-4. Trimming down the horn

6. Make It “Watertight”

Click on Inspect Model and Cap All to auto-matically repair any holes.

The bottom of your model will be closednow, but it might be an extended blob. Forbest results on the 3D printer, your modelshould be flat on the bottom (Figure 7-5).Click on Plane Cut Model, then drag and/orrotate the plane to where you want to slicethe bottom off your model (Figure 7-6). ClickApply and your model will have a flat bot-tom. Resave your model to My Projects.

Figure 7-5. The view from the bottom

Figure 7-6. Slicing off the bottom

You can export your model as an STL file forprinting now, or fool with it some more usingMeshMixer software as shown in Step 7.

7. Embellish It (Optional)

MeshMixer (free from http://meshmixer.com)is a powerful tool for editing 3D models andmerging them together. Autodesk recentlyacquired it, and it’s frequently updated. Be-fore using it, we recommend that you watchthe video tutorials at http://youtube.com/user/meshmixer.


6. Make It “Watertight”

http://meshmixer.com

http://youtube.com/user/meshmixer

http://youtube.com/user/meshmixer

For a quick-and-dirty pedestal, open yourSTL file in MeshMixer. Select the whole mesh(Ctrl-A or Cmd-A), then select Edits→PlaneCut to slice off the bottom. Select the bottomface of the model and click Edits→Extrude. Inthe Tool Properties bar on the right, set theEndType to Flat. Then click and drag the Off-set bar to extend your model, creating a sim-ple pedestal that’s perfectly flat. Click Acceptand save a new STL file.

To merge your head with a fancy pedestal,start with a 123D mesh that’s still open onthe bottom. Select the whole mesh, chooseEdit→Convert to Part, and click Accept. Lookat the Parts bar on the left: your head is nowa “part” you can merge with other parts. Nowimport an STL file of a pedestal—I like thepawn from Mark Durbin’s Column ChessSet. Open it in MeshMixer, scale it to matchyour head, then drag your head onto it tomerge the two. If it doesn’t work the firsttime, try Edit→Remesh. Save the result as anew STL file.

You can do lots more with MeshMixer(Figure 7-7). Put bunny ears on your head, orstick octopus tentacles on it, or make your-self a two-headed monster. Or put your headon a Pez candy dispenser!

Figure 7-7. Keithtopus

8. Share Your Model(Optional)

When your model is done, click Publish toGallery. Now anyone can open it in a webbrowser and play with it. (If you’re using thedesktop version of 123D Catch, you canmake a video animation and send it straightto YouTube.)

9. Save Your Final Model asa Printable File (Optional)

To print your own head, you need a copy ofyour 3D model in a format that 3D printerscan understand. Export your model from123D Catch (or from MeshMixer) as an STLfile.

If you’re sending your head out to be printedby Autodesk, you can skip this step.

10. 3D Print Your Head!

We printed our heads on the Ultimaker in theMAKE Labs, which we like because it’s fastand accurate—and because you can buy itas a kit and build it yourself. We’ve also had

89Chapter 7

8. Share Your Model (Optional)



good success with a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic (Figure 7-8).

Figure 7-8. Printing your head

First, open your STL file in the 3D printer’ssoftware, which tells the printer exactlywhere to make trails with the hot plastic tobuild up your object. For example, if yourMakerBot uses ReplicatorG software, importyour STL file, center the model and put it onthe platform, then scale it to your desiredsize. Next, choose Generate GCode, selectthe default print profile, and check the UsePrint-O-Matic checkbox. Now hit Print.

Watch in amazement as your head material-izes before your eyes.

If there’s no 3D printer close by, that’s OK—lots of service companies will print out your3D model for you. At http://123dapp.com, se-lect your project and click Fabricate→3DPrint to send your file to Autodesk’s digitalfabrication service and receive your 3D-printed plastic head in your mailbox. It onlycosts about $10 for a 3"-tall head.

Or try sending your file to Shapeways or Po-noko, or in Europe, try Sculpteo or i.materal-ise. Some of these services will even print outyour head in ceramic, glass, steel, silver, gold,or titanium!

Keith Hammond is Projects Editor of MAKEmagazine. He grew up reading ScientificAmerican, National Geographic, and Spy inthe 1980s, coedited The Nose and MotherJones Online in the 1990s, lobbied Congressfor wilderness protection in the 2000s, andjoined Maker Media in 2007.


10. 3D Print Your Head!

http://123dapp.com

http://shapeways.com

http://ponoko.com

http://ponoko.com

PART IV

Materials

WRITTEN BY SEAN RAGAN AND MATT STULTZ

An overview of 3D printing filament—from rigid torubbery to dissolvable.

Desktop 3D printing filaments used to belimited to ABS and PLA, but there are now arange of different materials on the market.Basic printing temperature ranges are listedhere, but keep in mind that recommendednozzle and bed temperatures vary with fila-ment suppliers and the printer used. In ad-dition, when printing at accelerated speeds,the upper temperature range is recom-mended to keep the filament moving andavoid clogged nozzles.

For a list of vendors that sell 3D printer fila-ment, see “Printers, Filament, and Parts” onpage 203.

Polylactic Acid (PLA)

PLA is available in many colors and can beopaque or translucent. A popular choice for3D printing, it is plant-derived (corn or po-tatoes) and biodegradable. LayWoo-d3, Lay-Brick and FlexPLA are all specialized varietiesof PLA. All varieties of PLA also adhere wellto heated kapton or glass at 60º, which pro-duces a smooth bottom surface finish on theprinted part.

Nozzle temp: 185–235°C

Bed temp: Ambient to 60°C

Print surface: Blue painter’s tape, heated glass, Kapton tape, signcutting vinyl

Polylactic Acid (Soft/Flexible PLA)

Soft PLA is rubbery and flexible when print-ed, but comes in limited colors. For best re-sults, print at a lower printing speed thanregular PLA.


Bed temp: Ambient

Print surface: Blue painter’s tape, heated glass

LAYWOO-D3

This filament looks and smells “like wood”(made from 40% recycled wood and a bind-ing polymer) and comes a variety of shades.Vary the print temperature for a cool effect:it’s lighter at low temperatures, darker athigher ones. LayWoo-d3 may leave threadsbehind during non-extrusion moves of theprint head.

Nozzle temp: 175-250°C

Bed temp: Ambient

Print surface: Blue painter’s tape

93

Plastics for 3DPrinting 8

LAYBRICK

This filament has a rough texture that lookssimilar to sandstone when printed. It can bebrittle. Use a print temperature of 165-190for a smooth finish and 210-230 for a roughfinish.


Bed temp: Ambient


Acrylonitrile ButadieneStyrene (ABS)

ABS is the plastic used in LEGO bricks andcomes in a rainbow of colors. A commonlyused 3D printing plastic, it requires a heatedbed for proper adhesion.


Bed temp: 90–115°C

Print surface: Kapton tape

High Impact Polystyrene(HIPS)

HIPS can be used for printing final parts or asLimonene dissolvable support material. Itprints better than and is much cheaper thanPVA. HIPS prints have great surface finish tothem that helps hide the print lines. For moreon how to use HIPS as a support material, seeMatt Stultz’s post.


Bed temp: 115°C


Nylon

Easily dyed (see Chapter 12), but can be dif-ficult to use due to shrink/warp/curling

problems. Good for both strong and low-friction parts and is flexible when printed inthin layers.

Nozzle temp: 235-260°C, but bonds best at 245° C

Bed temp: Ambient

Print surface: Scored nylon sheet, Garolite

Polyethylene Terephthalate(PET)

A crystal-clear, colorless filament that isstrong and impact-resistant. Printing atthicker layer heights results in better opticalclarity.


Bed temp: Ambient-65°C

Print surface: Blue painter’s tape, Kapton Tape, glass

Polycarbonate (PC)

Printing with polycarbonate requires high-temperature nozzle design, like the Prusanozzle. This filament is considered experi-mental.


Bed temp: 85°–95°C



LAYBRICK

http://www.3dppvd.org/wp/2013/02/soluble-support-material/

High-density Polyethylene(HDPE)

HDPE is difficult to use due to shrink/warp/curling problems and is rarely used.


Bed temp: Ambient

Print surface: Polypropylene sheet

Polycaprolactone PCL

Also known as MakerBot Flexible Filament,PCL is a biodegradable polyester. It has a verylow melting point (58-60° C) and can beheated in hot water and reformed. It is alsocommonly known as InstaMorph or Poly-morph.

Nozzle temp: 100° C

Bed temp: Ambient

Print surface: Acrylic

Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA)

PVA is sometimes used as a support materialand dissolves in water. It is expensive and canbe difficult to work with.


Bed temp: 50°C


There are some new types of PVAthat will be available soon that willrequire different extrusion temper-atures. The temperatures listed arefor PVA that is currently on themarket at the time of this writing.

Matt Stultz is the is the leader of the 3D PrintingProvidence group, founder of HackPittsburgh,and a MakerBot alumnus, with experience inmultimaterial printing and advanced materi-als.

95Chapter 8

High-density Polyethylene (HDPE)

WRITTEN BY STUART DEUTSCH

A materials guide for 3D printing services.

There has never been a better time to pur-chase a desktop 3D printer. Nonetheless,they are still too expensive for many users. Ifyou can’t justify the cost of a personal printer,you may be able to access one at a localhackerspace, and there are many online 3Dprinting services to choose from, includingPonoko, Shapeways, and i.materialise. Thesecompanies use a variety of printing technol-ogies to create physical objects from yourdigital designs and can print in many othermaterials besides extruded thermoplastic.

Composites and Ceramics

Powder bed and inkjet printers use inkjet-type print heads to deposit tiny droplets ofliquid binder on top of a thin layer of powder.Once the build platform lowers, a rollerspreads and compacts a fresh layer of pow-der across the surface. The final object is es-sentially a stack of powder layers finely gluedtogether. Dyed binders can be used in cer-tain machines to produce full-color displaymodels (Figure 9-1). Treatment with superglue and UV protectants can improve modelstrength and reduce color fading.

Figure 9-1. Bowie the Bunny in fine mineral power,with color binders, via power bed/inkjet process

The powder bed/inkjet system can also beused to create food-safe ceramic models(Figure 9-2). The use of ceramic powder hasbecome quite popular with online printerswho now offer a rainbow of single-color op-tions. After removal from the powder bed,raw ceramic parts undergo a series of heattreatments to dry, fire, and glaze the model,improving both strength and appearance.

97

Industrial Materialsand Methods 9

Figure 9-2. Food-safe ceramic, via powder bed/inkjet process, followed by heat treatment

Plastics

Stereolithography (SLA)Stereolithography is the original 3D printingprocess, in which a liquid plastic resin is se-lectively hardened by exposure to high-intensity light, often from a laser. After thelaser has drawn a 2D path along the surface,the freshly polymerized model layer is low-ered into the surrounding resin bath. The la-ser traces over the fresh surface, curing andjoining the resin to the previous layer. SLAproduces prints of exceptional smoothness.

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)Selective laser sintering uses a high-powerlaser to melt and fuse particles of very fineplastic powder, often nylon (Figure 9-3). Thelaser scans across a leveled and compactedpowder surface, and when each layer is com-pleted, the entire bed is lowered and freshpowder is spread on top. As the laser worksits way across the new layer, molten powderparticles in the top surface fuse to each otherand to the layer below. The unfused powderacts as support material, so SLS fabricationworks well for models that have thin sec-tions, overhangs, or complex geometries.

Figure 9-3. Fused nylon powder, via selective lasersintering

SLS is one of the most economical 3D print-ing methods and is forgiving in terms ofdesign guidelines. Most vendors charge byvolume of powder consumed, so you canoften save money by “hollowing out” solidmodels and printing them as shells. Mostvendors also charge for “trapped” powder,however, so models printed as shells willusually need to include at least one smallhole so that the powder can be recoveredwhen the print is done.

Photopolymer JettingPhotopolymer jetting uses movable heads,like an inkjet printer, to deposit droplets ofresin onto a build platform through a num-ber of very small jets. Once the droplets arein position, a UV lamp moves across the plat-form to harden the resin. A support materialmay be printed surrounding the dropletsand can be removed, manually or by wash-ing, once the print is complete. Photopoly-mer jetting can create very finely detailedmodels with smooth surfaces and multiplematerials—tinted, clear, rigid, flexible, etc.—in a single print (Figure 9-4). It is not widelyavailable from 3D printing services, yet.


Plastics

Figure 9-4. UV-curing acrylic, via photopolymer jet-ting

Metals

Direct Metal Laser Sintering(DMLS)Direct metal laser sintering uses a laser to di-rectly fuse certain metal powders, such as ti-tanium, in a fashion very similar to SLS inplastics. Other specialty alloys can be printedvia DMLS, but high costs and stricter designguidelines make the process less accessibleto beginners.

Direct Metal PrintingDirect metal printing uses a multistep meth-od to create powder-based metallic models,mainly from stainless steel. First, the objectis printed into a bed of very fine stainlesssteel powder using the inkjet-binder pro-cess.

A carefully controlled heat treatment thenburns out the plastic binder and fuses thesteel particles together. Finally, the poroussintered model is infused with molten

bronze, which wicks into the empty spacesand fills them (Figure 9-5). The finished mod-el is a kind of stainless steel sponge filled withbronze, and can be given a variety of surfacetreatments, including plating with gold orother metals.

Figure 9-5. Bronze-infused stainless steel, via directmetal printing

Indirect Printing MethodsIndirect printing methods create positive ornegative models that can be used with con-ventional casting processes to create metalparts. For instance, a sacrificial model of apart can be 3D printed in a wax-like resin us-ing stereolithography, and then duplicatedin metal using the traditional lost-wax pro-cess. Alternately, the powder bed/inkjet pro-cess can be used to print molds in silica sandor other traditional foundry media, which arethen used to cast metal parts in the normalway.

Dr. Stuart Deutsch is a materials consultant inthe NYC area and executive editor at Tool-Guyd.com.

99Chapter 9

Metals

PART V

Services

WRITTEN BY COLLEEN JORDAN

How and why to use 3D printing services instead of adesktop machine.

I’m incredibly lucky to have a job that eventwo years ago I never would have imaginedcould exist. I create 3D-printed jewelry andown a business, Wearable Planter, all thanksto tools and technology that have only beenavailable for a few years.

When I studied industrial design at GeorgiaTech from 2006–2010, 3D printing wasn’t atool we used frequently. We learned how touse 3D design programs to mock up ourprojects, but we typically used the resulting3D files for product rendering. Of course wehad access to a 3D printer, but few peopleknew how to use it, and the models it madewere fragile and expensive.

It wasn’t until my last semester of collegethat I worked on a project that required 3Dprinting. I handed the flash drive with myfiles to the lab assistant, thinking it wouldnever work, and then watched with amaze-ment as my jewelry piece was printed layerby layer exactly as I had intended.

Most people with the desire to imagine andprototype a new product don’t have imme-diate access to a professional-quality 3Dprinter. The good news is that access to this

technology is increasing at an unpreceden-ted rate.

When I design a new product or piece ofjewelry, I begin by creating sketches of whatit will look like. This part of the process oftentakes the longest, as I am deciding on theform and feel of the object. I then create a 3Dmodel in SolidWorks, Rhino, or whicheverprogram I feel will allow me the most crea-tivity with my knowledge of the software.After I’m done creating, I export the file forprinting, and I run checks with a program likeNetfabb Studio to make sure it’s suitable forprinting.

I then use 3D printing services like Shape-ways and Ponoko—both to prototype andto create my final products.

When I use these services, I have to wait twoweeks or longer to see how my print turnedout. That can seem like a long time, but itaffords you a new perspective when you’reforced to step away from your project mo-mentarily. Sometimes when I get my firstprint back it’s exactly what I was expecting,but often I see changes that need to bemade, whether in material choice or wallthicknesses or other details.

103

3D Printing Without aPrinter 10

Portable Greenery 3D-Printed Mini Pots from Wearable Planter

The fantastic thing about using 3D printingservices is that I’m able to run a business withtools that these companies have created—to experiment with different materials andnew products inexpensively and with littleoverhead. In the past, creating a prototypecould be costly, and production of even alimited run of items could be thousands ofdollars. Also, I’m able to keep a limited in-ventory on hand because I can restock itquickly. This beats previous business modelswhere I might have needed to order a cargocontainer full of pieces from overseas.

There are more advantages to using 3Dprinting services than just running a busi-ness. We’re coming into a new era wheremass customization is driving the produc-tion of new objects. Access to these technol-

ogies is now open to everyone, from begin-ners making character models with Mine-craft to doctors making personalized pros-thetics.

For example, if you’d like to create your ownphone case or dishware, but don’t have any3D modeling experience, you can use one ofthe many “creator” programs to make yourown customized item. Sculpteo and the So-ciety for Printable Geography recently re-leased an app to create iPhone cases with theterrain of your favorite place. Shapeways letsyou create a sake set by playing around withthe shape of curves. These apps let you cre-ate your own unique manufactured itemwith minimal cost.


3D Printing Without a Printer

These companies have also begun to offertraining so you can learn to use their tools.Ponoko offers online training classes, aimedat beginners, that are free to watch and par-ticipate in. Shapeways offers Skillshareclasses to teach introductory skills as well asmore complex, generative software.

Sending your work off to 3D printing serviceshas many advantages over using equallypopular desktop 3D printers. You won’t havethe up front investment of $300 to $2,000,and you won’t spend time tinkering with set-tings and hardware. You also can create morecomplex and higher-resolution objects, asdesktop 3D printing still doesn’t match thequality of professional machines.

The technology does come with its disad-vantages. As this is a rapidly growing field,sometimes the demand is greater than thecapabilities of these companies, and unex-pected delays in lead times arise. The qualityof materials isn’t always as good as a similarmass-produced piece; 3D-printed plastic

parts, for example, can be more fragile thana similar injection-molded piece. And, im-portantly, not all of these materials are food-safe or suitable for use in toys. While thesedisadvantages may discourage you, keep inmind that this amazing technology wasn’tavailable to the public even five years ago,and it’s developing very quickly.

If you have an idea you’d like to bring to life,there’s no better time to see what may comefrom it. Check out “3D Products Now on theMarket” on page 151 to see see how all kindsof makers are taking advantage of 3D print-ing services, Chapter 11 for where to havethem made, and Chapter 9 for a rundown ofavailable materials.

Colleen Jordan is a designer and maker wholikes to create objects that make life moreinteresting. She is the founder of WearablePlanter, and dreams of one day having a petdinosaur.

105Chapter 10

3D Printing Without a Printer

http://wearableplanter.com:

http://wearableplanter.com:

COMPILED BY COLLEEN JORDAN, STETT HOLBROOK,

AND ANNA KAZIUNAS FRANCE

These companies will print your models in a range ofexotic materials.

If you don’t have a 3D printer, you can stillenjoy the benefits and fun of turning a CADfile into a physical object. It’s well worth get-ting familiar with the growing number of 3Dprinting service providers, and commercialproviders can print in a surprising range ofmaterials not available to the home printeruser. Even if you do own a printer, it’s greatto be able to turn a piece of art or technologyyou prototyped in plastic into something en-during, like titanium or stainless steel.

Figure 11-1. A Strandbeest mechanism by Theo Jan-sen, printed in nylon on an EOS selective laser sinter-ing (SLS) machine at Shapeways headquarters inNew York. Dust it off and it’s ready to walk.

Upload Files and OrderPrints

Shapewayshttp://shapeways.com

Shapeways caters to hobbyists and design-ers, offering high-quality prints in a widerange of materials, including sterling silver,stainless steel, brass, and ceramic. They oftenhave the lowest prices, but with productionbased in the Netherlands, their stated ship-ping times of 2–3 weeks haven’t always beenaccurate. They recently built a productionfacility in New York to meet demand.

Shapeways also offers a marketplace of de-signs where users can open their own shops.Because theirs is the most visible of theseservices, having a shop on their site is almostessential to getting started selling your work.There’s little up-front cost or commitment.

107

Service Providers 11


Ponokohttp://ponoko.com

Ponoko offers 3D printing in a wide range ofmaterials, from plastics and ceramics tostainless steel, gold plate, and Z Corp plas-ters. They also offer laser cutting and CNCrouting in a huge variety of materials, so youcan supplement your 3D-printed projectwith other custom parts.

Prints from Ponoko are generally very goodquality and reasonably priced, but their pric-ing structure and system for uploading mod-els are confusing. They do have a very goodsupport staff who will go above and beyondto help you with any questions. Ponoko op-erates several regional production facilities,so printing and shipping times vary.

Sculpteohttp://sculpteo.com

Material choices from this France-basedcompany include multicolored plastic, resin,ceramic, wax, alumide, and sterling silver.The company sells a sample kit of materialsfor $5. They offer a preview and live printa-bility check that is very useful, and automaticmodel repair inside the web interface. Theyalso offer many “creator” apps for you to be-gin making right away. Shipping times varyfrom 1–30 days depending on the material(upload your files for real-time estimates).Users may also post their objects for sale onthe company’s website.

i.materialisehttp://i.materialise.com

Another 3D printing service based out of theNetherlands, i.materialise has a very clearand easy-to-use interface. Choose frommore than 20 materials—including titani-um!—and print objects as large as 6 feet.

Objects you create can be sold on the com-pany’s gallery. Depending on your location,objects ship in 1–5 days.

Kraftwurxhttp://www.kraftwurx.com

Kraftwurx is a platform that enables individ-uals to create, buy, sell, and display 3D-printed products. Headquarted in Houston,TX, Kraftwurx does not own a factory but in-stead uses a network of over 120 manufac-turers for local on-demand production. Thisdistributed production model allows themto provide 85 different materials, includinggold, sterling silver, titanium, Iconel, stain-less steel, Platinum, plastics, and paper.

Staples (partnering with Mcor)http://staples.myeasy3d.com/

Myeasy3D is a collaboration between Sta-ples and Mcor, the producer of the Iris fullcolor paper 3D printer. This service is cur-rently only available in Europe.

Makers Producing PartsLocally

makexyzhttp://www.makexyz.com

makexyz connects local 3D printer ownersand people who need 3D prints. If you havea printer, registration is free and you can alsoadvertise design services. If you need printsproduced, you choose a listed printer nearyou, upload your 3D file, configure your op-tions, and then check out through makexyz.The printer can either accept or decline yourorder, and you can have your print shippedor pick it up.


Makers Producing Parts Locally

http://ponoko.com

http://sculpteo.com

http://i.materialise.com

http://www.kraftwurx.com

http://staples.myeasy3d.com/

http://www.makexyz.com

3D Hubshttp://www.3dhubs.com

3D Hubs works in a similar way to makexyz:it aims to facilitate transactions betweenprinter owners with those who want prints,but is also focused on building communityand critical mass as “local print hubs” in anarea before it begins connecting makers.Check out the web site for available 3D Hubsnear you.

Find Me a Printer

Print Chomphttps://www.printchomp.com

Print Chomp provides printing quotes for avariety of printed goods, from 3D printing tobusiness cards to banners. You upload yourfile and configure your options and theysend you a quote.

Professional-GradeServices

ZoomRP.comhttp://zoomrp.com

Here’s a self-service website for those whoneed plastic prototypes in a hurry. The site,a division of Solid Concepts, specializes insame-day 3D printing and shipping, withnext-day and next-week options too. It’s bestsuited for customers who know their wayaround CAD and 3D design. Fast, but it costsmore.

RedEyehttp://redeyeondemand.com

RedEye, a division of 3D printing giant Stra-tasys, serves the architectural, medical, en-gineering, and aerospace industries with

rapid prototyping. The company prints ob-jects in various thermoplastics, UV photo-polymers, and resins. Professional services,professional prices. Shipping time rangesfrom 1–2 weeks.

3D Factoryhttp://www.3dfactoryusa.com

3D Factory is based in NYC and focuses onthe jewelry industry. Their services include3D printing, casting, stone setting, finishing,and 3D scanning services. 3DPhactory alsoprovides consulting and design services.

Boutique 3DP Design andPrinting

3dPhacktoryhttp://3dphacktory.com

3dPhacktory is located in Toronto, Canada,and provides both 3D printing and designservices that can ship printed designs within48 hours. They offer 24-hour rapid prototyp-ing turnaround, personalization, and 3Dscanning services through Industrial Pixel.Customers are encouraged to visit the3DPhacktory collaborative with their de-signers or rent time on a workstation anddesign themselves. They also provide post-production services.

Solid-Ideashttp://www.solid-ideas.com

Solid-Ideas is a boutique model-making anddesign agency in Northern California that of-fers model-making, prototyping, and cus-tom fabrication services. They specialize inprofessional services for architecture, mar-keting, and other fields that take productsfrom conceptual design to prototypes andmarketing models.

109Chapter 11

Find Me a Printer

http://www.3dhubs.com

https://www.printchomp.com

http://zoomrp.com

http://redeyeondemand.com

http://www.3dfactoryusa.com

http://3dphacktory.com

http://www.solid-ideas.com

Colleen Jordan is a the founder of WearablePlanter (http://wearableplanter.com).

Stett Holbrook is a senior editor at MAKE.

Anna Kaziunas France is the Digital Fabrica-tion Editor at Maker Media.


Boutique 3DP Design and Printing

http://wearableplanter.com

PART VI

Finishing Techniques

WRITTEN BY COLLEEN JORDAN

How to add color to your nylon (or polyamide) printswith nylon with fabric dye.

Have you created something with 3D print-ing? Many design students and hobbyistsnow have access to the technology thanksto services like Shapeways and Ponoko. Ifyou print your objects in polyamide, you candye them at home to whatever color youwant. Polyamide is a porous material thataccepts color really well. Some companiesoffer dyeing of your prints for you, but thatadds extra processing time and is only avail-able in a small range of colors.

If you’re tired of the boring white that many3D prints come in, we will show you how toadd color to your prints (Figure 12-1). This isa tutorial for dyeing nylon (or polyamide) 3Dprints with fabric dye. This material is knownby different names at different printing com-panies. Shapeways calls it “White Strong andFlexible”, Ponoko calls it “Durable Plastic”,Sculpteo “White Plastic”, and iMaterialise“Polyamide”. We’ll use Rit brand dyes in ourtutorial since they are easy to find in craft,fabric, and grocery stores. You can also dyeyour prints with Jacquard brand acid dyeswith a similar process, but that will requirecarefully measuring vinegar to change theacidity of the solution and constantly heat-ing the solution.

Figure 12-1. The author’s Wearable Planter

This process is similar to dyeing fabric, andwe learned a lot about how to dye 3D printsby reading this article on dyeing techniquesby Rit.

If you have a desktop 3D printer,you can dye filament (see “Nylon”on page 94) prior to printing to ach-ieve a “tie-dyed” look. Check outRichRap’s seminal tutorial on howto dye nylon filament.

113

How to Dye Your3D Prints 12

http://www.ritdye.com/dyeing-techniques/microwave

http://www.ritdye.com/dyeing-techniques/microwave

http://richrap.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/3d-printing-with-nylon-618-filament-in.html

1. Gather Your Materials

The first thing that you will need to do isgather your materials (Figure 12-2). You’llneed your nylon 3D prints, your desired colorof fabric dye, a bowl to do the dyeing in,measuring spoons, and boiling water (notpictured). We also recommend having ac-cess to a microwave to reheat your solutionwhile dyeing as needed.

Figure 12-2. Supplies

Decide which color you would like to dyeyour prints. Rit has a great guide to tell youwhich colors you can dye your prints with(http://www.ritdye.com/colorit_color_formula_guide); other brands of dye will have sim-ilar guides. Nylon absorbs the dye reallyquickly, and we usually use slightly less dyethan the guides recommend. For this batchof bike planters we will be dyeing them usingRit’s Sunshine Orange. We’re using 1.5 tsp ofpowdered dye to 1.5 cups of boiling water.

Remember that you are working with fabricdye that will stain clothes and shoes. So if youcare about the clothes that you are wearing,wear an apron or change into somethingthat you don’t love so much. Fabric dye canalso stain your skin, so wear latex gloves ifyou don’t want tinted hands. Rit dye will

come off easily with scrubbing, so if you doget some on your skin, it can be easily re-moved.

2. Soak Your Pieces

Before you begin the dyeing process, soakyour prints (Figure 12-3) for at least 30 mi-nutes. We recommend doing this overnightif you have the time. Having your prints sa-turated will allow the dye to color the piecesmore evenly. This will also help remove anydust on the surface of your prints left overfrom the printing process. If there is residualpowder on the surface of your prints, it willaffect the color of piece. The powder will bedyed and will come off easily when the pieceis dry, leaving a white spot underneath.

Figure 12-3. Soaking

The piece shown in Figure 12-4 had someleftover powder stuck to it when it was dyed,and you can see the large white area left be-hind from removing the powder.


1. Gather Your Materials

http://www.ritdye.com/colorit_color_formula_guide

http://www.ritdye.com/colorit_color_formula_guide

Figure 12-4. A blotchy piece

3. Add Color

Carefully measure your required amount ofdye (Figure 12-5) and add your boiling water.Stir it really well so all of the powder is dis-solved in solution (Figure 12-6).

Figure 12-5. The dye in the container

Figure 12-6. Stirring it well

Add your prints to the solution and stir(Figure 12-7). Agitate the solution frequentlyto ensure that your prints are colored evenly.The longer that you leave your prints in thesolution, the more saturated the color willbe. These prints stayed in the dye for aboutsix minutes to achieve the color shown. If youneed to leave your prints in the solutionlonger, microwave it at 15- to 30-second in-crements to reheat the water to near boilingtemperature. We’ve noticed that some dyesrequire higher temperatures to stay in solu-tion than others. In our experience pink andblue dyes require hotter temperatures andlonger dyeing times to achieve their desiredcolors.

115Chapter 12

3. Add Color

Optional Step: Seal

Nylon is a porous material that will readily ab-sorb particles and dirt it is exposed to. We rec-ommend sealing your prints with a polymervarnish (like Liquitex) or clear acrylic paint toprotect the color and your piece from gettingdirty.

Figure 12-7. Adding the prints to the solution

4. Rinse

Rinsing your prints is very important(Figure 12-8). You can rinse them with coldwater to remove the excess dye. We also liketo let the pieces sit in boiling water for a fewminutes for any excess dye to soak out. Ifyou’re going to be dyeing jewelry or any-thing that will be worn close to the skin, thisis a very important step as excess dye couldstain the skin or clothes.

Figure 12-8. Rinsing

5. Dry

Next, dry everything out (Figure 12-9).

Figure 12-9. Drying your prints

6. Show It Off!

You just put all this hard work into your 3D-printed object—show it off (Figure 12-10)and tell everyone about it!

Figure 12-10. One of the bike planters in action


4. Rinse

This post was originally publishedon the Wearable Planter blog.

Colleen Jordan is a designer and maker wholikes to create objects that make life more in-teresting. She is the founder of Wearable Plant-er, and dreams of one day having a pet dino-saur.

117Chapter 12

6. Show It Off!

http://www.wearableplanter.com/blogs/news



WRITTEN BY MATTHEW GRIFFIN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW BAKER

Friction weld, rivet, sand, paint—arm yourself withsimple tools and finishing techniques to take your 3Dprints to the next level.

People often claim 3D printers can “makeyou anything you can imagine.” Dial up thedigital model you want, hit “Go,” and the ma-chine hums to work, producing an object ac-curately and repeatably. But as an astuteeight-year-old pointed out to me when Ihanded her two of my favorite printed mod-els at Maker Faire Bay Area last year, the re-sults don’t always match your intentions.

“That octopus is red! A TARDIS is not sup-posed to be yellow!” she wailed, and knockedmy offerings away.

While overall shape and mechanical fit arevalued more highly than surface treatmentin today’s desktop 3D printing, it’s some-times worth judging a print by its cover.

I’m reminded of advice I got from a pair ofindustrial design professors at Pratt, after Ishowed them my print of a fluorescent-green clockwork mechanism: “It is worthenormous effort to make prototypes looklike they were created from real-world ma-terials.” Even the most creative engineers

and business people will have difficulty see-ing your prototype as a machine when itlooks like a toy.

The domain of finishing techniques (i.e., ev-erything that takes place after printing) is thecraftsman’s workshop, where patience, tools,skills, and experience can transform the rawproducts of these machines into fully realiz-ed models. Like builders of dollhouses andmodel trains, many 3D printer jocks appre-ciate a loving and accurate rendering of aminiature world.

The results are impressive, but why shouldyou tackle these craft skills when you couldspend that time printing more plastic ob-jects?

Makers who have mastered finishing tech-niques are granted wizard status by fellow3D practitioners. Take artist Cosmo Wenman,who creates pieces that accurately mimicdistressed metals and stones, and sculptorJason Bakutis, whose sanded, painted, andpolished faux marble and jade prints look

119

Post-ProcessingYour Prints 13

remarkably like the real thing. Through care-ful work, pieces printed in crazy pink, green,and translucent filaments are made to re-semble clay, stone, metal, and wood. How dothey do that?

Tools and Materials

• Benchtop vise such as a PanaVise

• Pliers, combination (aka lineman’s pliers)

• Pliers, needlenose

• Multitool

•Safety goggles (I like DeWalt’s DPG82-11Cclear anti-fog model)

• Respirator for sanding/particulates (Iuse 3M’s 8511 particulate respirator)

For friction welding:

• High-speed rotary tool with 1” and 3/32”collets, such as a Dremel

• Filament for 3D printer, ABS or PLA

For heating/reworking:

• Hot air SMD rework station (Figure 13-1)or other small heat gun

• Soldering iron and solder

• Brass tube to fit snugly over your solder-ing iron tip

• Metal plate or mirror (optional) for fastcooling

• Nail, steel, large (for cooling/pressing)

For trimming/grinding:

• Deburring tool (I use Noga’s heavy dutyNG-1 model)

• Flush cutters (aka diagonal pliers) or wirecutters

• Files, narrow, diamond grit

• Coffee/spice grinder (for grinding fila-ment)

For sanding/polishing:

• Sandpaper: 80/100, 150, 220, 320, and500 grits

• 3M Wetordry Polishing Papers

• Micro-Mesh Soft Touch Pads and Col-ored Sanding Sticks

• Sanding/polishing/buffing disks for ro-tary tool

• Novus Plastic Polish Kit

For filling/gluing/painting/sealing:

• Acetone for use with ABS objects (notPLA)

• Resealable container, acetone-resistant

• Enamel hobby paints such as Testors

• Acrylic paints

• Clear-coat spray paints (I use KrylonCrystal Clear Acrylic, Matte Finish, andTriple Thick Crystal Clear Glaze; and Rust-Oleum Matte Clear and Gloss Clear).

Figure 13-1. Hot air rework station


Tools and Materials

The desktop 3D printing community has alot to learn from the sculptors, model rail-road builders, and tabletop gamers nowjoining their ranks. And as my professorspointed out, these extra steps aren’t just cos-metic. Your capacity to transform your mod-els into “magical” replicas is a crucial meansof communicating your inventions.

Tricks of the Trade

Desktop 3D printing has yet to spawn third-party finishing services like commercial 3Dprinting did a decade ago. So, without accessto acetone cloud chambers, multiaxis enam-el jet robots, agitating chemical baths, andindustrial tumblers and polishers, makershave rolled up their sleeves and discovereda host of finishing solutions using inexpen-sive tools and materials. These methods notonly affect a print in post-production, butcan often change the way we think about adigital model back in the initial designstages.

In researching my upcoming book Design for3D Printing (MAKE, 2013), I’ve interviewed awide range of members of the desktop 3Dprinter community. I’d like to share some oftheir promising tools and techniques. Inturn, I hope that those of you refining newmethods and sourcing better, safer, andcheaper products and techniques will alsoshare.

Friction Welding

The world may have forgotten the SpinWelder toy sold by Mattel in the mid-1970s,but Fran Blanche of Frantone Electronics dida great job of recreating the experience inher 2012 video “Build Your Own FrictionWelder.” Using an inexpensive rotary tool,Fran was able to spin a styrene rod fast

enough to create a strong weld between twopieces of plastic that was difficult to breakapart by hand. With the Spin Welder toy, chil-dren assembled the frames of helicopters,motorcycles, and other projects by fusingtogether beams and struts, then used plasticrivets to fasten the outer shell. Sure, it waspotentially one of the most dangerous toysof all time, but I agree with Fran’s conclusion:why haven’t tools like these joined the mak-er’s toolbox?

Unlike adhesives or traditional welding, fric-tion welding fuses metal or thermoplasticobjects together by quickly spinning or vi-brating one piece against another. Mechan-ical friction creates a melt zone shared byboth parts, fusing them into one solid piece.In friction surfacing—a variant of frictionwelding—a piece rotated at high speed ismoved across an edge or surface under gen-tle pressure to weld seams, patch gaps, orsmooth surfaces.

These techniques are common for plasticsand aluminum in the automotive and aero-space industries, but the tools are expensive.Sophisticated spin welders can spin parts athundreds of thousands of RPMs for shortbursts of even single-digit rotations, parkingthe fused part at a precise orientation. Whereare the cheap, hand-tool equivalents?

As it turns out, many of us already have theequipment to experiment with friction weld-ing. Dremels and similar high-speed rotarytools spin fast enough to melt 3D printerplastics, and printer filament can be used aswelding “rod” to solidly fuse parts or closeseams. These tools can also spin-weld 3D-printed rivets. And while it takes them a sec-ond or two to spin down again, the meltingpoints are comparatively low, allowing forsome manipulation after the fact to reposi-tion the joined part.

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Tricks of the Trade

I think both approaches—welding and riv-eting—are killer tools for 3D print finishing,particularly for “blind riveting” into the sideof an object, and for joining parts made ofPLA, which is typically much harder to gluethan ABS.

Friction WeldingMismatched Surfaces

I spent some time with Chris Hackett fromthe Madagascar Institute learning how ideasfrom traditional metal welding might applyto friction welding 3D-printed parts. We ex-perimented with the rotary tools in his work-shop and came up with the following ap-proach for creating a nice welded seam inplastic, similar to a traditional metal weld.When two printed parts don’t mate perfectlydue to warp or poor planning, you canfriction-weld them together as securely as ifthey were a single printed part. Here I’lldemonstrate with ABS parts and ABS fila-ment. It works with PLA, too.

1. Prepare the Rotary ToolSelect the collet you need for trapping thefilament you’ll be using. For 1.8 mm filament,use a 3/32” collet as shown here (three rings)and for 3 mm filament use a 1” collet (0 rings)(Figure 13-2).

Insert a short length of filament into the col-let jaws and tighten down the collet nut tosecure it in place (Figure 13-3).

Figure 13-2. Preparing the rotary tool

Figure 13-3. Insert filament into tool

Trim the filament about 1/2” from the collet.Short pieces are easier to control, and theyspin on a tighter axis. (With experience youcan use longer pieces, pressed gently at anangle, to make longer welds. You may needto straighten them by reforming them witha heat gun.)

2. Prepare Two Parts forWeldingAfter scraping and sanding, the two watchbody cases shown in (Figure 13-4) meet witha gap that varies between 0.1 mm and 2 mmaround the edges. That’s too sloppy for glu-ing, so I’ll weld them.


Friction Welding Mismatched Surfaces

Figure 13-4. Prepare parts for welding

Use a deburring tool or razor blade to bevelthe top edges of the seam where the partsmeet, forming a narrow, V-shaped channel(Figure 13-5). Your goal is to create enoughroom for three welding layers, from the bot-tom of the bevel up to just above the surfaceof the two parts. This method gives a stron-ger bond than a weld that sits just on thesurface.

Figure 13-5. Bevel the top edges of the seam, form-ing a narrow, V-shaped channel

Warm both parts with low heat from a heatgun (Figure 13-6). This helps them receivethe weld to the same depth. If one part ismuch larger than the other, focus extra at-tention on warming the larger piece.

Figure 13-6. Warm the parts with a heat gun

3. Tack-Weld the Parts inPositionNow tack the parts together with a series ofshort spot welds, moving around the jointwhile holding the parts steady.

Spin up the rotary tool, and lower it until thespinning filament grazes both surfaces ofthe seam. When the tip of the filament be-gins to deform, apply a little pressure(Figure 13-7).

123Chapter 13


Figure 13-7. Applying pressure

Moving the spinning filament in tight littlecircles, widen the melt zone slightly into thesides of both parts, making a little forwardprogress with each circuit, until you’ve cre-ated a small spot weld (Figure 13-8).

Figure 13-8. Spot welding diagram

Tack in three or more places along the seamand let the parts cool. They should be tackedtight, difficult to separate by hand (seeFigure 13-9).

Figure 13-9. Tack the seam and let it cool

4. Plug Gaps with FilamentGaps that are wider than half the width ofyour welding filament should be filled beforewelding a clean seam. Soften a short scrapof filament to use as filler, by using the lowsetting on a heat gun or by warming it to100°C on your printer’s heated build plat-form (Figure 13-10).

Press the softened filament into the widestgaps between the two parts, making quicktack-welds if necessary to pin it in place.



Figure 13-10. For large gaps, soften a short scrap offilament to use as filler

5. Friction Weld the SeamNow weld the whole seam in two or threelayers, as shown in Figure 13-11. A singleweld would probably bond the parts at thesurface only, allowing the seam to be brokenif the parts are torqued.

Figure 13-11. Friction welding the seams, using sev-eral layers

In this idealized diagram, we weld one beadat the bottom of the seam, two beads on asecond layer, and three on a third (top) layer,fusing the parts through their entire thick-ness.

To hide the weld, you can sand it back flushand then paint or seal the surface.

Friction Welding to Repair aPLA Model

Punctured mysteriously by the TSA(Figure 13-12), a part from Micah Ganske’ssculpture Industrial Ring Habitat (seeFigure 13-13 for context) needs a patch. We’lluse red filament to make the friction weldeasily visible.

Figure 13-12. Punctured “Ring Habitat”

125Chapter 13

Friction Welding to Repair a PLA Model

Figure 13-13. Industrial Ring Habitat, by MicahGanske

PLA is prone to cracking and splitting, andit’s typically difficult to repair. Solvents suchas acetone have little effect. ABS glue andsuper glue merely cement the parts by sur-face tension, rather than offering a chemicalweld—meaning that the seam can easily berebroken.

With friction welding, you can form solidjoints that are difficult to break.

1. Press the patch or broken part into placeand hold it securely:

2. Tack-weld the patch in place in a few dif-ferent positions:

3. PLA is workable at lower temperaturesthan ABS, so use a gentle touch to meltand weld the two parts. Too much pres-sure can create a puncture. It takes a bitof practice:


Friction Welding to Repair a PLA Model

4. Move around the seam, changing direc-tion as necessary for handling and con-trol. For prettier welds, take frequentbreaks to let the parts cool:

5. Let the completed seam cool to roomtemperature before sanding and seal-ing:

Riveting: Friction WeldingBlind Rivets

A rotary tool can also be used to permanent-ly fuse a spinning part to a fixed one, using aone-sided “blind rivet.” Blind rivets have onehuge advantage over ordinary solid rivets:you don’t need access to both sides of an as-sembly to rivet its parts in place.

This method works well for attaching plasticpanels to the outside of objects when accessto the interior is awkward or impossible. Italso lets you construct massive objects frommultiple panels, each panel printed close tothe bed of the printer for optimal printing.

Shown in Figure 13-14 are two 3D-printedblind rivets, next to a brass solid rivet andthree aluminum blind rivets. Notice that theprinted rivets, like the aluminum ones, havea “mandrel” that extends well beyond therivet’s head. This is the part that’s gripped inthe rotary tool.

Figure 13-14. 3D-printed blind rivets, brass solid riv-et, aluminum rivets

127Chapter 13

Riveting: Friction Welding Blind Rivets

You’ll clip it off after the rivet is firmly in place.I designed the printed rivets to be grippedby the 1” collet, the standard size for mostDremel accessory bits.

Plastic rivets need not be perfectly cylindri-cal for friction welding, so I designed them“three-quarters” round, for printing flat onthe platform (Figure 13-15). This way, thehorizontal “grain” of the printed rivet helpsstrengthen it.

Figure 13-15. Three-quarters round rivets

I’ll demonstrate by riveting a small panel tothe outside of another part. To print yourown rivets, get the 3D files at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:61510.

Friction welding involves theuse of high-speed rotatingtools and should not beattempted without ANSI-approved safety glasses. Weld-ing and other operations thatheat, soften, and melt plasticmay release hazardous chem-ical vapors and should not beattempted without properventilation. Sanding and otherdust-producing operationsshould not be attemptedwithout a NIOSH N95-

approved particulate respira-tor. Acetone and other volatilesolvents should not be handledwithout proper ventilation,safety goggles, protectiveclothing, and latex or nitrilegloves.

1. With the proper collet in place, loosenthe collet nut and insert a plastic rivet:





2. Drill or design in mounting holes in yourpanel to provide clearance for the shaftof the rivet to pass through to the basepart where it will be fixed. The holeshould be narrow enough that the rivet’shead will pin the panel in place.

Pre-drilling (or designing) a pilot hole inthe base part can help prevent your rivetfrom mounting off target:

3. Spin up the rotary tool and gently insertthe shaft of the rivet through the mount-ing hole until it contacts the mountingposition. Continue spinning until theshaft of the rivet begins to melt and de-form—then press it gently down intoplace:

129Chapter 13


4. Stop the rotary tool and hold it steady ina fixed position at a right angle to thework, while applying a little downwardpressure. It can help to use a piece ofcardboard or foam as a friction brake tostop the rotation quickly (unlike a pro-fessional spin-welding tool, most rotarytools need a second or two to spindown).

5. Loosen the collet nut and slip the man-drel of the blind rivet out of the rotarytool. If the rivet is still cooling, hold it inposition until it’s fully cooled (at whichpoint it should be entirely fused with itsmounting point):

6. Using a flush cutter, snip off the mandrel,leaving the head intact:



7. If the rivet head protrudes too far, has asharp ridge, or seems too narrow to se-cure the panel in place, warm it with aheat gun and use the head of a steel nailto press it flat:

It’s possible to fuse ABS rivets toPLA, and vice versa, but you’ll needto find the “feel” for the initial fric-tion stage before pressing downthe body of the rivet. Before mount-ing delicate parts, test-rivet the ma-terials you’ll be using.

Using Filament to MakeSolid Rivets and Hinges

People have used rivets since the Bronze Ageto fasten together tools, art, bridges, andbuildings, so it’s no surprise that 3D printer

users are experimenting with riveting tech-niques. We’ve seen a number of projects us-ing pieces of filament as pins to hold togeth-er large assemblies.

Just recently, 3D artist and instructor JasonWelsh demonstrated a method for buildinghis DIY electronics cases that promises tobecome a new power technique. His FoldingArduino Lab (Figure 13-16) and Pi CommandCenter each use filament “spikes” to createrivets and hinges.

Figure 13-16. Pi Command Center

Essentially, Welsh uses heat to reform piecesof filament into straight rivets, flattening onehead before inserting the rivet and the otherhead after the rivet is firmly in place. As withany solid rivet, you need access to both sidesof the assembly, but the advantage of thismethod is the creation of strong fasteningsthat can be completely removed later usinga flush cutter.

While you can make spikes with any filament,I recommend 3 mm PLA based on my expe-riences building Welsh’s project. PLA is easierto soften and work with a heat gun, and 3mm spikes remain straighter and more rigidthan 1.75 mm spikes after cooling. If youdon’t have 3 mm filament, you can accom-

131Chapter 13

Using Filament to Make Solid Rivets and Hinges





plish the same goal with 1.75 mm filamentby using more rivets to distribute the load.

1. With a heat gun set to low, evenly warma 4"–6” length of filament until it be-comes limp (several minutes on a heatedbuild platform works, too):

2. While the filament is still hot, straightenit by rolling it on a table, or better yet, ona piece of glass that will quickly cool it.Gently move both hands away fromeach other while rolling, to keep the fil-ament straight as it cools:

3. Soften one end using a heat gun on alow setting (a soldering iron, heatedbrass nozzle, or heated build platformcan work in a pinch):



4. Stop the rotary tool and hold it steady ina fixed position at a right angle to thework, while applying a little downwardpressure.

It can help to use a piece of cardboard orfoam as a friction brake to stop the rota-tion quickly. (Unlike a professional spin-welding tool, most rotary tools need asecond or two to spin down.)

5. Tap the soft end of the spike on a flat,cool surface until it deforms into a flatrivet head. I tend to use a steel nail head,but any flat surface that can cool the fil-ament rapidly will work:

6. Your rivet should have a nice flat head,wide enough to rest firmly on the edgeof the mounting hole. In rivet lingo, thisis the “factory head,” as opposed to thesecond head or “shop head” you’ll createon the other end when installing the riv-et:

7. Insert the rivet into the mounting pointuntil the factory head is flush, then clipthe tail a little ways beyond where youneed the second head of the rivet:

8. Use a heat gun to soften the protrudingtail of the rivet until it begins to deform:

9. Use a flat, smooth surface to press downand deform (“buck”) the tail, creating therivet’s shop head. I find that a large steelnail head works best—it’s easy to handleand it cools the shop head quickly:

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Two Materials, Two Ap-proaches to Finishing Tech

ABS and PLA plastics have very different phys-ical properties. ABS is printed at a higher tem-perature (typically 215–235°C), is moredurable and flexible, and dissolves in industrialsolvents like acetone. PLA can print at lowertemperatures (starting at 180°C), wears downfaster, can be brittle or shatter, and won’t dis-solve in acetone. (The chemicals used to dis-solve PLA are highly toxic.)

10. Continue to press tight, against the shophead as it cools, making sure it doesn’trelax away from the mounting point.

Don’t apply force to the assembly untilboth the rivet and the parts being as-sembled cool to room temperature.

Hold in place until cool as seen here:

1. Installation of a hinge rivet follows thesame procedure, except at the very end.

After pressing the shop head, move theparts gently as they cool to ensure thatthe joint has enough play for the hingeto open and close easily.

In the completed assembly, the twoblack ABS plates can spin easily on thehinge without coming free.

If you’d rather use a soldering ironthan a heat gun, find a brass tube(Figure 13-17) that fits snugly overyour iron. Use the brass tube towork the plastic, and keep your sol-dering tip clean. Make sure to cleanyour tube thoroughly so the plasticdoesn’t stick to the brass.



Figure 13-17. Protect your tip with a brass tube

Tape the factory head of the rivet inplace when you need both handsto soften and flatten the shop head.

Gluing and Filling: CreatingABS Slurry for Filler andGlue

While super glue (cyanoacrylate) and plasticmodel glues do an excellent job of bondingABS parts, many 3D-printed model buildershave switched to using “ABS slurry” for bothglue and filler material, because this sub-stance can weld parts together more per-manently and can be exactly color-matchedto the printed parts. ABS slurry is simply

ground-up ABS filament dissolved in ace-tone.

Applied in the open air, acetone melts thesurface of ABS plastic (and many similar styr-ene plastics), creates a goopy sludge, andthen—after some time—evaporates, leav-ing behind just the reformed ABS plastic. Bysealing up this process in an airtight con-tainer that the acetone cannot easily escape,you can prepare a thick, even acetone/ABSmix similar to acrylic gel medium.

There are a variety of methods for preparingABS slurry. I like ProtoParadigm’s recipe; onepart ABS to two parts acetone, mixed in fin-gernail polish containers or similar. Use acheap coffee/spice grinder to shred ABS fil-ament and scraps as needed. Smaller piecesdissolve faster and make it easier to gaugethe mix ratio.

Observe proper handling pre-cautions when working withacetone and ABS slurry. Weargloves and goggles and do notwork without proper ventila-tion or in the presence of openflames. Besides being highlyflammable, ABS slurry sticks toanything and burns with afoul-smelling smoke that iswidely regarded as toxic. Bevery careful or you’ll create atiny batch of “napalm” that willneed to be treated like a chem-ical fire.

Apply ABS slurry with an inexpensivenatural-hair paintbrush (synthetic brusheswill dissolve in acetone!) to either fill smallcracks or glue two pieces together. Leave itto air-dry until the acetone completely evap-

135Chapter 13

Gluing and Filling: Creating ABS Slurry for Filler and Glue


Industrial Ring Habitat

Artist Micah Ganske used ABS slurry glue toassemble his groundbreaking sculpture Indus-trial Ring Habitat from 1,000 3D-printed ABSparts. He also uses it to glue PLA parts to ABS—even though acetone doesn’t dissolve PLA,the slurry seeps into cracks and crevices tomechanically bond the PLA parts to the ABSbase.

orates, and your final part will have a joint orpatch made only of ABS plastic.

Your exposure to acetone is greatest whileapplying ABS glue and immediately after, sopin your parts to a piece of cardboard or atray that you can immediately move to awell-ventilated area away from your work-space. If you move them outside, protectthem with a cardboard box to keep leaves,dust, and grime out of the still-goopy slurry.

While acetone can “weld” theedges of ABS parts to bond them,this joint lacks the shear resistanceof parts printed together, becausethe “melt zone” doesn’t extenddeep into the surface. If an assem-bly needs mechanical strength, de-sign an interlocking joint with lotsof surface area—or use hardware.

Sanding 3D-Printed PlasticParts

When I first learned the basics of woodwork-ing, I proved a lazy, inept sander of splinteryplywood toolboxes and lopsided PinewoodDerby cars. My father suggested I forgetabout “sanded” as a goal, and focus on “sand-ing” as an activity. You cycle from coarse-gritsizes down to finer-grit papers until the sur-face is as smooth as you intend.

The same goes for sanding 3D-printed plas-tics (Figure 13-18). With ABS and PLA, youcan work your way down to very fine papersindeed—3M gem-polishing papers andMicro-Mesh sanding tools with single-digitmicron grits that create scoring patterns in-visible to the naked eye.


Sanding 3D-Printed Plastic Parts

Figure 13-18. Sanding 3D prints

Still, well-sanded 3D-printed projects seemfew and far between, for two good reasons.First, ABS and PLA are softer than the woodwe’re used to sanding. Second, the trickyhorizontal “grain” created by 3D printing re-flects light differently than sanded surfacesor the glossy heated base (in ABS printing),and this grain cannot be tooled back into thesurface easily—encouraging an all-or-nothing approach to sanding the object.

The basic rule of thumb is to sand 3D-printedpieces like you’d sand a gummy hardwood.Focus on “sanding” and don’t rush toward“sanded”: start with 100- or 150-grit papersor Dremel wheels (Figure 13-19), then 220,then 320 fine, then 500 super fine, and thentackle the micron-grade grits to eliminatesanding marks. Many 3D makers tend to

skimp on the earlier papers, to their detri-ment: these coarser grits are capable of strip-ping away the peaks of the layer lines. Go toofine too fast and you’ll just round over thepeaks without flattening them (seeFigure 13-20).

Figure 13-19. Dremel sanding and polishing kit

Figure 13-20. Rounding over the peaks

After you’ve sanded a surface to your satis-faction, you can use a heat gun to gentlywarm the surface (Figure 13-21) until it meltsslightly, which will erase many of the smallerscratches and restore the original printedcolor. Practice on scrap until you get the feelof it.

You can also can use the Novus plastic pol-ishing system to get a remarkably smooth,polished surface on ABS prints, but most 3D

137Chapter 13


modelers opt to just paint their printsinstead.

Figure 13-21. Use a heat gun to remove smallscratches

Matt Griffin is the Director of Community &Support at Adafruit Industries, a former Mak-erBot community manager, and author of theforthcoming MAKE book Design and Modelingfor 3D Printing.



WRITTEN BY JASON BABLER

Age 3D-printed objects to look like battered metal.

Weathering plastic or wood to make it looklike aged metal (Figure 14-1) is an effect youcan achieve in fewer steps than most peopleexpect. The most basic weathering can bedone with only two paints. Here, I’ll show youhow to weather and age using only threepaints. This technique is how I weathered, inless than 10 minutes, a 3D-printed robot thatwe made here at the MAKE offices.

The Mega Make robot, designed byMake: Labs intern Dan Spangler, iscomming soon as a downloadable,desktop-3D-printable project.

Figure 14-1. The aged metal look

Here’s what you’ll need:

Metallic hobby paintI like Citadel’s metallic paints; the colorIronbreaker is my favorite.

Spray paint for the base coatI chose Krylon’s Fusion brand.

Black acrylic paintAny kind will do.

DrybrushesThe ones from MicroMark work well. Al-ternately, you can take an old brush thathas a lot of bristles and cut the end offso it’s flat.

Other brushesUse a script brush or other thin brushsuitable for details.

1. Pick a BaseCoat

The white piece shown in Figure 14-2 is ac-tually from the back of the robot. It was 3D-printed here at the MAKE office. I painted therobot bright red, to mimic our Maker Fairerobot mascot. I chose Krylon’s Fusion brand,with the right red I was looking for. It driespretty quickly and adheres to plastic reallywell. I skipped the priming process, but youcan put this paint over primer easily enough.

139

Weathering YourPrints 14

http://makezine.com/go/mega-make

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1500186a

http://www.micromark.com/dry-brushes-set-of-4,7667.html

Figure 14-2. 3D-printed part from the back of therobot

2. Pick a Metallic Paint forWorn Edges

I like Citadel’s metallic paints (Figure 14-3),but any hobby metallic paint will do. Cita-del’s Ironbreaker is my favorite, and it’s quitebrilliant.

Figure 14-3. Citadel paints

3. Start Drybrushing overthe Piece

You need the right type of brush to get theright drybrushing results. Take an old brushthat has a lot of bristles and cut the end off

so it’s flat, or buy a specific brush that’s madefor drybrushing, like MicroMark’s Dry Brush-es (Figure 14-4).

Figure 14-4. Micro-Mark’s Dry Brushes

Dab the brush into the paint, and then re-move most of the paint onto a paper towel.Drybrushing means exactly that: the brushshould not be wet with paint. In fact, it needsto have barely any paint on it. Practice onsomething other than your model to get thehang of it. Drybrushing correctly will leavejust a little paint on the raised edges of yourpiece. Remember to keep a light hand andgo slowly (Figure 14-5).

Figure 14-5. Drybrush the part


2. Pick a Metallic Paint for Worn Edges

For machined edges, I focus on adding a bitmore paint around the main edges of themodel. Imagine that those edges are whatother objects come into contact with themost, and therefore need to look more worn(Figure 14-6).

Figure 14-6. Emphasize worn edges

4. Add Bigger Scrapes andChipped Areas

Using a very thin script brush with few bris-tles, use the same paint and add bigger spotswhere the metal has “flacked” off even more(Figure 14-7). Don’t go overboard with this;using this technique everywhere will ruinthe effect.

Figure 14-7. Add bigger paint spots—sparingly

5: Add Dirt and Grunge

Let’s start adding some dirt and grime(Figure 14-8) to make this look dirty. We’llstart by making a wash. A wash is pretty sim-ple: just watered-down acrylic black paint. Ifyou brush over newspaper and can still readthe print, it’s probably watered downenough.

Don’t buy wash mediums at the artstore. Instead, just add windshieldwasher fluid to thin acrylic paints.It dries quickly and will last youyears.

141Chapter 14

4. Add Bigger Scrapes and Chipped Areas

Figure 14-8. Use a wash to add “dirt”

I generously apply the paint in all the nooksand crannies that dirt would normally gatherin. If the paint is watery enough, it should runinto all the valleys of your model quickly(Figure 14-9).

Figure 14-9. Get in the nooks and crannies

Depending on how much of this effect youwant, you can dab up the paint immediately(Figure 14-10), leaving only a little blackgrime, or paint generously over the modeland leave the paint on to dry for a more dra-matic effect.

Figure 14-10. Dab up the paint

6. That’s It!

It’s pretty easy to get basic weathering ef-fects, as you can see in Figure 14-11. Thereare more degrees of weathering you can ex-pand upon: pigments, rusting agents, andother cool techniques are out there to findand invent!

Figure 14-11. Finished weathered part

Jason Babler is the Creative Director at MAKEMagazine and loves to sculpt.


6. That’s It!

PART VII

Applications

WRITTEN BY STETT HOLBROOK

Printing the world on your desktop.

It’s a vision from a futuristic Star Trek uni-verse: effortlessly creating three-dimensional objects on a machine in yourhome (or starship). And it’s here today. Thedam has now burst on the 3D printing mar-ket and this once out-of-reach technology isnow available to just about anybody, for lessthan $1,000.

Will being able to print 3D objects on yourdesktop change the world?

Spend a few minutes talking to manufactur-ers of 3D printers or early adopters and you’llquickly hear them drop such heady adjec-tives as “game-changer,” “disruptive,” and“revolutionary.”

An Economist article from April 2012 by PaulMarkillie declared 3D printing and associ-ated technologies nothing short of the “thirdindustrial revolution.”

“As manufacturing goes digital, a third greatchange is now gathering pace,” he wrote.“The wheel is almost coming full circle, turn-ing away from mass manufacturing andtowards much more individualized produc-tion. And that in turn could bring some of thejobs back to rich countries that long ago lostthem to the emerging world.”

The personal computer, the printer, and theInternet made us all publishers. Now, with 3Dprinters, 3D scanners, and 3D design soft-ware, we can all be manufacturers as well.

Already companies are jockeying for posi-tion. High-end 3D printing pioneer 3D Sys-tems bought competitor Z Corp. Two otherbig players—Objet and Stratasys—havemerged. Industry darling MakerBot wasnamed one of the top 20 startups in NewYork City and has been acquired as the desk-top division of Stratasys.

3D printers, or machines that “print” three-dimensional, CAD-rendered objects bylayering precisely extruded bits of moltenplastic, resin, metal, and other materials,have actually been around since 1985—ironically, the same year the standard-setting HP LaserJet printer was introduced.The laser printer has become as common-place as the personal computer. The samecan’t be said of the 3D printer. But that couldbe about to change.

Until recently, 3D printers were prohibitivelyexpensive, less than user friendly, and hid-den behind the doors of factories and R&Dlabs. But thanks to the innovative efforts ofmakers and the open source movement(which encourages freely sharing designs

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The Promise of3D Printing 15

and software among enthusiasts), the priceof the machines has reached the consumerlevel. Now, a growing community of makers,designers, and artists are embracing thetechnology and taking it in new directions.And you don’t have to own one of the ma-chines to use them—there are service pro-viders that will do the printing for you. Whatyou do with all this desktop manufacturingpower is up to you.

To borrow a line (paraphrased from KarlMarx) from Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris An-derson’s book, Makers: The New IndustrialRevolution, power belongs to those whocontrol the means of production. The powerto manufacture a growing list of objects(toys, jewelry, spare parts, even prostheticlimbs) is now available to the masses—andthe technology fits on your desktop.

“Global manufacturing can now work on anyscale,“ Anderson states, “from one to mil-lions. Customization and small batches areno longer impossible—in fact, they’re thefuture.”

He too sees revolution in the air: “The thirdindustrial revolution is best seen as the com-bination of digital manufacturing and per-sonal manufacturing: the industrialization ofthe maker movement.”

Looking at the growing number ofconsumer-level 3D printers on the markethas Anderson seeing 1983 all over again—the so-called “Mac moment” when Applegave the masses a computer of their own: theApple II. Apple didn’t invent the computer,they just democratized it, Anderson notes.The same can be said of RepRap and Maker-Bot, two pioneers in the affordable consum-er 3D printer market.

“A new class of users will produce a new classof uses,” says Anderson. “I think it’s historic.”

Will 3D printers become as common in thehome as DVD players and computers? Won-ky software and documentation are theweak links now, but that will surely change.For now, Anderson tells parents this is theyear to buy their kids a 3D printer for Christ-mas.

“They’re not going to be quite sure what todo with it, but their kids will figure it out.That’s the way big things start.”

Dale Dougherty, founder and publisher ofMAKE, isn’t ready to pronounce the 3D print-er a revolution just yet.

“I think we’re at the very early stages, withhackers and early adopters figuring out whatto do with it,” he says. “It’s opening new ave-nues for people who are creative and makingthings.”

But the transformative potential is plain tosee, Dougherty states. “It’s Wal-Mart in thepalm of your hand. That’s the crazy promiseof it.”

Part of the excitement that surrounds 3Dprinting is the belief that now the barrier toentry has dropped; the genie is out of thebottle. Where this goes, nobody knows. “Welive in a 3D world, but we currently createthings in 2D,” says Dougherty. What will itmean to have the means to live and create inthe same dimension?

“We may go to a very different place.”

Stett Holbrook is a senior editor at MAKE.


The Promise of 3D Printing

COMPILED BY ERIC CHU, ANNA KAZIUNAS FRANCE, GOLI MOHAMMADI,

CRAIG COUDEN, AND THE EDITORS OF MAKE

3D printing is being used in a wide array of custom-ized applications, from practical objects to medicine toart. Here’s a sampling of what’s out there.

Practical ObjectsPrint what you want, when you want it. These re-sourceful makers used their desktop 3D printers toovercome everyday problems by creating unique cus-tom solutions that were just what they needed.

Pen Plotter AdapterMiles Lightwood, Eagle Rock, CAhttp://thingiverse.com/thing:7412A friend is a vintage computer junkieand one of his recent purchases was aprinter/plotter for his Sharp PC-1500Apocket computer. Although the printerworks, the pens, being almost 30 yearsold, do not. Nor are they still available.So I took out the calipers, busted outOpenSCAD, fired up the MakerBot, andprinted one out!

Figure 16-1. Vintage pen plotter adapter

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3D Printed Gallery 16


Tackle Box ClipChris Krueger, Arlington Heights, ILhttp://thingiverse.com/thing:9419I bought a tackle box to help organize allmy electrical components. Unfortunate-ly, it was missing a clip. I fixed my prob-lem by modeling a replacement fromphotos of the existing clip and calipermeasurements. The replacement actual-ly snaps tighter than the original, so I re-placed them both!

Figure 16-2. Repaired tackle box

Soda Tab BenderSean Michael Ragan, Austin, TXhttp://thingiverse.com/thing:31635I have this trick of making chain mailfrom soda can tabs. The tabs have to bebent first, and the mail looks best ifthey’re all bent to exactly the same an-gle. So I designed and printed a customjaw insert for an off-the-shelf pair of jew-eler’s pliers that bends the tabs exactlythe same way each time.

Figure 16-3. Chain mail in progress

Router Collar AdapterBozo Cardozo, Ketchum, IDhttp://thingiverse.com/thing:12648My old Bosch 1611 is a killer router, butit’s 20 years old and almost impossibleto find parts for. I couldn’t find a stockpattern collar adapter, so I just designedand printed my own.

Figure 16-4. Adapting old tools


Practical Objects




Car Luggage Cover FittingMiguel Angelo de Oliveira, Hartsdale, NYhttp://thingiverse.com/thing:10043When some plastic part breaks in yourcar, the chances of finding a replace-ment and then being able to buy itwithout getting a second mortgage areslim to none. My Thing-O-Matic allowedme to replace a broken plastic fitting inmy car’s luggage cover, which saved mefrom having to buy a whole new one atroughly half the price of my 3D printerkit. I have now helped many others makevacuum cover clips, shower head hold-ers, and many other hard-to-find re-placement parts.

Figure 16-5. Car luggage cover repair solution

Car Window CrankMichael Gregg, Palo Alto, CAhttp://thingiverse.com/thing:20028A good friend of mine was interested in3D printing. We were hanging out oneSunday, and he broke the window crankin his Miata. The auto parts store was notopen until Monday, so I whipped this upfor him using SolidWorks and my Mak-erBot.

Figure 16-6. Replacement window crank

Bike Light MountGian Pablo, San Francisco, Californiahttp://thingiverse.com/thing:8947I wanted to attach a rear light to my bike,but I have a rack installed, so it couldn’tgo on the seat post. The rack already hadholes for a license plate, so I made thissimple adapter that goes on the rack us-ing the existing holes and has a springclip that fits the bike light directly, so thatI can attach and remove it quickly.

Figure 16-7. Rear light attachment

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Practical Objects




Ice Cream Maker Drill AttachmentLee Holmes, Seattle, WAhttp://thingiverse.com/thing:26835I ordered a KitchenAid stand mixer andits ice cream maker attachment. The icecream maker attachment arrived on aMonday, but the mixer itself wasn’t go-ing to arrive until the following Thurs-day. I wanted ice cream on Tuesday. Thisis my solution: an adapter to drive the icecream maker with a standard 3/8 drillsocket adapter (and a strong drill).

Figure 16-8. Ice cream when you want it

Doorbell ReplacementGeorge Banovac, Stony Creek, Ontariohttp://thingiverse.com/thing:10697Some blockhead came along and brokemy mother’s doorbell by excessivelypounding on it. Not just once, either. In-stead of spending money on buying an-other doorbell button, I decided to makesomething stronger, better—not sureabout the faster part, but you get theidea. I printed it in natural ABS. I can’teven tell the difference from before; itlooks exactly the same, but now it’sstronger—a solid mini-brick instead of ahollow shell. In your face, doorbell mur-derers!

Figure 16-9. Doorbell fix


Practical Objects



3D Products Now on theMarketAll kinds of makers, artists, designers, and startups aretaking advantage of the boom in 3D printing servicesto sell an amazing variety of custom-made or custom-izable objects.

Nervous Systemhttp://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.comNervous System is an experimental de-sign studio whose focus is on exploringalgorithmic design. Taking inspirationfrom nature, they develop interactivetools that can be used to generate an in-finite range of designs.Currently available products includepredesigned tableware, lamps, puzzles,and jewelry. Customers can also partici-pate in the creation process by creatingtheir own on-demand printed designsthrough the Radiolaria and Cell Cyclejewelry creation web-based applica-tions.

Figure 16-10. Morph Bangle created with the CellCycle app and printed in sterling silver, availablefrom Shapeways: http://shpws.me/pjLL

Tofty’s EDC Itemshttp://www.shapeways.com/shops/toftySpecializing in useful every-day-carry(EDC) items, Tofty’s multitools havemany features and integrate prybars, bitdrivers, nail-lifting tools, bottle openers,and metric hex drivers. He also sellsflashlights and functional tritium lan-tern jewelry.

Figure 16-11. Single-piece prybar, available fromShapeways: http://shpws.me/llzP

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http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com

http://shpws.me/pjLL

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/tofty

http://shpws.me/llzP

Continuum Fashionhttp://continuumfashion.comContinuum Fashion’s Strvct nylon shoesare strong, lightweight, and made to or-der. After printing, they’re fitted with apatent leather inner sole and coatedwith rubber on the bottom for traction.The designers also made headlines withtheir 3D-printed bikini. This fashion labelalso provides creation apps for their oth-er on-demand custom fabric clothinglines CONSTRVCT, and the D.dress. Figure 16-12. 3D-printed shoe from the “strvct” col-

lection

ModiBothttp://www.modibot.comModiBot is a figure-based build systemthat enables you to create your own toysby mixing and matching parts from theever-expanding ModiBot part system.You can design and build your own fan-tastical creatures and characters byordering the parts via Shapeways ordownloading them and printing themyourself.

Figure 16-13. ModiBot Angel at World Maker Faire

Joaquin Baldwinhttp://shpws.me/op7IThe award-winning creator of a numberof short animated films, Joaquin Bald-win currently works at Disney AnimationStudios by day and in his spare time de-signs 3D-printable objects that are “a bitof everything nerdy,” from geeky gadg-ets to videogame-related sculpturesand bizarre concept models, like his Ba-con Mobius Strip or Caffeine MoleculeMug.

Figure 16-14. Caffeine Molecule Mug, available fromShapeways: http://shpws.me/op7I



http://continuumfashion.com

http://www.modibot.com

http://shpws.me/op7I

http://shpws.me/op7I

Protos Eyewearhttp://protoseyewear.comSan Francisco–based Protos Eyewear,creators of the 8-Bit Sunglasses, recentlycompleted a successful crowdfundingcampaign for custom 3D-printed eye-wear. They have developed interactivesoftware that enables the user to alterthe shape of the glasses to flatter theirfacial structure using uploaded images.

Figure 16-15. 8-Bit Sunglasses

Freakin’ Sweet Knotshttps://www.shapeways.com/shops/freakinsweetknotsCreated by a programmer who likes totie knots, Freakin’ Sweet Knots was bornthough John Allwine’s experimentalprocess of creating an engagement ringfor his wife. During the process it occur-red to me that I could write an app thatcould generate 3D models of similarrings so they could be 3D printed.You can create your own knot ringthrough the Freakin’ Sweet Knots app(http://knots.freakinsweetapps.com),which uploads directly to Shapeways.

Figure 16-16. Joyce’s Tapered Ring, available fromShapeways: http://shpws.me/olJo

Polychemyhttp://polychemy.comPolychemy is a Singapore-based onlinedesigner boutique that makes a varietyof 3D-printed products, from jewelry tomobile phone covers, and works withprominent 3D print artists to help selltheir work.Their iPhone cases are printed in astrong, flexible nylon plastic called pol-yamide, and you can have your namecustom-printed into the case.

Figure 16-17. iPhone case printed in red Polyamideplastic

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http://protoseyewear.com

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/freakinsweetknots

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/freakinsweetknots

http://knots.freakinsweetapps.com

http://shpws.me/olJo

http://polychemy.com

3D Printing in MedicineFrom bioprinting to prosthetics, the medical commu-nity is embracing 3D printing in a multitude of inno-vative ways.

Revolutionary Replacementshttp://makezine.com/go/wakeforestResearchers at Wake Forest University’sInstitute for Regenerative Medicine inNorth Carolina have created a one-of-a-kind 3D printer designed to print re-placement tissues and organs.Data from CT or MRI scans is used to firstcreate a 3D model. Living cells and bio-materials that hold the cells together arethen printed into 3D shapes and implan-ted in the body, where they continue todevelop using the body’s natural regen-erative processes. The team has success-fully engineered a miniature kidneyimplanted in a steer and aims to 3D printsimilar versions for humans.

Figure 16-18. 3D printed replacement tissues andorgans

Beauty and the Beakhttp://makezine.com/go/beautyAfter a poacher in Alaska shot off herupper beak, Beauty the Bald Eagle wasfound emaciated, unable to eat, drink, orpreen her feathers, her tongue and si-nuses exposed. Despite recommenda-tions that she be euthanized, raptor spe-cialist Jane Cantwell of Birds of PreyNorthwest refused to give up. Sheteamed up with Nate Calvin, founder ofKinetic Engineering Group. Despite hav-ing no previous prosthetics experience,Calvin designed a replacement by mak-ing a mold of the remaining beak, scan-ning it, modifying it in SolidWorks, andcreating a temporary 3D printed beak ina nylon composite. A titanium baseplatewas affixed to Beauty’s remaining upper

beak to act as a guide for the final printedtitanium beak.

Figure 16-19. Beauty the Bald Eagle—before and af-ter her titanium 3D printed beak implant.


3D Printing in Medicine

http://makezine.com/go/wakeforest

http://makezine.com/go/beauty

Magic Armshttp://makezine.com/go/stratasysUsing hinged metal bars and resistiverubber bands, the Wilmington RoboticExoskeleton (WREX) gives patients withunderdeveloped arms a wide range ofarm motion.The original WREX, made from ma-chined parts, fit children as young as six,but for two-year-old Emma Lavelle, re-searchers discovered they could 3Dprint smaller, lighter parts. Printed usinga Stratasys Dimension 3D printer, theABS plastic exoskeleton allows for easycustomization and fine-tuning for the 15children now using it.

Figure 16-20. WREX Magic Arms

Tissue Engineeringhttp://organovo.comSan Diego-based innovators Organovohave engineered several custom, com-mercial NovoGen MMX Bioprinters, ca-pable of printing tissue structures.The machines feature dual extruders:one that prints a water-soluble gel thatacts as the scaffolding, and another thatfills the armature with a bio-ink of livingcells (each drop containing 10K to 30Kcells) that naturally flow together andfuse. The fundamental nature of biolog-ical materials is to self-organize, andafter an incubation period, the cells con-tinue to develop and grow without thegel component. The team has been ableto print a 1 mm-diameter, 5 cm-longblood vessel in 30 minutes.

Figure 16-21. Organovo’s NovoGen MMX Bioprinter.

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http://makezine.com/go/stratasys

http://organovo.com

Designer Prostheticshttp://bespokeinnovations.comBucking the typical one-style-suites-allmodel of conventional prosthetics, SanFrancisco-based Bespoke Innovationsmakes custom coverings, called Fairings,that surround an existing prosthetic leg,recreating the user’s natural leg shapethrough 3D scanning, designing, andprinting.Conceived by industrial designer ScottSummit and orthopedic surgeon Dr.Kenneth Trauner, Bespoke Fairings aredesigned in collaboration with the pa-tient, aiming to reflect the individual byoffering a number of material and pat-tern options, including leather, chromeplating, and tattoos.

Figure 16-22. Bespoke Fairings prosthetic legcovering.

Jaws of Innovationhttp://makezine.com/go/jawA Dutch woman in her 80s was fittedwith a 3D-printed jawbone after havingher infected mandible removed. Belgiancompany LayerWise modeled the re-placement from a CT scan of the originalbone.Using selective laser sintering, the re-placement was made of titanium andcovered with a bioceramic coating. Thereplacement weighed just over anounce more than the original, and thewoman was reportedly speaking withinhours after surgery.

Figure 16-23. 3D-printed jawbone



http://bespokeinnovations.com

http://makezine.com/go/jaw

Not Your Average Chem Sethttp://makezine.com/go/reactionwareResearchers at the University of Glasgowhave developed a way to synthesize cus-tom labware on a much smaller scale.Using a low-cost 3D printer and opensource CAD software, researchers print-ed customized vessels, called “reaction-ware,” out of polymer gel laced withchemical reagents that foster chemicalreactions (think of an Erlenmeyer flaskinfused with chemicals for that day’s labexperiment). It could eventually lead topharmacists making small, customizedbatches of medicines for individual pa-tients. Figure 16-24. Printing reactionware

Novel and Artistic PrintsThese creative makers created some of the mostunique and memorable 3D printed objects to date andmost of them are printable on a desktop 3D printer.

Orihon (Accordion Book)Tom Burtonwoodhttp://www.thingiverse.com/thing:110411A book of textures and reliefs made upof six 3D scans of works from the MET,the Art Institute of Chicago, the Ameri-can Museum of Natural History, and theField Museum of Natural History. In-spired by a call for submissions from theCenter for Book and Paper Arts at Co-lumbia College that called for both print-on-demand and photographic books.

Figure 16-25. Orihon

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Novel and Artistic Prints

http://makezine.com/go/reactionware



InMoov Humanoid RobotGael Langevin “hairygael”http://thingiverse.com/hairygaelInMoov is the open source life-sized hu-manoid robot that you can print on adesktop 3D printer (!) and animate. Inaddition to the printable files, Gael alsoprovides assembly instructions and dia-grams to help you get started: http://www.inmoov.fr

Figure 16-26. Life size humanoid robot

The Makerlele - MK1Brent J. Rosenburgh “ErikJDurwoodII”http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34363A fully desktop 3D printable (and playa-ble) ukulele that uses an acoustic trans-ducer focus and projects the soundthrough the body to create a fuller tone.Just print, add bolts and strings, tune itup, and take it for a spin.

Figure 16-27. Makerlele

Head of a Horse of SeleneCosmo Wenmanhttp://www.thingiverse.com/thing:32228http://cosmowenman.comThis work is a scanned recreation of thefamous Parthenon sculpture of thehorses who drew the chariot of Selene,the moon goddess. Cosmo’s recreationof the Head of a Horse of Selene wasprinted in PLA on a MakerBot Replicator3D printer and is the same size and scaleas the original sculpture. Finished in “Ep-ic Bronze” using his Alternate Reality Pat-inas, it is a new take on a beloved workof antiquity.

Figure 16-28. Head of a Horse of Selene



http://thingiverse.com/hairygael

http://www.inmoov.fr

http://www.inmoov.fr



http://cosmowenman.com

Orbicular Lamp SeriesNervous Systemhttp://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.comPart of the Hyphae lighting collectionfrom Nervous System, the Orbicularlamp is based on how veins form inleaves. These complex and unconven-tional geometries are created using anovel computer simulation process.Each lamp in the collection is a one-of-a-kind design 3D printed in nylon plas-tic. Lit by eco-friendly LEDs, they castdramatic shadows on the walls and ceil-ing.

Figure 16-29. Orbicular lamp

Automatic Transmission ModelEmmett Lalish “emmett”http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34778Have you ever wondered how an auto-matic transmission works? Emmett Lal-ish did, so he found out and designedthis working desktop model. With sixforward speeds (and one reverse speed),this model is a great teaching tool.

Figure 16-30. Working automatic transmissionmodel

Marble RunAdam Fontenault and Chris Boyntonhttp://little-badger.com/portfolio/makerbot-marble-runThis marble run has over 2,000 individ-ual pieces printed from ABS snapped to-gether and has five separate forkingpaths that carry each marble on its jour-ney. There are two of these colossal dis-plays, one at the MakerBot NYC store andone in the MakerBot offices.

Figure 16-31. MakerBot Marble Run

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http://little-badger.com/portfolio/makerbot-marble-run

http://little-badger.com/portfolio/makerbot-marble-run

Dita’s GownMichael Schmidt and Francis Bitontihttp://www.michaelschmidtstudios.com/dita-von-teese.htmlhttp://francisbitonti.com/Dita-s-GownA fully articulated, completely custom-ized 3D-printed gown based on the Fi-bonacci sequence, designed to be wornby Dita Von Teese, the queen of burles-que. The dress was designed by MichaelSchmidt, 3D modeled by architect Fran-cis Bitonti, and printed in nylon byShapeways. After printing, the garmentwas assembled from 17 different pieces,dyed black, and lacquered, and over13,000 Swarovski crystals were attachedto create a “glowing” effect.

Figure 16-32. Dita’s Gown - Albert Sanchez Photog-raphy

Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures CoverMichael Zoellner aka “emnullfuenf”http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:92971A printable model of Joy Division’s iconicUnknown Pleasures cover representingpulsar PSR B1919+21 waveforms. Un-able to find a vector graphic or 3D modelof the cover art, Michael Zoellner endedup hand-tracing the waves, exporting asa DXF, and then extruding them in Open-SCAD.

Figure 16-33. 3D printed Unknown Pleasures cover



http://www.michaelschmidtstudios.com/dita-von-teese.html

http://www.michaelschmidtstudios.com/dita-von-teese.html

http://francisbitonti.com/Dita-s-Gown


Digital GrotesqueMichael Hansmeyer and BenjaminDillenburgerhttp://www.digital-grotesque.comhttp://www.michael-hansmeyer.comhttp://benjamin-dillenburger.com

Digital Grotesque is an elaborate room de-signed through customized algorithms thatis entirely 3D printed out of sandstone. Thesandstone was infiltrated with resin to in-crease the structural stability and close thepores, then coated with pigment, alcohol,and shellac.

Figure 16-34. Digital Grotesque

Eric Chu is a MAKE Labs Alumnus, an engineer-ing student, yo-yo hacker, robot builder, andfried rice aficionado.

Anna Kaziunas France is the Digital Fabrica-tion Editor at Maker Media.

Goli Mohammadi is a Senior Editor at MAKEwho has worked on MAKE magazine since thefirst issue.

Craig Couden is an Editorial Assistant withMaker Media.

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http://www.digital-grotesque.com

http://www.michael-hansmeyer.com

http://benjamin-dillenburger.com

WRITTEN BY KEVIN MACK

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEVIN MACK

Dissolving the boundaries between imagination andphysical reality.

As an artist, I’ve always been driven to createart that no one has ever seen before. Mysearch for the innovative led me to comput-ers in the early ’80s. I recognized the poten-tial for digital technology in art andimmersed myself.

A career in visual effects put me at the cut-ting edge of this technology, where I couldexplore and experiment with digital 3D toolslike procedural modeling and volumetricsculpting, and apply them in unintendedways. I learned to build brand-new tools andprocesses that made no attempt to emulatetraditional methods. These processes resul-

ted in unique virtual artifacts that imbuedmy digital objects with a surreal and myste-rious quality. They were new.

As these newfound capabilities enabled mywildest art ambitions, along came 3D print-ing, which made it possible to manifest mydigital creations in the physical world. It waslike a science fiction dream come true.

One reason I find 3D printing so compellingis that it enables production of objects thatcould not be made in any other way. Rapidprototyping lacks many of the limitations oftraditional object-creation methods. By ex-ploiting these capabilities, I’m able to add apowerful dimension to my sculptures: notonly are they new, but they appear to be im-possible.

Humans are immersed in the world of man-ufactured objects, and our brains have an in-tuitive understanding of how things aremade. We’ve come to expect certain artifactsof the fabrication processes, such as seams,limited part complexity, and lack of com-pound curvature. 3D printing enables thecreation of objects that conspicuously defy

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Dream Machine 17

these expectations. When you experiencethese objects and hold them in your hands,there is an immediate intuitive awarenessthat you are seeing something that wasn’tpossible before. This can be a profoundlysurreal experience.

My dream of creating art that no one has everseen before has come true. Digital technol-ogy and 3D printing open up a vast space ofentirely new aesthetic possibilities. I am cre-ating and discovering unimaginable formsand sculptures that couldn’t exist before.

This is just the beginning. Technology is con-stantly advancing. In the future, I predict that

creative technologies will completely dis-solve the boundaries between imaginationand physical reality. I don’t know if the worldis ready, but I can’t wait.

Kevin Mack is a pioneering digital artist andAcademy Award-winning visual effects design-er. Mack uses science and technology to makeart that depicts and inspires the transcendent.


Dream Machine

http://kevinmackart.com

WRITTEN BY LAURA KINIRY

Markus Kayser’s sand and sun 3D printer.

Think that deserts lack resources? Not toMarkus Kayser. The MIT research assistantwith a master’s in product design has createda 3D printer that can make glass objects us-ing a desert’s two most abundant resources:sun and sand. “I began asking myself,” saysKayser, “what if I could build a machinewhich would act as a kind of translator be-tween the two?” His Solar Sinter (Figure 18-1)is the direct result.

Figure 18-1. The Solar Sinter

Based on a type of 3D printing known as se-lective laser sintering (SLS), Kayser’s Solar

Sinter uses the sun’s rays as a laser and sandrather than resins to create exact physicalreplicas of his digital designs. The printer in-cludes a large Fresnel lens that’s always fac-ing the sun (by way of an electronic sun-tracking device), stepper motors to moveand load its sandbox, and two 60-watt pho-tovoltaic panels that provide electricity tocharge the battery that drives the motorsand electronics of the machine.

His first time out with Solar Sinter, Kayserproduced both a bowl and a tile, as well as asculptural piece. “Once I input the design I’mtrying to produce via an SD card,” he says,“the machine reads its code and then movesthe sandbox along to the correct x and y co-ordinates at 1 mm per second, while the lensfocuses a light beam that produces temper-atures between 1,400°C and 1,600°C, morethan enough to melt the sand.” The objects(Figure 18-2) are built layer by layer over thecourse of several hours.

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Desert Manufacturer 18

http://markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter

Figure 18-2. Sintered objects

“[In the future] printing directly onto thedesert floor with multiple lenses meltingsand into walls and eventually building ar-chitecture in desert environments could bea real prospect,” Kayser muses.

Laura Kiniry is a San Francisco-based freelancewriter and regular MAKE contributor.


Desert Manufacturer

WRITTEN BY MICHAEL OVERSTREET

Humanoid Evolution

The DARwIn-OP (Dynamic AnthropomorphicRobot with Intelligence—Open Platform) is astate-of-the-art research and developmenthumanoid robot created by Virginia Tech’s Ro-botics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa),led by Dr. Dennis Hong, in collaboration withthe University of Pennsylvania, Purdue Univer-sity, and the South Korean company Robotis,with support from the National Science Foun-dation.

Weighing in at just 2.9 kg and standing 45.5 cmtall, the DARwIn-OP won the gold medal in theautonomous RoboCup Soccer Humanoid Lea-gue, Kid Size class, in both 2011 and 2012.

In recent years I’ve experimented with 3Dprinting the structural brackets for my hu-manoid robot Boomer (Figure 19-1). Boomerand I compete at RoboGames and show offat Maker Faires, and people always ask me:Why 3D printing? Why not just make thebrackets out of metal like everyone else?

Figure 19-1. Michael and Boomer

I started to do it just because I could. The ad-vent of cheap DIY 3D printers has given mak-ers a new way to manufacture and customizeobjects, and I was simply exploring this newprocess. As I printed more parts for my robot,I realized that it could be done—and donecheaply.

Then I saw the DARwIn-OP at the 2010International Conference on Humanoid Ro-bots. After seeing how capable and ground-

breaking it was, I wanted one. But how couldI afford it? A new DARwIn-OP from Robotiscosts $12,000.

That’s how this project got started. My mis-sion was to print as much of the robot aspossible using a DIY 3D printer costing$2,000 or less. DARwIn-OP is an open hard-ware and software project, so all of the 3Dfiles and plans are free online. I bought 20Dynamixel MX-28T servos and the completeelectronics kit from Robotis.

167

How I Printed aHumanoid 19

Today, my DARwIn-OP clone (Figure 19-2) isfully assembled, and I’ve spent about $6,100,not counting the costs of the 3D printers Iused. That’s still a lot—but it’s almost half offthe factory price.

Figure 19-2. Meet the clone!

Here are some of the things that made thispossible:

90% DIY printedI print my parts in ABS plastic, as PLA isweaker and more brittle. I strongly agreewith the review of the UP! Plus/Afiniaprinter in the 2012 Make: Ultimate Guideto 3D Printing. It’s one of the best on themarket, and it has printed 90% of myclone: servo brackets, structural framing,and body covers.

Top servosRobotis Dynamixel digital servomotorsare the leading robotics servos in the

world—fast, high torque, and very highresolution.

Glues not screwsNuts and bolts are not ideal for plastic. Iglue my 3D-printed brackets togetherusing Micro-Mark’s Same Stuff(Figure 19-3) liquid plastic welder or anABS-acetone slurry.

Figure 19-3. Micro-Mark’s Same Stuff

Off-the-shelf brainsThe DARwIn-OP is controlled by an af-fordable Fit-PC2 compact PC and a Ro-botis CM-730 servo controller(Figure 19-4).


How I Printed a Humanoid

Figure 19-4. The brains of the bot

Here are some of the challenges I faced:

The toughest partsA few parts, designed for aluminum orinjection-molded plastic, are almost im-possible for a DIY printer. The front bodycover must be printed at the highest res-olution—that’s 16 hours on my printer,and a lot can go wrong in 16 hours. I hadShapeways print the head and body cov-ers, using their laser sintering process. Ihope to modify these parts for a DIYprinter—or to find one that can handlethem.

Tricky widthsSome parts are one and a half or two anda half extruder paths wide instead of twoor three. Many DIY printers and slicerprograms can’t overcome this problem,causing hollow passageways withinwalls that weaken the part. Also prob-

lematic: body covers are barely one pathwide.

Lessons Learned

Here are a few more things that helped alongthe way.

Free 3D designI had to fine-tune some of the parts, so Iused Autodesk’s 123D design softwareto create my STL files, both for its price(free) and its ease of use (seeFigure 19-5).

Figure 19-5. 3D-printed bracket

Rafts and support materialI like the UP! Plus 3D printer’s accuracyand its automatic generation of bothrafts (disposable footings that preventwarping) and support material to propup overhangs, bridges, and screw holes(Figure 19-6). I still had to play aroundwith the orientation of parts on the buildplatform, because this can affect theprinting of overhangs and supports (seeFigures 19-7 and 19-8).

169Chapter 19

Lessons Learned


Figure 19-6. UP! software

Figure 19-7. Printing with support material on theUP! Plus

Figure 19-8. Finished printed humanoid part

Heated platformPrinting in ABS requires a build platformheated to about 110°F. To improve per-formance, I upgraded my Up Plus plat-form to glass covered with Kapton tapefor adhesion.


Lessons Learned

Leveling the platformLearn the paper leveling trick: if a sheetof paper can freely move between theextruder tip and the build platform,you’re OK. If not, then the extruder tip istoo close. If it moves too easily or you seea gap, then it’s too far away.

Awesome manualsThe open source DARwIn-OP manualsare the most comprehensive and de-tailed I’ve ever worked with—they breakdown the entire assembly into easysteps (Figures 19-9 through 19-11). Ithank Dr. J.K. Han of Robotis for the tire-less work he must have put into creatingthem!

Figure 19-9. Step-by-step humanoid documentation

Figure 19-10. Humanoid robot design from the Ro-botis assembly manual

171Chapter 19

Lessons Learned

Figure 19-11. Another humanoid robot design fromthe Robotis assembly manuals

DIY vs. Commercial

To print the whole robot, I used two spoolsof plastic that cost about $90 total. Shape-ways’s price is almost $1,000. That’s close tothe price of many DIY 3D printers, and in myopinion the quality of DIY prints is now 70%to 80% as good as that of professional prints.Still, I’m considering having all the coversprinted by Shapeways for about $400, asthey’re the most difficult parts to get right.

What’s Next

Next I’ll download the control software tothe Fit-PC2 and get this robot to walk, talk,and see, with as few modifications to thesoftware and hardware as possible.

I may need to redesign some of the bracketsand frames, because these were designed for

aluminum. My friend Yoshihiro Shibata ishelping me analyze DARwIn-OP’s structureto find its weak points when printed in plastic(see Figures 19-12 and 19-13). My plan is toredesign only the parts that break, to makethem stronger, as I don’t want to add unnec-essary weight.

Figure 19-12. Analyzing DARwIn-OP’s structure


DIY vs. Commercial

Figure 19-13. Finding weak points when printed inplastic

That’s one of the great benefits of personalmanufacturing: if something doesn’t work,just redesign it and print it out. This processis called iterative design and experimenta-

tion. You can do it as many times as neededbecause the cost of a part is only a few dollarsand you just have to wait for it to be printed!

After the robot is fully functional, I’ll modifyits covers to resemble my favorite fictionalhumanoids, Robby, Gort, Atom, and C-3PO,and maybe add a fully articulating hand withfingers.

But I’ve come to realize that I may never befully done with this project. I think the onlylimit is my imagination. This, I think, is thegreatest benefit that we’ll get from the per-sonal fabrication movement. It has openedup limitless possibilities for individuals tofully explore in solid form their dreams, ideas,and imaginations.

Special thanks to Luis Rodriguez, Rob Gise-burt, Paul Piong, Roc Terrell, James Rao, andKayla Kim for their printers and knowledge.

Michael Overstreet is a computer programmerby day and amateur roboticist by night. He andhis humanoid robot Boomer have won medalsin the last six RoboGames. He’s a foundingmember of the Cowtown Computer Congresshackerspace in Kansas City, MO., and has at-tended all of the national Maker Faires.

173Chapter 19

What’s Next

http://mike-ibioloid.blogspot.com

PART VIII

Other Ways to Make3D Objects

WRITTEN BY TOM OWAD

The takeaway on subtractive vs. additive fabrication.

There’s a lot of well-deserved excitementsurrounding 3D printers, and for the avidDIYer much of it is focused on their ability to“self-replicate” by making their own parts.But is a 3D printer the right tool for you?

A 3D printer’s fabrication technique is addi-tive—most of them use a hot plastic extrud-er to “print” a plastic model. This contrastswith subtractive fabrication tools, whichstart with a solid block of material and use acutter to remove the excess. Subtractive fab-rication is far more common than additive,especially when working with metal andwood. Lathes, mills, saws, drills, and otherCNCs like laser and vinyl cutters are all sub-tractive tools.

The Subtractive Equivalentof 3DP

A CNC milling machine or router is the sub-tractive equivalent of the 3D printer. For thehobbyist, milling is inferior to printing in nu-merous ways:

• Milling inherently causes waste, andwithout some sort of dust control, thatwaste gets flung throughout the room.

• Milling is more dangerous—while it’spossible that a plastic extruder mightoverheat and catch fire, I’ve already hada (minor) fire with my CNC router, andthere’s the added danger of a blade spin-ning at 20,000 rpm sending bits of itself,or even your workpiece, flying at you.

• A mill or router is necessarily larger andheavier than a 3D printer and conse-quently more expensive and more diffi-cult to move. It requires a positioningsystem that can maintain accuracy whenencountering resistance, and motorspowerful enough to drive it.

• Software preparation is also more com-plex for milling. After drawing the objectyou wish to make in a CAD or 3D mod-eling program, it’s necessary to generate

177

Milling 3D Objects 20

toolpaths with computer-aided manu-facturing (CAM) software. This involvesspecifying the dimensions and locationof the stock material, the dimensionsand characteristics of the end mill (cut-ter), and speeds for the axes and spindle.The tools to do this tend to be complex,and a bit daunting for the first-time user.

From the user’s perspective, CNC milling is amuch more complex process than printingis. CNC milling does, however, have a signif-icant advantage over 3D printing: the tech-nology is mature. Home 3D printers are im-proving at a tremendous rate, but there’soften still a lot of tinkering and experimen-tation involved in getting a good print.

What Do You Want toMake?

If your interests tend toward larger and morestructural creations, go with milling. Alsoconsider that it’s cheaper to work in woodthan in plastic, and that you’re likely to getsubstantially superior results.

On the other hand, making complex 3D ob-jects is a lot more complicated with CNCmilling than with a 3D printer. There are freetools for doing 2.5D milling, but CAM soft-ware for 3D milling can be very expensiveand difficult to use.

Doing 3D work for 3D printing is much easier.You can design your models in a free pro-gram like SketchUp or Inventor Fusion, andthen export an STL file. Slicing software con-verts the STL file automatically to toolpathsin G-code, then sends the G-code directly toyour 3D printer. With 3D printing, there’s noneed to tweak cutting paths, and no worryabout the tool crashing into your work.

If creating small 3D objects is your goal, a 3Dprinter is the right choice.

DIY CNC

Going with milling doesn’t mean you haveto give up on self-replication or on makingyour own machine. Patrick Hood-Daniel, au-thor of Build Your Own CNC Machine, makesa scratch-build CNC kit capable of making allof its custom parts, just like the RepRap 3Dprinter and its progeny. The frame is built ofcustom-cut plywood. Everything else is stan-dard hardware.

The aluminum angle, bolts, and screws areavailable from any hardware store. The lead-screws and anti-backlash nuts will probablyhave to be mail-ordered from McMaster-Carrand DumpsterCNC, but you can get by withlesser hardware store parts in a pinch. Thestepper motors and stepper drivers are com-pletely generic and available from countlesssources. The spindle is an ordinary woodrouter. I use a Porter-Cable 892.

As with the RepRap, the trick with Patrick’sCNC router is getting a seed unit. Fortunate-ly, any CNC router that can handle a 2'×4’sheet of plywood is capable of making theparts. Check out your local hackerspace,TechShop, Fab Lab and even the MAKE fo-rums or the Home Shop Machinist, andyou’re likely to find somebody local with thenecessary equipment. (If you can’t find any-body to cut the parts for you, Patrick sellsseveral kits.)

Plans Avaliable fromBuildyourcnc.comTo get the CAD and CAM files for the parts,go to http://buildyourcnc.com/cnckit2.aspxand download the plans for the CNC RoutingMachine Kit Version 1.3. Videos on the


What Do You Want to Make?

http://buildyourcnc.com/cnckit2.aspx

Resources to Build Your OwnCNC Mill

Build Your Own CNC Machine, by JamesFloyd Kelly and Patrick Hood-Daniel

http://amzn.com/1430224894

DumpsterCNChttp://www.dumpstercnc.com/

Build Your CNChttp://buildyourcnc.com/

website explain how to put everything to-gether. The files are licensed under the Cre-ative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which means youcan make machines for yourself and for yourfriends, but you can’t sell them commercially.

The CAM files are in the proprietary CamBamformat, but there’s a free version available,and it can read and write DXF files. Mostgood CAM software is very expensive, so ifyou don’t already have a favorite, stick withCamBam. It can do both CAD and CAM, andeven the free version is tremendously full-featured.

Another exciting new option is the Maker-Slide system, available from Inventables. Per-haps the most significant weakness in theBuildYourCNC design is its decreased rigidityand precision due to its wooden design.MakerSlide integrates V-rails into what isotherwise a standard aluminum extrusionsystem (available from 80/20, Misumi, andothers). By building your machine out of acombination of MakerSlides and stock alu-minum extrusion, it’s possible to create amore rigid, precise machine than you couldwith wood.

Tom Owad is a Macintosh consultant in York,PA, and Editor of Applefritter. He is the authorof Apple I Replica Creation.

179Chapter 20

DIY CNC

http://amzn.com/1430224894

http://www.dumpstercnc.com/

http://buildyourcnc.com/

http://inventables.com

http://applefritter.com

Even More Mills

This chapter was originally published inMake: Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing (2012).Since then there have been several newdesktop CNCs and DIY linear motion systemsreleased at a low price point.

It should also be noted that thereare many different types of sub-tractive manufacturing in additionto milling, including laser cutters,vinyl cutters, and various CNC dragknife attachments.

Othermillhttp://otherfab.com

The Othermill is a small-scale, high-precisionCNC mill from Otherfab that evolved fromthe MTM Snap project (Machines That Make)created by Jonathan Ward at the MIT Centerof Bits and Atoms. Jonathan now works forOtherfab.

This machine has a working area of5.5"x4.5"x1.4” and is optimized for millingcircuit boards out of FR-1 copper-clad PCBstock using a quiet, high-speed spindle. Itcan also machine soft woods, machinablewax, plastics and nonferrous metals. UnlikeCNCs made from plywood, MDF, and othermaterials that are prone to warping, the Oth-ermill is made from chemical resistant andmoisture-proof HDPE.

In addition, the team at Othermill has takenon the task of both simplifying and beauti-fying the CAM process for milling by creatingtheir own custom CAM package for the Oth-ermill, which at the time of this writing is stillin development. The cost of the Othermill

will be a little over $1,000 for a fully assem-bled and ready-to-use machine.

Shapeoko 2

• Documentation: http://www.shapeoko.com

• Available though Inventables: https://www.inventables.com/technologies/desktop-cnc-mill-kits-shapeoko

Shapeoko is an open source CNC milling ma-chine kit designed by Edward Ford that canbe built in a weekend, depending on yourlevel of expertise. It is available from Invent-ables as a Mechanical Kit ($299) or a Full Kit($649 for 110V / $685.00 for 220V).

The Shapeoko lives up to its open sourcebilling and provides full documentation forall of the machine parts, including the CADfiles. It also uses the MakerSlide system dis-cussed earlier in this chapter. The machine isdriven by an open source hardware stackand currently uses grbl as the G-code inter-preter and G-code sender (Windows) or gctrlon Mac and Linux. Materials for milling in-clude plastics, woods, and nonferrous metalslike aluminum and brass. However, it shouldbe noted that Shapeoko strongly recom-mends a spindle upgrade (instead of using arotary tool) if you plan to machine metals.

Linear Motion Systems

In addition to the complete and kit CNC mill-ing options already mentioned, there areseveral companies providing open sourcealuminum extrusion combined with linearmotion systems which make it easy to buildyour own custom CNC; MakerSlide, Open-Beam and OpenBuilds.


Even More Mills


http://otherfab.com

http://mtm.cba.mit.edu/

http://mtm.cba.mit.edu/

http://www.shapeoko.com

http://www.shapeoko.com

https://www.inventables.com/technologies/desktop-cnc-mill-kits-shapeoko



—Anna Kaziunas France

MakerSlide

• Documentation: http://www.makerslide.com

• Available though Inventables: https://www.inventables.com/technologies/makerslide

MakerSlide was created by Bart Dring andimplements the traditional V wheel runningon a V rail system of linear motion commonlyused in commercial CNC machines. It was thefirst popular, affordable, and open sourcesystem of it’s kind and is sold through In-ventables.com. The Shapeoeko 2 uses Mak-erSlide.

OpenBeam

• Documentation: http://blog.openbeamusa.com

• Avaliable through Amazon: http://store.openbeamusa.com

OpenBeam open source aluminum extru-sions are used in the Mini Kossel and KosselPro 3D printers, which are both open sourceRepRap printers, as well as commercial (Rep-Strap) 3D printers that have emerged from apartnership between the Rostock and MiniKossel creator Johann Rocholl and TerenceTam of OpenBeam.

OpenBuilds

• Documentation: http://www.openbuilds.com

• Avaliable through OpenBuilds PartStore: http://openbuildspartstore.com

The OpenBuilds Part Store sells OpenRailopen source aluminum V-slot extrusions andother linear motion components. Open-Builds V-slots are used in the Bukito 3D print-er from Deezmaker.

181Chapter 20

Linear Motion Systems

http://www.makerslide.com

http://www.makerslide.com

https://www.inventables.com/technologies/makerslide



http://blog.openbeamusa.com

http://blog.openbeamusa.com

http://store.openbeamusa.com

http://store.openbeamusa.com

http://www.openbuilds.com

http://www.openbuilds.com

http://openbuildspartstore.com


Making molds for chocolate casting with 3D printing.

Every Halloween I make treats to give away.I don a costume and distribute them to ev-eryone I meet during my Halloween travels.I call it “reverse trick-o-treating.” During Oc-tober of 2012, I created a 3D-printed choco-late mold maker and individual trays inwhich to place the chocolates before bag-ging them. To cast the chocolates, I usedfood-safe silicone to make the final choco-late mold (Figure 21-1) from the 3D-printedmold maker.

Figure 21-1. The white chocolate skulls

I had scanned the skull a few months earlierusing 123D Catch and had already created a3D-printed necklace with it for my Kali Hal-loween costume, which I wore (Figure 21-2)when I handed out the chocolates.

Figure 21-2. Happy Halloween 2012 from Kali andFinn & Jake!

I used an OpenSCAD script to make a mash-up of a parametric box (by Thingiverse useracker) and my skull to create the mold maker.The trays for the chocolates were created us-ing the same parametric box script.

The candy trays were printed in PLA, andwere only used for presenting (not molding)the food. If you’re worried, use a layer ofparchment or wax paper to separate theskulls from the tray. I cast many batches ofwhite skull chocolates and then placed themin the PLA trays. I placed the trays in treatbags and sealed them with twist ties.

183

White ChocolateSkulls in PLA Trays 21

http://openscad.org

Here are the files you’ll need:

The Chocolate Skull Mold Makerhttp://www.thingiverse.com/thing:33432

Skull with Pointed Teeth (cleaned and re-paired scan)


The original skull scan (before cleanup)isavailable from 123D Catch

http://www.123dapp.com/obj-Catch/Skull-with-Pointed-Teeth/859975

Bill of Materials

You will need the following items in order torecreate the White Skull Chocolates. My 3Dprinting supplies are shown in Figure 21-4,and you can see the others in Figure 21-3.

• Access to a 3D printer (I used a MakerBotReplicator) or use of a 3D printing service(like Ponoko or Shapeways)

• PLA filament to print on that printer

• Smooth On Smooth-Sil 940 food-safe sil-icone rubber

• Chocolate Melts (no tempering re-quired). I like Chocoley’s Bada Bing BadaBoom Candy & Molding Formula

• Soy Lecithin (softgels. I found these atWhole Foods in the supplement aisle

• Food thermometer. I find that digitalones with big letters are easiest to read;I purchased mine at my local HarborFreight for wicked cheap.

• Double boiler (or a tall soup pot and asmall glass mixing bowl)

• Sharp knife

• Cutting board

• Small spatula/spreader

Optional items:

• Cocoa powder (I used Green & Blacks)

• Candymaker’s cotton gloves (keep yourfingers from marring the chocolatewhen demolding)

• Food-safe squeeze bottles or a choco-late funnel (keeps the process from be-coming overly messy)

• Bamboo steamer (can be used in placeof a double boiler or tall soup pot/glassbowl combo)

• Plastic treat bags with twist ties (Ibought mine at Joann’s Fabric)

Figure 21-3. My chocolate casting supplies

Figure 21-4. My 3D printing supplies


Bill of Materials





http://www.smooth-on.com/a25/Smooth-Sil%3D-940-Suitable-For-Food-Related-Applications/article_info.html

http://www.chocoley.com/badabingbadaboom/candyandmolding.htm

http://www.chocoley.com/badabingbadaboom/candyandmolding.htm

http://www.harborfreight.com/instant-read-digital-thermometer-95382.html

http://www.harborfreight.com/instant-read-digital-thermometer-95382.html

http://www.greenandblacks.com/ca/what-we-make/home-baking/cocoa-powder.html

http://www.chocoley.com/supplies.htm

Design Your Own Mold in OpenSCAD

If you want to design your own mold instead of usingthe skull mold file included with the Chocolate SkullMold Maker, you can edit skullCandyMold.scad to useyour own object.

I designed this mold using a mashup of an Open-SCAD parametric box (by Thingiverse user acker) andmy scanned skull.

Before you make any changes, I suggest that you playaround with the mold code as is. For that to work,make sure the vampireSkull_0.2.stl is located in thesame directory as the OpenSCAD file.

Once you’re sure it’s working, you can substitute yourown STL for the mold: just change the “filename”variable to the name of your STL. Make sure your STLis in the same directory as the .scad file.

Here’s a render of the mold maker in OpenSCAD:

1. Print the Mold Maker ona 3D Printer

Print the mold form on a 3D printer(Figure 21-5). For people printing on their 3Dprinters at home, I recommend printing theChocolate Skull Mold Maker with 13% infilland three shells. I have provided two ver-sions of the Chocolate Mold Maker STL file,one with thin walls (1.3 mm) and one withthicker walls (2.3 mm). The one with thinwalls is not completely watertight if you printit with a raft. I used liquid tape on the bottomto make it water tight, but in the end therubber mold mix was very thick and I don’tthink the liquid tape was actually necessary.

Figure 21-5. Freshly 3D-printed mold maker

The thicker one will take much longer toprint. The thin-walled one should be fine topour the silicone rubber into.

2. Mix and Pour theSmooth-Sil 940

Take the Smooth On Smooth-Sil 940 food-safe silicone rubber (Figure 21-6) and mix itaccording to the proportions on the pack-age. Pour it into the 3D-printed chocolate

185Chapter 21

1. Print the Mold Maker on a 3D Printer



mold maker. Fill the mold so that it covers theskulls by about a half inch, or close to the topof the mold.

Figure 21-6. Ready to pour!

I don’t have access to a vacuum degasser(yet), so to help prevent bubbles from form-ing in the mold, I placed it on a subwooferwhile music with heavy bass was playing(Figure 21-7). I also used an electric tooth-brush without the brush head attached tovibrate the bottom and sides of the outsideof the mold to get bubbles to come to thetop.

Figure 21-7. Alleviating bubbles with a subwoofer

I don’t know how effective these measuresare, but I did not have any problems withbubbles or the mold material losing detail.Let the poured mold set for 24 hours and fol-low the heat curing instructions. Read thedatasheet.

I covered the bottom of the thinnerwalled-mold with black liquid tape(liquid rubber), as shown inFigure 21-8. I was worried that themodel was not completely water-tight, but I don’t think this is actual-ly necessary. The Smooth-Sil 940was so thick that it wouldn’t haveleaked out before setting up any-way.

Figure 21-8. Mold form coated with “liquid tape”

3. Demold

In order to remove the silicone mold from the3D-printed mold form, you will probablyhave to destroy the 3D-printed form com-pletely. I tore mine completely apart. Someof the skulls had to be removed one by one.Overall it was pretty easy to demold, once Iaccepted that I was going to destroy the


3. Demold

http://www.smooth-on.com/tb/files/Food_Grade_SS940.pdf

mold maker. Figure 21-9 and Figure 21-10show the process.

Figure 21-9. 3D-printed mold form destruction!

Figure 21-10. Removing the skulls from the siliconemold

Give the mold (Figure 21-11) a wash withsoap and water in the sink, and I let it drycompletely before attempting to cast choc-olate. Water does bad things to chocolatewhen you are casting it.

Figure 21-11. Final silicone candy mold

4. Add Slits to the Mold

Cut notches in the mold with a razor bladeat the base of the skulls (see Figure 21-12).This will make it much easier to demold thechocolates.

Figure 21-12. Slits added to the candy mold

I came across this by accident. After demold-ing many rounds of chocolates, the base ofone of the skulls started to split a little fromflexing the mold. I found that it had no im-pact on the quality of the chocolates comingout of the mold and it made it much easierto demold the chocolates. I cut little notcheswith a razor blade straight back perpendic-

187Chapter 21

4. Add Slits to the Mold

ular to the base of all of the skulls (the notch-es are only visible if I flex the mold) It makesit much easier to get them out of the mold.

5. Extract the Soy Lecithinfrom the Softgels

The soy lecithin will help with the demoldingand has other benefits, such as acting as anemulsifier, when used in molding chocolate.I used Whole Foods soy lecithin softgels,which were available in the supplementsisle.

I cut the softgels open and squeezed the oilout (Figure 21-13). I not very precisely usedaround two small handfuls of chocolate tothe oil contained in four lecithin pills. Discardthe softgels after squeezing out the oil.

Figure 21-13. Soy lecithin softgels

6. Melt The Chocolate

I used white chocolate melts that do not re-quire tempering. You could temper yourown chocolate, but it is an extensive processin its own right and it is not covered here.

Heated chocolate melts in a double boiler. (Ifyou have one, otherwise follow the alternatesuggestions at the end of this section. I

followed the detailed instructions fromChocoley.

Keep in mind that temperature is very im-portant. While the chocolate melts, use athermometer to measure the temperature.Heat to between 100-105° F. Do not overheatthe chocolate or you will ruin it for casting!

While melting the chocolate, add the smallamount of lecithin that we obtained in thelast step. I used two small handfuls of choc-olate (I have small hands) to the oil obtainedfrom four lecithin softgels. Gently stir thechocolate until it is consistently melted.

I also found that a tiny bit of cocoa powdercan give the chocolate a more balancedtaste. Just add a sprinkle to the batch.

I made a lot of chocolates, and I don’t have adouble boiler, so I experimented with severalways of melting the chocolate.

Bamboo Steamer + Glass BowlFill a tall pot about halfway with water andplace a bamboo steamer basket on top of thepot. Put a small glass mixing bowl on top ofthe bamboo steamer basket. Place yourchocolate melts into the mixing bowl(Figure 21-14). I find it is best to do smallbatches. Add paper towels to the top of thesteamer basket where it meets the glassbowl so that steam and chocolate do notmix.

Avoid getting water in the meltedchocolate; it will dilute the mixtureand it will not set properly whenyou try to cast it.


5. Extract the Soy Lecithin from the Softgels

http://chocoley.com/chocolate-candy-making-guide/melting-bada-bing-bada-boom-chocolate.htm

http://chocoley.com/chocolate-candy-making-guide/melting-bada-bing-bada-boom-chocolate.htm

Figure 21-14. Melting chocolate in a glass bowl and abamboo steamer.

Bamboo Steamer + SqueezeBottle (Best Way)After experimenting for an afternoon andmelting several batches of chocolate, I foundthe following method to be the easiest tomanage.

I kept the tall pot and the bamboo steamerset up, but switched from using a glass bowlto a chocolate squeeze bottle. I wrapped adish towel around the bottle to block the ris-ing steam (see Figure 21-15).

Figure 21-15. Melting chocolate in the squeeze bot-tle.

The squeeze bottle method made the pro-cess easier in two ways:

1. It was easy to fill the individual skulls inthe mold and was much less messy thanthe other methods I tried.

2. After I filled the mold, I could put thesqueeze bottle aside and it was easy toreheat later on top of the bamboosteamer. This eliminated messy andwasteful chocolate transfers using mul-tiple containers and cut down on thedishes I needed to wash.

7. Let the Chocolate Cool

Before pouring the chocolate into the mold,you need to let the chocolate cool(Figure 21-16). The chocolate needs to cooldown to about 96-98° F before you shouldstart working with it. This will probably takelonger than you think. Keep an eye on yourthermometer and have your mold and toolsready. It pays to stand by the chocolate andwait until it cools; otherwise you may missyour window and it may cool too much topour into the mold.

If you are going to pour the chocolate into asqueeze bottle or chocolate funnel, do itwhile it is cooling. Keep the thermometer inthe chocolate so you can tell when it hascooled down enough to pour into the mold.

I tried a chocolate funnel before Isettled on the squeeze bottlemethod.

189Chapter 21

7. Let the Chocolate Cool

Figure 21-16. Letting the chocolate cool—keep aneye on the thermometer!

8. Pour the Chocolate intothe Mold

Once the chocolate cools, you need to pourthe chocolate into the mold. I recommendthe squeeze bottle method (Figure 21-17),but you could also use a chocolate funnel orcarefully pour the chocolate from a smallbowl into the holes in the mold.

Figure 21-17. Using a squeeze bottle to pour thechocolate into the mold

After you pour the chocolate into the mold,use a spatula or butter knife to smooth outthe top of the chocolate (Figure 21-18).

Remove any excess on the top of the moldby scraping across the top.

Figure 21-18. Smooth out the surface with a knife

9. Put the Mold in theRefrigerator

Put the silicone mold containing the choco-late into the refrigerator until the chocolatesolidifies (Figure 21-19). This will take about20 minutes for small chocolates. It could takelonger if you are casting a larger piece.

Figure 21-19. Place in the fridge for 20 minutes


8. Pour the Chocolate into the Mold

10. While Waiting, StartPrinting the Candy Trays

While you are waiting for the chocolate to setin the fridge, you can start printing your can-dy trays (Figure 21-20). If you don’t have a 3Dprinter, you will need to plan for this or dowith out the trays. Print the trays using PLAfilament.

If you are concerned about wheth-er PLA is food-safe for storage, puta small piece of wax or parchmentpaper beneath each skull.

Figure 21-20. Printing PLA candy trays

Here is the link to my candy tray files withfour dividers: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:33432. This parametric tray code waswritten by acker, who derived it from hippie-gunnut. I modified the parametric script tocreate a tray that would fit four of my choc-olates perfectly.

11. Carefully Demold theChocolate

The skull chocolates are a little difficult to getout of the mold. Wear candymaker’s cottongloves (Figure 21-21) to avoid marking thechocolate with your fingers.

Figure 21-21. Demolding the chocolate with candy-maker’s gloves

Twist the rubber mold to loosen the choco-late. It will help to have small hands (I do andI am able to remove the chocolates withoutdestroying them). I found that after loosen-ing the chocolate by twisting the mold, it iseasiest to twist out the face and rotate it outof the mold. Then grab the face and pull toremove the rest of the skull from the mold.You may smear the teeth a little, but overallit seems to work the best.

I have made many batches so far and I man-aged to get all of the chocolates out of themold without destroying any of them(Figure 21-22).

191Chapter 21

10. While Waiting, Start Printing the Candy Trays



Figure 21-22. Demolded chocolates

Next, place the skulls into trays(Figure 21-23), put the trays in treat bags, andgive them away to everyone!

Figure 21-23. Place the chocolates in trays



11. Carefully Demold the Chocolate



http://kaziunas.com

http://kaziunas.com



WRITTEN BY CORY DOCTOROW

A futuristic excerpt from Overclocked: Stories of theFuture Present.

The coppers smashed my father’s printerwhen I was 8. I remember the hot, cling-film-in-a-microwave smell of it, and Da’s look offerocious concentration as he filled it withfresh goop, and the warm, fresh-baked feelof the objects that came out of it.

The coppers came through the door withtruncheons swinging, one of them recitingthe terms of the warrant through a bullhorn.One of Da’s customers had shopped him. Theipolice paid in high-grade pharmaceuticals—performance enhancers, memory supple-ments, metabolic boosters. The kind ofthings that cost a fortune over the counter,the kind of things you could print at home,if you didn’t mind the risk of having yourkitchen filled with a sudden crush of big,beefy bodies, hard truncheons whistlingthrough the air, smashing anyone and any-thing that got in the way.

They destroyed grandma’s trunk, the oneshe’d brought from the old country. Theysmashed our little refrigerator and the puri-fier unit over the window. My tweetybird es-caped death by hiding in a corner of his cageas a big, booted foot crushed most of it intoa sad tangle of printer wire.

Da. What they did to him. When he was done,he looked like he’d been brawling with anentire rugby side. They brought him out thedoor and let the newsies get a good look athim as they tossed him in the car. All thewhile a spokesman told the world that myDa’s organized-crime bootlegging opera-

193

Printcrime 22

tion had been responsible for at least 20 mil-lion in contraband, and that my Da, the des-perate villain, had resisted arrest.

I saw it all from my phone, in the remains ofthe sitting room, watching it on the screenand wondering how, just how anyone couldlook at our little flat and our terrible, mankyestate and mistake it for the home of an or-ganized crime kingpin. They took the printeraway, of course, and displayed it like a trophyfor the newsies. Its little shrine in the kitch-enette seemed horribly empty. When Iroused myself and picked up the flat and res-cued my poor peeping tweetybird, I put ablender there. It was made out of printedparts, so it would only last a month before I’dneed to print new bearings and other mov-ing parts. Back then, I could take apart andreassemble anything that could be printed.

By the time I turned 18, they were ready tolet Da out of prison. I’d visited him threetimes—on my tenth birthday, on his fiftieth,and when Ma died. It had been two yearssince I’d last seen him and he was in badshape. A prison fight had left him with a limp,and he looked over his shoulder so often itwas like he had a tic. I was embarrassed whenthe minicab dropped us off in front of theestate, and tried to keep my distance fromthis ruined, limping skeleton as we went in-side and up the stairs.

”Lanie,” he said, as he sat me down. ”You’re asmart girl, I know that. You wouldn’t knowwhere your old Da could get a printer andsome goop?”

I squeezed my hands into fists so tight myfingernails cut into my palms. I closed myeyes. ”You’ve been in prison for 10 years, Da.Ten. Years. You’re going to risk another 10years to print out more blenders and phar-ma, more laptops and designer hats?”

He grinned. ”I’m not stupid, Lanie. I’velearned my lesson. There’s no hat or laptopthat’s worth going to jail for. I’m not going toprint none of that rubbish, never again.” Hehad a cup of tea, and he drank it now like itwas whisky, a sip and then a long, satisfiedexhalation. He closed his eyes and leanedback in his chair.

”Come here, Lanie, let me whisper in your ear.Let me tell you the thing that I decided whileI spent 10 years in lockup. Come here andlisten to your stupid Da.”

I felt a guilty pang about ticking him off. Hewas off his rocker, that much was clear. Godknew what he went through in pris-on. ”What, Da?” I said, leaning in close.

”Lanie, I’m going to print more printers. Lotsmore printers. One for everyone. That’sworth going to jail for. That’s worth any-thing.”

Copy this story.

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, ac-tivist, journalist, blogger, co-editor of BoingBoing, and the author of the bestselling TorTeen/HarperCollins UK novel Little Brother. Hislatest young adult novel is Homeland, and hislatest novel for adults is Rapture of the Nerds.


Printcrime

http://craphound.com/?p=573

http://craphound.com

http://boingboing.net

http://boingboing.net

WRITTEN BY COLLEEN JORDAN, ERIC WEINHOFFER AND THE EDITORS OF

MAKE

Adafruit’s 3D Printing SkillBadge

Declare to the world your proficiency in theworld of 3D printing with this embroideredskill badge from Adafruit.

Software for Makers

Creating things from atoms is better withbits.

3D CADThere are many useful and inexpensive soft-ware options for designing 3D models, forprinting or otherwise.

123D Designhttp://123dapp.com

This is part of the free 123D suite of toolsfrom Autodesk. You can model objectsusing its easy-to-learn interface, prepareyour models for printing, export them toSTL files, or send them directly to manypopular fabrication companies. It in-cludes a variety of popular 3D modelcreation, scanning, and sculpting apps,including the popular 123D Catch and123D Design.

TinkerCADhttp://tinkercad.com

Recently rescued by Autodesk, Tinker-cad is a web-based modeling program.With a WebGL-enabled browser such asGoogle Chrome or Firefox, you can runTinkercad’s 3D user interface directly inyour browser. Build up your design, saveit online, and share it with others. Youcan also send files directly to popular 3Dprinting services or download STL filesfor printing yourself.

195

3D Printing Resources A

http://adafruit.com/products/490

http://adafruit.com/products/490

http://123dapp.com

http://tinkercad.com

3DTinhttp://www.3dtin.com

An in-browser tool that started out as asimple shape editor, with specific blocksthat you can duplicate and manipulateto make models. Now it’s become muchmore robust, with a multitude of mod-eling features.

OpenSCADhttp://openscad.org

If you like programming languagesmore than dragging and dropping, youmight prefer OpenSCAD to the othermodeling tools out there. Instead ofdrawing objects with your mouse, youprogram their shapes using lines ofcode. For example, cube([10,10,10]) willmake a 10 mm cube appear onscreen.Using Boolean operators, you can com-bine, subtract, and intersect objects tocreate much more complex models us-ing constructive solid geometry. Open-SCAD can export your scripts as STLmodels for 3D printing.

FreeCADhttp://free-cad.sourceforge.net

An open-source CAD program for Mac,Linux, and PC, built for product designand engineering. It’s feature-rich andhas a high learning curve. Check this outif you’re interested in upgrading from asimpler program.

Sculptrishttp://pixologic.com/sculptris

A free digital sculpting tool in which youcreate 3D models by interacting with“digital clay.”

Cubify Inventhttp://cubify.com/products/cubify_invent

An easy-to-learn 3D design tool fromCubify that has been optimized for 3Dprinting.

Cubify Sculpthttp://cubify.com/sculpt

Sculpt is an organic modeling tool fromCubify that enables digital sculpting andSTL editing with mashup capability.

Trimble SketchUphttp://sketchup.com

Previously a Google project, SketchUp isnow owned by Trimble. Out of the box,the free version isn’t suitable for gener-ating output for 3D printers, but thereare many tutorials online for installing aplug-in that lets you export your designsto the required STL format.

Mesh Repair and ManipulationMeshMixer


Purchased by Autodesk and recently in-tegrated into their “experimental sand-box” of 123D apps, MeshMixer is a greattool for smoothing out, mashing up, re-pairing, or capping 3D scans and mod-els.

netfabbhttp://www.netfabb.com

Netfabb enables you to view and editmeshes and provides excellent repairand analysis capabilities for your STLfiles. It is currently available in both a free(basic) and paid versions.

Meshlabhttp://meshlab.sourceforge.net

Meshlab can repair and edit meshes, butthe learning curve can be a little daunt-ing. Its poisson filter is great for smooth-


Software for Makers

http://www.3dtin.com

http://openscad.org

http://free-cad.sourceforge.net

http://pixologic.com/sculptris

http://cubify.com/products/cubify_invent

http://cubify.com/products/cubify_invent

http://cubify.com/sculpt

http://sketchup.com


http://www.netfabb.com

http://meshlab.sourceforge.net

ing surfaces when cleaning up 3D scansfor printing. Its also a great mesh viewerand models views are easy to manipu-late.

3D Printer Frontends3D printer “frontends” are utilities to controlyour 3D printer. They all allow you to load STLfiles, arrange them on the build platform,slice the model, and send the files to theprinter as G-code.

These programs all have an integrated “slic-er” that chops your model up into layers toproduce G-code, but can also send codegenerated from external slicers. See “SlicingSoftware” on page 198 for more information onindividual slicers.

Repetier-Hosthttp://repetier.com

Unlike other frontends, Repetier-Hostgives you three visualizations of yourmodel: the 3D STL view, the layer-by-layer view of the G-code instructionsthat comprise the sliced model, and thereal-time build view of each line of ma-terial as it’s laid down. Slic3r is used bydefault, but Skeinforge is also available.

Repetier-Host is available cross-platform, but the Windows and Linuxversions have features not yet integra-ted into the Mac version (at the time ofthis writing).

Printrun/Pronterfacehttp://reprap.org/wiki/printrun

Printrun is made up of a suite of toolsthat use Pronterface as a frontend,without the data visualization featuresof Repetier-Host. You use Printrun toslice your model (by invoking Slic3r),then send your model to the printer. Inaddition to a graphical user interface,

Printrun includes command-line toolsfor working with print jobs.

MakerWarehttp://makerbot.com/makerware

MakerWare is the latest frontend print-ing software from MakerBot and isspecifically designed for MakerBot 3Dprinters. It is easy to use, attractive, andintuitive. MakerWare is not open source,although you still have the option of us-ing Skeinforge for slicing. MakerWarecan load and slice more than one STL ata time, and there is an “auto layout” op-tion for automatically arranging modelson the build plate. The slicing profiles forboth of the integrated slicers (the de-fault MakerBot Slicer and Skeinforge, see“Slicing Software” on page 198) are fullyeditable.

Curahttp://software.ultimaker.com

The open source Cura printer controlsoftware was developed for use in theUltimaker 3D printers, but can be set upto work with other machines. Cura is aes-thetically beautiful and extremely easyto use for beginners, which is highly un-usual in open source software. The latestversions of Cura have moved to a com-pletely new slicing engine package, Cu-raEngine, (see “Slicing Software” onpage 198) and are extremely fast.

ReplicatorGhttp://replicat.org

ReplicatorG is an open source 3D printerfrontend. It was originally created tosupport MakerBot printers, but they canalso be used with other RepRap-basedprinters. ReplicatorG is getting less usethese days, as many 3D printer vendors

197Appendix A

Software for Makers

http://repetier.com

http://reprap.org/wiki/printrun

http://makerbot.com/makerware

http://software.ultimaker.com

http://replicat.org

now recommend Printrun or Repetier-Host.

However, a notable example of contin-ued ReplicatorG use is in the Sailfishopen source accelerated firmwareproject by Jetty and Dan Newman forMakerBot printers.

Slicing Software

In order to print a 3D model, you first needto slice it using slicing software to generatethe G-code to feed into your 3D printer. Slic-ers are sometimes integrated into the printercontrol software, but can also be standaloneprograms, like Slic3r and KISSlicer.

Slic3rhttp://slic3r.org

Slic3r is a popular cross platform fast andopen source slicer. It enables the user tostore settings for both different printersand printing materials, making multi-machine prep easier.

KISSlicerhttp://kisslicer.com

KISSlicer is a cross-platform G-code gen-erator for desktop 3D printers that hasbeen gaining popularity. It comes in free(single extruder) and “pro-grade” (multi-material, plating multiple ojects) ver-sions.

CuraEnginehttp://software.ultimaker.com

CuraEngine is an open source slicer de-veloped specifically for Ultimaker, but itcan also be used by other G-code-basedprinters. It is robust, powerful, and ex-tremely fast—so fast it slices automati-cally each time you make a change to

your model or settings in Cura (see “3DPrinter Frontends” on page 197).

MakerBot Slicerhttp://www.makerbot.com/makerware

Formerly known as “Miracle Grue,” theMakerBot Slicer is now the default Mak-erWare slicing option; it is fast, accurate,and provides nice print finishes. You canlearn more about tuning your resultswith the MakerBot Slicer here: http://www.makerbot.com/support/makerware/documentation/slicer.

Skeinforgehttp://reprap.org/wiki/Skeinforge

Skeinforge has been the slicing standardfor years. It is written in Python and hasmany, cryptically named configurablesettings. It can be slow and has begun tofall out of fashion among 3DP users.Skeinforge is still a possible slicing op-tion for MakerWare and is still integratedinto ReplicatorG and a few other customprinter control software applications.

MakerBot has created a handy “intro toSkeinforge” page: http://www.makerbot.com/support/replicatorg/documentation/skeinforge.

SFACThttp://reprap.org/wiki/Sfact

SFACT is a user friendly version of Skein-forge with lots of enhancements.

3D Model Repositories

Free 3D Model DownloadsThingiverse


The Grand Bazaar of the 3D printingworld, Thingiverse is where the DIY com-munity shares 3D models, laser-cut files,


Slicing Software




http://slic3r.org

http://kisslicer.com

http://software.ultimaker.com

http://www.makerbot.com/makerware

http://www.makerbot.com/support/makerware/documentation/slicer



http://reprap.org/wiki/Skeinforge

http://www.makerbot.com/support/replicatorg/documentation/skeinforge



http://reprap.org/wiki/Sfact


and PCB layouts of their projects andprinters.

Although under the ownership of Mak-erBot, it remains an important resourcefor hosting and distributing files formany of MakerBot’s competitors. Usersselect from an array of Creative Com-mons licenses, including the option forpublic domain.

My Mini Factoryhttp://www.myminifactory.com

3D-printable models that have been vet-ted by the My Mini Factory team.

YouMaginehttps://www.youmagine.com

Ultimaker’s online community and 3Dprintable file sharing site.

CubeHerohttps://cubehero.com

A free 3D model sharing site targeted at3DP that now offers OpenSCAD pre-views. Some of the parts of the InMoovrobot are located here.

Blender 3D Model Repositoryhttp://blender-models.com

The Blender 3D Model Repository is an-other free site that hosts shared 3D mod-el files. It’s designed to be a resource forBlender 3D modeling software users todownload, submit, and share their col-lective knowledge. Along with models,the site features user-submitted Blendertutorials.

Blend Swaphttp://www.blendswap.com

Blend Swap is a proud community of 3Dartists sharing their work and buildingthe greatest Blender-based 3D assets

library, all free for personal and com-mercial use.

GrabCADhttp://grabcad.com

GrabCAD is the open engineering plat-form that gives you the tools, knowl-edge, and connections you need tobuild great products faster.

Trimble 3D Warehousehttp://www.sketchup.com/products/3D-warehouse

3D Content Centralhttp://www.3dcontentcentral.com

A Dassault Systèmes site that features2D and 3D models of mechanical partsand a free service for locating, configur-ing, and downloading those parts.

McMaster-Carrhttp://www.mcmaster.com/help/drawingsandmodels.asp

McMaster-Carr provide the 2D and 3Dfiles for many of the products they sell.

Paid 3D Model DownloadsTurboSquid

http://turbosquid.com

TurboSquid is the leading paid 3D mod-el repository, with over 200,000 modelsto download. Not optimized for 3Dprinting.

3D Burritohttp://3dburrito.com

3D Burrito features affordable down-loads of 3D-printable models from de-signers like Bathsheba (Klein BottleOpener) and Kid Mechanico of Modibot.

3DLThttp://3dlt.com

199Appendix A

3D Model Repositories

http://www.myminifactory.com

https://www.youmagine.com

https://cubehero.com

http://blender-models.com

http://www.blendswap.com

http://grabcad.com

http://www.sketchup.com/products/3D-warehouse

http://www.sketchup.com/products/3D-warehouse

http://www.3dcontentcentral.com

http://www.mcmaster.com/help/drawingsandmodels.asp

http://www.mcmaster.com/help/drawingsandmodels.asp

http://turbosquid.com

http://3dburrito.com

http://3dlt.com

3DLT is a 3DP template marketplace thatpartners with independent designers tocreate the files offered on the website.You can either pay to download a file oraccess their partner network to have thefile printed and shipped to you.

3doceanhttp://3docean.net

3docean has lots of 3D models at rea-sonable prices, but they are not opti-mized for 3D printing.

3D Printer History

RepRap Family Treehttp://makezine.com/go/repraptree

Shows the development of the RepRap3D printer and its progeny.

Learn to Dial in Your Printer

If you get hands-on with a desktop 3D print-er, there will be a point when you need gen-eral help, want to attempt something un-usual or take your print quality to the nextlevel. Depending on your printer model,there may be machine specific support fo-rums provided by the manufacturer or youcan investigate one of the following popularcommunity sites.

RepRap.orghttp://reprap.org

A comprehensive source of informationon RepRap 3D printers; including com-munity resources, forums and details onnumerous open source printer designs.MakerBot Operators Google Group::https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/makerbot

Your source for the latest on buildingand maintaining a deltabot style printer.

Jetty Firmwarehttp://www.thingiverse.com/thing:32084

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/jetty-firmware

For discussion related to Jetty’s and DanNewman’s Sailfish accelerated firmwarefor MakerBots. Sailfish firmware is a rap-idly evolving open source derivative ofMakerbot Industries firmware with ad-ditional onboard control options.

Deltabot Operators Google Grouphttps://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/deltabot

Your source for the latest on buildingand maintaining a deltabot style 3Dprinter.

Books

Design and Modeling for 3DPGetting Started with MakerBot

by Bre Pettis, Anna Kaziunas France, andJay Shergill (MAKE)

Get a hands-on introduction to theworld of personal fabrication with thepopular MakerBot 3D printer. Not onlywill you learn how to operate, upgrade,and optimize your MakerBot, you’ll alsoget guidelines on how to design, scan,and print your own prototypes. Read anexcerpt on Chapter 6.

Design and Modeling for 3D Printingby Matthew Griffin (due out in early2014; MAKE)

One to keep an eye out for, this bookarms those entering the passionate, fast-moving field of 3D design with practical3D design techniques and provides in-sights on designing for 3D printing


3D Printer History

http://3docean.net

http://makezine.com/go/repraptree

http://reprap.org

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/makerbot

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/makerbot




https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/deltabot

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/deltabot

through interviews and practical,hands-on examples.

3D CAD with Autodesk 123D: Designing for3D Printing, Laser Cutting, and Personal Fab-rication

Jesse Harrington Au (due out in early2014, MAKE)

Learn to design for 3D printers and lasercutters with Autodesk’s free and easy123D tools. Autodesk’s Maker Advocateshows you how to design objects fromscratch, work with existing models, andscan real-world objects.

3D Printing and the MakerMovementThe Book on 3D Printing by Isaac Budmen andAnthony Rotolo (CreateSpace)

+ Artist/designer Isaac Budmen teamed upwith digital tech expert/professor AnthonyRotolo to create a book that provides an ap-proachable introduction to 3D printing. Itcovers machine technology, materials, andmodeling software.

Practical 3D Printers—The Science and Art of3D Printing

by Brian Evans (Apress)

Expert tinkerer Brian Evans examines anumber of different 3D printers and thesoftware and electronics that makethem work. You’ll learn how to calibrate,modify, and print objects with your 3Dprinter.

Makers: The New Industrial Revolutionby Chris Anderson (Random House)

Bestselling author and former Wiredmagazine editor Chris Anderson dis-cusses open source design and desktop3D printing, bringing you to the frontlines of the new industrial revolution.

Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printingby Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman (Wi-ley)

Fabricated provides readers with bothpractical and imaginative insights intothe question “How will 3D printing tech-nologies change my life?” based on re-search and interviews with experts froma broad range of industries.

3D Printing: The Next Industrial Revolutionby Christopher Barnatt (Crown Business)

An overview of 3D printing technologiesand how they will transform our livesfrom professional futurist ChristopherBarnatt.

Low-cost 3D Printing for Science, Educationand Sustainable Development (Free Down-load)

edited by Enrique Canessa, Carlo Fonda,and Marco Zennaro

This book, available as a free downloadfrom http://sdu.ictp.it/3D/book.html,provides an overview of current re-search on 3D printing.

Whitepapers

Free whitepapers on copyright and 3D print-ing are available from the awesome team atPublic Knowledge, whose mission is to pre-serve “the openness of the Internet and thepublic’s access to knowledge, promotingcreativity through balanced copyright.”

What’s the Deal with Copyright and 3D Print-ing?

by Michael Weinberg (Public Knowl-edge)

http://publicknowledge.org/Copyright-3DPrinting

201Appendix A

Whitepapers

http://sdu.ictp.it/3D/book.html



It Will Be Awesome if They Don’t Screw It Up:3D Printing, Intellectual Property, and theFight over the Next Great Disruptive Technol-ogy

by Michael Weinberg (Public Knowl-edge)

http://publicknowledge.org/it-will-be-awesome-if-they-dont-screw-it-up

3DP News

The 3D Printing Industryhttp://3dprintingindustry.com

A global resource for all things 3D print-ing.

3Ders.orghttp://3Ders.org

3D printing news, updated daily.

MAKEhttp://Makezine.com/3Dprinting

The latest 3D printing news, reviews, andprojects.

Physical Destinations

Machine Access and EducationMakerspace Directory

http://makerspace.com/makerspace-directory

Makerspace.com is establishing a world-wide directory of makerspaces to en-courage the growth of maker commun-ities all over the globe.

Hackerspaceshttp://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

Many hackerspaces have 3D printersyou can try out. Visit your local hacker-

space to learn what equipment theyhave.

Fab Labshttp://www.fabfoundation.org/fab-labshttp://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/labs

Fab Labs are the educational outreachcomponent of MIT’s Center for Bits andAtoms (CBA), an extension of its researchinto digital fabrication and computa-tion. They often function as independ-ent makerspaces and share a commonset of digital fabrication tools, including3D printers.

TechShophttp://techshop.org

TechShop is a membership-based com-munity workshop that has 3D printersand other tools available for members touse for a monthly or annual fee. Thereare TechShop locations in California,Michigan, Texas, Pennsylvania, and NewYork.

The 3D Printer Experiencehttp://www.the3dprinterexperience.com

The 3D Printer Experience offers classeson 3D modeling, scanning, and printingas well as 3D printing services.

316 North Clark St., Chicago, IL 60654

Brick and Mortar StoresThere are a few 3D printer stores sprinkledacross the US and the UK. If you find yourselfin one of these locales, don’t pass up the op-portunity to check these out!

Deezmakerhttp://deezmaker.com

290 North Hill Ave. #5, Pasadena, CA91106


3DP News



http://3dprintingindustry.com

http://3Ders.org

http://Makezine.com/3Dprinting



http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

http://www.fabfoundation.org/fab-labs

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/labs

http://techshop.org

http://www.the3dprinterexperience.com

http://deezmaker.com

GetPrinting3D Retail Storehttp://www.getprinting3d.com

820 Davis St. Suite 111, Evanston, IL60201

HoneyBee3Dhttp://honeybee3d.com

Montclair Village 6127 La Salle AvenueOakland, CA 94611

iGo3Dhttps://www.igo3d.com

City Center Oldenburg, Germany

iMakrhttp://www.imakr.com

79 Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon, Lon-don EC1R 5AR

MakerBot Retail Storehttp://makerbot.com/retail-store

298 Mulberry St., New York, NY

Microcenterhttp://www.microcenter.com

Various locations, 3D printing materialscoming fall/winter 2013.

The 3D Printing Storehttp://the3dprintingstore.com

4603 Monaco St., Denver, CO 80216

The Color Companyhttp://www.color.co.uk

27a Poland Street, London W1F 8QW

The UPS Storehttp://www.theupsstore.com/small-business-solutions/Pages/3D-printing.aspx

As of July 31, 2013, the UPS Store begantesting in-store 3D printing services atlimited locations in San Diego, CA, Wash-

ington, DC, Frisco, TX, Menlo Park, CA,and Lisle, IL.

Printers, Filament, andParts

http://makezine.com/go/suppliersA detailed directory of filament vendorsthat includes location, material specs,reviews, notes, and price.

Maker Shedhttp://makershed.com

From our favorite 3D printers to filamentand books, the Maker Shed has you cov-ered.

Matter Geekshttp://www.makergeeks.com

Matter Geeks sells a huge variety of fila-ment from PET, wood, stone, nylon, PVA,conductive, HIPS, flexible PLA and food-grade filaments in addition to the stan-dard ABS and PLA. They also sell printersand provide both advice for printing andrecommended temperatures for all theirfilaments.

Form Futurahttp://www.formfutura.com

Form Futura sells flexible PLA, HIPS, ny-lon, wood, sandstone, ABS, and PLA fil-aments.

Filacohttps://www.filaco.com

HIPS, PLA and ABS filament.

Taulman 3Dhttp://www.taulman3d.com

Taulman 3D creates and sells severaltypes of high strength nylon and PETTfilament.

203Appendix A

Printers, Filament, and Parts

http://www.getprinting3d.com

http://honeybee3d.com

https://www.igo3d.com

http://www.imakr.com

http://makerbot.com/retail-store

http://www.microcenter.com

http://the3dprintingstore.com

http://www.color.co.uk

http://www.theupsstore.com/small-business-solutions/Pages/3D-printing.aspx



http://makezine.com/go/suppliers

http://makershed.com

http://www.makergeeks.com

http://www.formfutura.com

https://www.filaco.com

http://www.taulman3d.com

UltiMachinehttp://ultimachine.com

RAMPS electronics, PLA, and ABS fila-ment.

Faberdasheryhttp://faberdashery.co.uk

PLA filament in a variety of colors, by themeter.

Lulzbothttps://www.lulzbot.com

Suppliers of ABS, PLA, HIPS, Laywoo-D3(wood), Taulman Nylon, and Polycar-bonate.

DiamondAgehttp://diamondage.co.nz

DiamondAge sells PLA in unique colors(like emerald and sapphire), as well asABS filament.

Printblhttp://printbl.com

Authorized distributor of Diamond AgePLA. In addition they sell high impact(HIPLA) and impact-modified PLA (IM-PLA).

Matter Hackershttps://www.matterhackers.com

ABS, PLA, wood, nylon and sandstonefilament.

Amazonhttp://www.amazon.com

Amazon.com now sells an array of 3Dprinting supplies, including filament,printers, and books on 3DP.

Inventableshttps://www.inventables.com

Inventables, the “hardware store for de-signers,” sells a large color variety of PLA;ABS, wood, and stone filaments; as wellas 3D printers.

ProtoParadigmhttp://protoparadigm.com

PLA and ABS in standard, unusual, andfluorescent colors.

QU-BDhttp://qu-bd.com

Sells extruders, heated beds, and fila-ment in a variety of colors in addition to3D printers and CNC mills.

Deezmakerhttp://deezmaker.com/store

Your source for syncromesh cables andpulleys and Budaschnozzle extrudernozzles, as well as Deezmaker printers.

MakerBothttp://www.makerbot.com

Sells MakerBot printers and MakerBotPLA and ABS filament.

Conferences

3D Print show (London, Paris, New York)http://3dprintshow.com

Inside 3D Printing (New York, Chicago, SanJose, Singapore)

http://www.mediabistro.com/inside3dprinting/


Conferences

http://ultimachine.com

http://faberdashery.co.uk

https://www.lulzbot.com

http://diamondage.co.nz

http://printbl.com

https://www.matterhackers.com

http://www.amazon.com

https://www.inventables.com

http://protoparadigm.com

http://qu-bd.com

http://deezmaker.com/store

http://www.makerbot.com

http://3dprintshow.com



We’d like to hear your suggestions for improving our indexes. Send email to [email protected].

Symbols123D Catch

account creation, 86benefits of, 85creating a flat bottom, 88creating a new capture, 66,

87digital photos tips, 64, 86downloading, 63editing 3D model, 87embellishing with Mesh-

Mixer, 88meshing with, 62, 67opening 3D model, 87primitive shape manipula-

tion in, 31printing with, 90publishing with, 89saving with, 89tips on, 63

123D Design, 195

123D Gallery, 843D Burrito, 1993D Content Central, 1993D Factory, 1093D Hubs, 109The 3D Printer Experience, 2023D printing

desktop printers vs. print-ing services, 105, 172

effect on artistic expression,32, 163

effect on business models,104

examples of, 11–13, 16,147–150, 157

printing services for, 103–105, 107

products created with, 151–153

resources for, 195–204solar-powered, 165

transformative potential of,145

untethered printing, 36vs. milling, 177

The 3D Printing Store, 2033D scans

basics of, 61capping relief scans, 77–83cleaning/repairing soft-

ware, 70limitations of, 63Microsoft Kinect vs. ASUS

Xtion for, 61printing, 77repairing in MeshLab, 75repairing in MeshMixer, 76repairing in netfabb, 72, 77with 123D Catch, 63–67with ReconstructMe, 68–69

3DLT, 2003docean, 2003DPhacktory, 109

205Index

Index

3ds Max, 333DTin, 196“123D Catch”

“model generation fromphotographs with, 5

AABS (acrylonitrile butadiene

styrene), 11, 94, 122, 134ABS slurry, 135acetone, 126, 135Adafruit’s 3D Printing Skill

Badge, 195additive manufacturing, 3, 85,

177Afinia H-Series, 4, 18aligning objects, 39, 72Allwine, John, 153Arduino Lab, 131art, effect of technology on,

32, 163ASUS Xtion, 61Autodesk, 5, 31, 85Automatic Transmission Mod-

el, 159

BBacon Mobius Strip, 152Bakutis, Jason, 120Baldwin, Joaquin, 152battered metal finish, 139–142Bespoke Innovations , 156Biffle, Cliff L., 17bike light mount, 149Birds of Prey Northwest, 154Bitonti, Francis, 160Blanche, Fran, 121Blend Swap, 199Blender, 33, 199blind rivets, 127bonding (see post-processing)Boomer humanoid robot, 167

Bowden cables, 10Boynton, Chris, 159bridges, 7, 50bubbles, removing from

prints, 186build plates, 35Build Your Own CNC Machine

(Hood-Daniel), 178Bukobot 8, 19Burtonwood, Tom, 157Buser, Tony, 70

CCAD (Computer Aided Design)

softwarebasic types of, 31for DIY CNC mills, 179resources for, 195STL file generation with, 5,

34Caffeine Molecule Mug, 152calipers, 7Calvin, Nate, 154CAM (computer-aided manu-

facturing software), 34, 179CamBam, 179Cantwell, Jane, 154capping objects, 77car luggage cover fitting, 149car window crank, 149casting processes, 99Center for Bits and Atoms

(CBA), 202ceramics, 97chocolate prints, 183client software, 35CNC milling machines, 177The Color Company, 203color, adding to prints, 113,

139(see also dyeing)

composites, 97conferences, 204Continuum Fashion, 152

cooling settings, 53Cube printer, 20CubeHero, 199Cubify Invent, 196Cubify Sculpt, 196Cura, 6, 197CuraEngine, 198Cushwa, Tom, 16

DDARwIn-OP (Dynamic Anthro-

pomorphic Robot with In-telligence—Open Plat-form), 167

deburring tools, 123Deezmaker, 202deltabot-style printers, 9design, 200

(see also jewelry design)desktop 3D printers

vs. printing services, 105,172

Digital Grotesque, 161digital slide calipers, 7Dillenburger, Benjamin, 161dimension torture test, 17direct metal laser sintering

(DMLS), 99direct metal printing, 99Dita’s Gown, 160doorbell replacement, 150Dremel Tools, 121dyeing

acceptable dyes for, 113acceptable plastics for, 113achieving color saturation,

115applying sealant, 116avoiding blotchy coverage,

114avoiding stain transfer, 116materials needed, 114resources for, 113

206 Index

E8-Bit sunglasses, 153every-day-carry (EDC) items,

151extruder settings, in Slic3r, 55extruders, 10

FFab Labs, 202Fairings, 156Felix printer, 21figure-based build system, 152filament cartridges, 4filament settings, in Slic3r, 52filaments

ABS (acrylonitrile butadienestyrene), 11, 94, 122, 134

alternative materials, 11,183

HDPE (high-density poly-ethylene), 95

HIPS (high impact polystyr-ene), 94

LAYBRICK, 94LAYWOO-D3, 93making hinges with, 131nylon, 94PC (polycarbonate), 94PET (polyethylene tereph-

thalate), 94PLA (polylactic acid/poly-

lactide), 11, 93, 122, 125,134

PVA (polyvinyl alcohol), 11,95

resources for, 203riveting with, 131selection of, 11

fill options, setting, 48finishing services, 121Fontenault, Adam, 159food-safe ceramic models, 97

food-safe silicone models, 183,186

France, Anna Kaziunas, 61Freakin’ Sweet Knots, 153FreeCAD, 196friction welding

filling gaps, 124parts preparation, 122PLA example, 125rotary tool preparation, 122safety warning, 128seams, 125spin welders for, 121tack-welding parts, 123tools and materials for, 120

fused deposition modeling(FDM), 3

fused-filament fabrication(FFF) printers, 15

GG-code, 34, 45, 55gantry-style printers, 8gaps, filling, 124, 135GCode Viewer, 35GetPrinting3D retail store, 203Getting Started with MakerBot

(Pettis, France, and Shergill),61

glass, 165glue, 126, 135GrabCAD, 199granular materials binding, 3Grasshopper, 32Griffin, Matt, 15Grossman, Bathsheba, 4grouping objects, 39

HHackerspaces, 202Hackett, Chris, 122Hansmeyer, Michael, 161

HDPE (high-density polyethy-lene), 95

Head of a Horse of Selene, 158hinges, 131HIPS (high impact polystyr-

ene), 94holes, repairing, 77Hood-Daniel, Patrick, 178hot-ends, 10humanoid robots

background on, 167challenges faced, 169components used, 168desk-top printers vs. print-

ing services, 172printing technique, 169

Ii.materialise, 108ice cream maker drill attach-

ment, 150iMakr, 203infill configuration, 48.ini files, 45inkjet-type print heads, 97InMoov Humanoid Robot, 158Institute for Regenerative

Medicine, 154interior views, 41iPhone cases, 104, 153iterative design and experi-

mentation, 173

JJacquard brand acid dyes, 113jewelry design, 103, 151, 153Joy Division’s Unknown Pleas-

ures cover, 160

207Index

KKayser, Markus, 165Kinetic Engineering Group,

154KISSlicer, 34, 198Klein Bottle Opener, 4Kraftwurx, 108

LLalish, Emmet, 159Langevin, Gael, 158LAYBRICK, 94layer height, setting, 47LayerWise, 156LAYWOO-D3, 93lecithin, 188Liquitex, 116lost-wax process, 99

MMakerBot Replicator, 4, 8, 24,

200MakerBot retail store, 203MakerBot Slicer, 198MakerGear M2, 22The Makerlele - MK1, 158MakerSlide system, 179Makerspace Directory, 202MakerWare, 197makexyz, 108manifold integrity, 32Marble Run, 159mass customization, 104, 151materials and methods

composites and ceramics,97

direct metal laser sintering(DMLS), 99

direct metal printing, 99indirect printing, 99photopolymer jetting, 98

selective laser sintering(SLS), 98

stereolithography (SLA), 98(see also filaments)

Mathematica, 5Maya, 33McMaster-Carr, 199medical applications

custom labware, 157designer prosthetics, 156prosthetics, 154replacement tissues organs,

154tissue engineering, 155

mesh modeling, 33, 62mesh, repairing missing, 80MeshLab, 34, 71, 75MeshMixer, 71, 76, 88, 196metals, 99Microcenter, 203Microsoft Kinect, 61milling

benefits of, 178building a CNC mill, 178CAD/CAM files for, 179drawbacks of, 177OpenBeam, 181OpenBuilds, 181Othermill, 180Shapeoko, 180vs. 3D printing, 178

Miracle-Grue, 198Misha T., 16MIT’s Center for Bits and

Atoms (CBA), 202ModelBuilder, 32modeling software

parametric programs, 32polygonal programs, 33sculpting programs, 32solid modeling programs,

31Tinkercad, 37–43

modelscreating from photographs,

5, 85–90

design resources, 200repositories for, 6, 199STL files for, 5support material in, 7, 50

ModiBot, 152Modo, 33molten polymer deposition

(MPD), 3moving bed-style printers, 8Mudbox, 32My Mini Factory, 199

NNational Additive Manufactur-

ing Innovation Institute(NAMII), 3

Nautilus gears, 16negative space, 37Nervous System, 151, 159Netfabb Studio, 6, 34, 70, 72,

77NIOSH N95-approved particu-

late respirator, 128NovoGen MMX Bioprinters,

155nylon/polyamide prints

adding color to, 113–116filament for, 94

(see also plastics)

OOpenBeam, 181OpenBuilds, 181OpenNI (Open Natural Interac-

tion), 62OpenSCAD, 5, 32, 185, 196Orbicular Lamp Series, 159organ replacement, 154Organovo, 155Orihon (Accordion Book), 157Othermill, 180owl statue, 16

208 Index

Pparametric modeling pro-

grams, 32PC (polycarbonate), 94pen plotter adapter, 147perimeters, setting, 47PET (polyethylene terephtha-

late), 94Pettis, Bre, 61photographs, creating models

from, 5photopolymer jetting, 98photopolymerization, 3PLA (polylactic acid/polylac-

tide), 11, 93, 122, 125, 134,183

plastics3D-printed vs. injection

molded, 105ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene

styrene), 11, 94, 122, 134dyeing, 113–116HDPE (high-density poly-

ethylene), 95HIPS (high impact polystyr-

ene), 94nylon, 94PC (polycarbonate), 94PET (polyethylene tereph-

thalate), 94photopolymer jetting, 98PLA (polylactic acid/poly-

lactide), 11, 93, 122, 125,134

PVA (polyvinyl alcohol), 11,95

resources for, 203selection of, 11selective laser sintering

(SLS), 98stereolithography (SLA), 98

platter settings, in Slic3r, 57Pleasant3D, 35, 71point clouds, 61

poisson filter, 71polyamide, 113

(see also nylon/polyamideprints)

Polychemy, 153polygonal modeling pro-

grams, 33Ponoko, 105, 108positive space, 37post-processing

battered metal finish, 139–142

friction welding, 121–127gluing and filling, 135importance of, 119riveting, 127–135sanding, 136third-party finishing serv-

ices, 121tools and materials for, 120

powder bed/inkjet systems,97, 99

print beds, 10Print Chomp, 109printer settings, in Slic3r, 54printers

Afinia H-Series, 18Bukobot 8, 19challenge prints for, 16Cube, 20dual-extrusion, 7, 10Felix, 21filament choices for, 11fused-filament fabrication

(FFF) printers, 15MakerBot Replicator, 24MakerGear M2, 22parts of, 10positioning systems for, 7purchase of, 4resources for, 203selection of, 3Solidoodle 2, 25stores selling, 202Type A Series, 26Ultimaker, 27

printing processbasic steps, 5fixup, 6for robot-head pencil top-

per, 38–43generating STL files, 5, 34initial printing, 7printer preparation, 6project choices, 11slicing, 6tools needed, 7

printing services, 37, 90, 103–105, 107

printing software3D modeling/CAD, 31–34basic types of, 31printer control/client, 35resources for, 197slicing/CAM, 34

Printrbot LC/Printrbot Jr., 5, 8Printrun, 35, 197Pronterface, 34, 197prosthetics, 154Protos Eyewear, 153prototypes

plastic to metal, 4printing services for, 103,

107rapid vs. traditional, 163

PVA (polyvinyl alcohol), 11, 95

Rreactionware, 157ReconstructMe

benefits and drawbacks of,68

downloading/updating, 68tips on, 68

RedEye, 109Repetier-Host, 35, 197ReplicatorG, 34, 198RepRap printer, 5, 200retraction settings, in Slic3r, 56RichRap (blogger), 45

209Index

Rit brand dyes, 113riveting, 127–135robot-head pencil topper, 37robots (see humanoid robots)Rocholl, Johann, 9Rosenburgh, Brent J., 158Rostock printer, 5, 9rotary tools, 122router collar adapter, 148routers, 177

Ssafety warnings

for ABS slurry, 135for friction welding, 128

sanding, 136scaling objects, 38Schmidt, Michael, 160Sculpteo, 104, 108sculpting modeling programs,

32Sculptris, 32seams, welding, 125selective laser sintering (SLS),

98, 165Shapeoko, 180Shapeways, 105, 107Shergill, Jay, 61Skeinforge, 34, 198skeining (see slicing)SketchUp, 31Skillshare, 105skirt configuration, 50Slic3r

advantages of, 6, 45, 198creating profiles in, 46downloading program, 45,

46filament settings in, 52G-code preparation with,

34importing .ini files into, 45platter settings in, 57print settings in, 47–52

slicingimportance of parameter

choice, 6software for, 34, 45, 198

(see also Slic3r)support material in, 7, 50

SmoothSil 940, 186snake, 16Society for Printable Geogra-

phy, 104soda tab bender, 148software, 31

(see also printing software)Solar Sinter, 165soldering irons, 134solid modeling programs, 31solid rivets, 131Solid-Ideas, 109Solidoodle 2 printer, 25soy lecithin, 188speed, setting, 49Spin Welder, 121stereolithography (SLA), 5, 34,

58, 98, 99STL files (see stereolithogra-

phy (SLA))Stratasys Dimension 3D print-

er, 155Strvct nylon shoes, 152subtractive fabrication, 177Summit, Scott, 156super glue, 126, 135support material, 7, 50

Ttackle box clip, 148TechShops, 202Thingiverse, 6, 7, 84, 199tie-dyed look, 113Tinkercad

account creation, 37benefits of, 195positive vs. negative space,

37

primitive shape manipula-tion in, 31

robot-head pencil topperproject, 38

tissue engineering, 155Tofy’s EDC Items, 151training classes

for beginner modeling, 105machine access and educa-

tion, 202Trauner, Kenneth, 156Trimble SketchUp, 196TurboSquid, 199Type A Series printer, 26

UUltimaker, 5, 8, 27Unknown Pleasures cover, 160Up 3D printer, 4The UPS Store, 203

Vvolumetric sculpting, 163Von Teese, Dita, 160

WWake Forest University, 154Watz, Marius, 32Wearable Planter, 103welding (see friction welding)Welsh, Jason, 131Wenman, Cosmo, 120, 158white chocolate skull prints

chocolate pouring andcooling, 190

chocolate preparation, 188demolding chocolates, 191demolding silicone molds,

187files for, 184

210 Index

food-safe silicone for, 186materials for, 184mold design, 185mold maker print, 185PLA trays for, 183, 191

Wilmington Robotic Exoskele-ton (WREX), 155

ZZBrush, 32

Zoellner, Michael, 160Zomboe, 16ZoomRP.com, 109

211Index

About the CompilerAnna Kaziunas France is the Digital Fabrication Editor of Maker Media. She’s also the Deanof Students for the Global Fab Academy program and the co-author of Getting Started withMakerBot. Formerly, she taught the “How to Make Almost Anything” rapid prototyping coursein digital fabrication at the Providence Fab Academy. Learn more about her at her websiteand check out her things at her Thingverse page.

ColophonThe cover and body font is BentonSans, the part title font is Camo Sans Heavy, the headingfont is Serifa, and the code font is Bitstreams Vera Sans Mono.



http://kaziunas.com


3 d printing the essential guide to 3d printers

Devices & Hardware

Transcript of 3 d printing the essential guide to 3d printers