Beginning My 3D Printing Journey

We were in the midst of a pandemic and on an absolute whim I bought a creality ender 3 for about £130. I still have this printer although it is unplugged and I really should sell it or use the parts in some other project. I’ve been a little obsessed ever since but I am sorely lacking in the 3D modelling skills department so most of my printing has been using other peoples designs and files which has been enormously helpful.

It’s a fantastic open source, collaborative world of creativity and the manufacturing possibilities are endless.

Getting Started

So I bought the ender 3 which came disassembled and I spent the day putting it together. There were 2 things that I struggled with when it came to getting it working on day 1. the first was to do with the eccentric screws in the build plate being too tight. I thought it was a manufacturing defect at first for the spacers to be off center. But once I got the pressure relieved the bed moved forwards and backwards nicely. The second issue was that it was too dang cold in the house and the benchies I was printing would come off the bed half way through. I learned that I could not keep the printer in my garage.

From there the lessons kept coming. I print today with a Bambu P1S and I tell you the experience is night and day.

First Projects

My first successful prints were simple calibration cubes, benchies and small figurines, but seeing them print successfully gave me the same satisfaction I get when writing good code. I did what everyone does and printed a tonne of mods for the printer itself.

Automation

I then went on to get a raspberry pi and started to make some time lapses.

What’s Next

Life gets in the way of hobbies sometimes and the truly advanced projects have not taken off yet so what better way to make sure I do the things I want than to put it on the internet and be held accountable by the people.

Stay tuned for more 3D printing adventures!