I’d always wanted to learn how to 3D print, but never had time nor the materials, so I was ecstatic to get started on this homework! It took some troubleshooting, but in the end, it wasn’t as complicated as I had expected. Thank goodness for Bambu (wow, they should sponsor me).
I started off by picking my impossible object–a wiggly, flexibly jointed dragon that could only be made with a 3D printer. My first print came out looking a little squiggly because I forgot to add supports. It was also slightly larger than the capsule, even after scaling it down to 75%.
1st attempt (FDM printer using PLA filament)
For my second attempt, I eyeballed the sizing and set it to a 60% scale, which
(huzzah!) fit the capsule perfectly. I also tried adding tree supports this time, which helped the wings print more neatly. However, I was a little overzealous in separating the pieces, so I had to reprint.
2nd attempt (oops)
Third time’s the charm? Not quite. I was curious to see if my dragon would turn out better standing up, but it pretty much fell apart when I tried removing the supports. It looked cool when it lasted, though.
3rd attempt
3rd attempt (visual representation of my life)
In my last attempt, I tried printing the wings as separate snap-on pieces. Apparently, this was The Move, because everything ended up looking pretty fire (bad joke, I know, but at least I didn’t go with “pretty fly, for a white guy.” rock music reference; don’t cancel me).
so cool, so fire, so fly (done with FDM!)
I printed up 3 more copies and put them together!
dragon army (rawrmy?) they are conspiring.
Onwards! Some of my peers wanted to try powder printing with the SLS 3D printer, so we put our files together. My parts came out rather powdery (who could’ve seen that one coming?), so I spent some time cleaning out all the grit in the bits. After washing it out, the end result was still a little rough, but the joints were much more wiggly compared to the PLA models, thanks to the precision of SLS printing.
SLS prints
they’re so beautiful
How much did this project cost?
- Raw materials
- PLA filament: $16.99
- SLS powder: $999.00 for 10kg: $5.00 for 0.05 kg
- Tools (from the oedk)
- FDM printer
- SLS printer
- Labour
- $15/hour of somewhat skilled work
- ~5 hours: $75
Total: $96.99
clean workspace!
