Printing Overview

So my 3D printing experience began when I purchased an Anet A8 Plus (Prusa clone) on Amazon for like $200. This printer works okay. It's not the worst printer in the world but it really isn't the best. It's cheap, a lot of the parts warped over time, and the large bed isn't easy to level using the paper trick. It also came with what I can only guess is a pirated version of Cura (pictured on the right here). The Anet models prior to the A8 Plus also used to burn a lot of peoples houses down, and I know at least two people whose Anets have fully or partial melted. My Anet is currently out of order, I'm saving up for something a little better so I'm not in a rush to fix it.

Since buying my Anet, I gained a fair bit of printing experience at my internship where we had several Ender 5's, 5 Plus's, and an Ender 3. Luckily we used the actual, up to date Cura slicer software.

Generally at home I print things for my friends, little knick knacks that match their personalities. I also print electronics mounts, modifications to cheap things I own, and sometimes more elaborate things like small lamps that I then wire up with some LEDs.

So far I haven't kept a visual record of a lot of things I've modeled and printed, I'll do a better job of that going forward and put the cooler projects on this page. For now I'm just going to post what I have.

Concrete Molds

This is probably the last thing I've printed. These were just supposed to be improvised molds for concrete compression test samples. I went with a clamshell design to make these easier to disassemble, and the two halves are just sealed with tape. Both halves are joined using 1/4-20 bolts and the lid is clamped down. The lid is meant to give the concrete an exact dimensioned height. There's a relief groove that interacts with the lid so the flash has room to escape as well.

Tolerances weren't super important on this except for at the base, which is asymmetric and interlocks.

Replacement Phone Mount

This was an extreme exercise in tolerancing 3D printed parts! Basically the problem here was my existing phone holder in my car didn't really accommodate Galaxy phones very well and I thought it would be good exercise to just redesign the offending part. There were a surprising number of interlocking parts that had to be toleranced between the front and back plates to get this working and I went through maybe 3 or 4 revisions to get it perfect.

The end result was great! I kept this in my car for the entire winter-spring that year and never had a problem. Unfortunately summer arrived and the PLA started to melt and buckle under the stresses of the springs.

One day I'd like to come back to this with a better printer and a stronger, more heat resistant material. I'd like to make the entire holder from scratch if I can.

Cable Gromet

This was the first time I designed and printed something with cantilevers meant to bend and fit into something. Aside from figuring out what thickness the cantilevers had to be to stay flexible and strong this was a super straight forward project that really improved my cable management. I think I remember this taking two tries max.

I wish I had the files or a better image of this but if you type "Cable Gromet" into Amazon you'll see exactly what this is.