WHY YOU SHOULD BE 3D PRINTING

WHY YOU SHOULD BE 3D PRINTING

Let me see if I get this right. You got your new shiny 3D printer, you learned everything about it inside out, you calibrated it to perfection… I mean, those benchies look fantastic, don’t they… you’ve printed several “useful” prints from Tingiverse, and now it seems like the printer is just sitting there. It is begging you to use it for something actually useful.

Now that we have established the presence of your 3D Printer, let me give a few reasons to the inner maker/creator inside of you to come out.

Designing, modeling and 3D printing a useful print for your house/car/project might sound like a straightforward process, but I promise you, it is a lot more. There is no wonder why most of my architecture professors at university used to advise us to envision a timeframe to complete a task and then triple it. We always overestimate our abilities and underestimate the challenge ahead. By jumping into the measuring and design process of a seemingly simple 3D-printed piece, you’re allowing yourself to be exposed to so much more. Here is what constitutes more using examples from the video.

MEASUREMENTS

Having to measure the physical conditions before even putting pen to paper, or Apple Pencil to iPad, helps you precisely understand the constraints you are working within. It helps you figure out thicknesses, materials, distances, and movement of elements.

In my case, designing a spacer required me to understand the precise thickness, down to the millimeter, of my desk. I also had to find out if I could comfortably screw a screw in it. Is it going to hold well enough? Am I going to puncture through the desktop? What are the typical screw lengths? What’s the size of a screw? Beyond the materiality of the desk, how far away should the spacer push my desk away from the wall? Well, maybe it has something to do with the largest protrusion? It turns out it hadn’t to do with it, but it had to do with the size of my camera (Sony A6600) which is attached to a telescopic rod and when it rotates it scratches the wall… hey, how long is a Sony A6600? 120mm btw.

DESIGN

Once you’re done with measuring, it is time to let the creative juices flow. I am willing to bet that whatever design you had in mind, looks pretty different once you drew the first few lines on paper. The beauty of this is that problems begin to come out of the shadows. Let’s begin with the minimum thickness. Yes, it can be 2x 0.4mm thick, but it will never hold. So how thick should it be? Maybe thick enough for the crew to come in flush with the hole? Maybe you begin to figure out that not all of the geometry is necessary, and you would like to optimize it. Now you start cutting holes and wonder if those can be used for something. In short, you go through challenges that allow you to make your design not only better but also polyvalent. 

The spacers were intended to be just that; spacers. Once I sketched them out to scale, however, I realized that I would be wasting too much plastic; we don’t want that. After removing the material in the middle of the spacer (12:30 in the video) I realized that I can use it as a cable tray for the HDMI, AUX, and XLR cables. Less material and more. Going through the design process made me think about the physics acting on the spacer (14:10 in the video). Initially, the tail of the spacer seemed useless, but after going through the process of analyzing the moment of the geometry, I realized that I should keep it as it will reduce the sheer force around the crew and increase the longevity of the spacer.

When it comes to 3D printing, in particular, you need to understand materials. There are reasons to print in PLA or in PETG. Depending on your useful prints, you might opt for PETG as it will give you stronger and more resilient parts. This is especially true if you’re in a warm climate and your part will be undergoing a lot of pressure. PLA tends to break more easily and melt under the sun.

DOCUMENTATION

Please please fall in love with the process of whatever it is that you are making. You can observe the notion of productization everywhere on social media. Everything looks so perfect, polished, and refined, but it is difficult to connect with it as we don’t see the process, the thinking, and the questions which led to its existence. Think about creating a habit of documenting the designing process; saving your sketches, questions, issues, and their solutions. After you complete several projects you will have more than the final product to show for. The process of documenting your design is a story in itself. It is a story others can relate to. This story usually contains the initial questions which led you to design in the first place; and believe me when I say that others might have had the same, or similar, question in mind, but you were the one to verbalize it, and then solve it. Documenting and showing your work will help you better connect with others compared to showing them a shiny finished product.

Here is a book recommendation on the topic: “Show Your Work!” by Austin Kleon

https://austinkleon.com/show-your-work/ (not sponsored, just a fan)

CONCLUSION

Probably the most important thing in the entire process is the discovery of unintended problems/challenges and subsequently solving them. Undergoing a short and seemingly straightforward project promises you only the set of challenges you envisioned for it, but delivers so much more. In the end, you are, in fact, a better problem solver, not only prior to the project but better than you would have been had no issues come up during the process.

Stay creative!

Daniel