My brother and I recently bought a 3D printer. I’m really excited to finally have one, because I think I’m going to enjoy using it and because its going to come in handy for many of my projects. I’ve used 3D printing before at work and I’ve contracted prints through shapeways for personal projects, but owning one myself will really open up the possibilities for what I can make by lower. I’m reminded of one of the makers that I follow on YouTube, James Bruton, whose strong preference for 3D printing sometimes surprised me in the past. He uses 3D printing for flat parts that could have been made using a jigsaw or laser cutter. There’s nothing wrong with using 3D printing for these applications though- he doesn’t own a laser cutter and a jigsaw doesn’t allow for the fabrication process to be automated like a 3D printer does. Its funny that the saying “When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail” is typically a criticism, because it seems that it could be spun to have a positive meaning as well. If you find ways to turn your problems into nails, you’ll be amazed how much you can do with one hammer.
The printer is a Flying Bear P905. We chose it because it looks like a good value and has everything we were looking for- namely duel extruders and sufficiently large bed with a built in heater. We also wanted all lateral motion to be in the print heads instead of having the stage move side to side, since that uses space less conservatively.
We’ve assembled the printer and begun printing, but there are still plenty of small upgrades we’d like to make, including a camera for monitoring prints and a fan to cool the prints faster. In the meantime we have plenty of small parts to make while tinkering with the printer, starting with miniatures for our D&D sessions.
jonathan gross 