WTFFF?! 3D Printing Podcast Volume Three: 3D Print Tips | 3D Print Tools | 3D Start Point

Since it first took off, the 3D printing industry has reached a certain level of maturity, and the WTFFF 3D Print Podcast has been there since 2015 to document its development. After airing well over 500 episodes since it started, Tom and Tracy Hazzard finally wrap up Volume 3 of the podcast to make way for more exciting things to come. 3D printing has always been a part of Tom and Tracy’s lives. Now, they are thrilled to embark on an even more exciting journey as they collaborate with Hewlett-Packard to do a special series. Make sure to tune in and don’t forget to subscribe!

After some time where things took a downturn, 2019 saw a resurgence of 3D printing. Tom recaps his trip to the CES 2019 and lets you in on the cool things to see this year. He talks about the advances in 3D scanning, 3D printing, as well as new applications and capabilities. Reflecting on where the progress of 3D printing is heading, Tom shares his thoughts on the future of the industry – from where the prices are headed as well as the quality. He also gives out some of the interesting companies that are paving their own way in 3D printing

According to a recent report by Microsoft, girls and young women remain less likely to pursue education and careers in science, technology, engineering, and math; in short, STEM. In that regard, the lack of representation of women in STEM-related careers continues to grow as an area of focus. Mary Hadley from MakerGirl talks about their Girl STEM Education and mentorship program. MakerGirl is an organization that started in 2014 at the University of Illinois that introduces young girls in the Champaign-Urbana area to the exciting world of STEM fields through 3D printing sessions and creative activities. They have over 3,000 girls that have gone through their program since then. Their goal is to show girls that they can be both analytical and creative in one space.

The story of a woman named Grace is something we can all relate to. Grace is an adult living in Texas and she was a first-time homeowner about two years ago. As soon as she signed the mortgage papers, she had every home security company on earth descending on their new home pretty much the day after they moved in. One particular home security system salesperson broke the plastic button that you push on the doorbell after ringing it too many times and frustrated that she’s not answering. Grace was unable to get a replacement after checking out the usual places – Lowe’s, Home Depot, Ace Hardware – and finally thought about having it 3D printed. She takes the whole doorbell unit and dropped it off at this company. Two days later, the doorbell was ready for pickup. It’s fixed, it worked, but it was not what she had expected. This goes to show that having something 3D printed isn’t as simple as finding somebody with a 3D printer and giving them a few bucks. Learn some important points you need to discuss with your 3D print maker to make sure you’re on the same page and getting what you want.

Technologies have truly evolved that something as expensive as a metal 3D printing machine can now be offered as a desktop metal 3D printing machine and be accessible to a number of audience with the help of media. However, this could lead to many people think of the industry lightly. Tom goes deep into the processes of two companies, Desktop Metal and MarkForged. He highlights their similarities as well as dissimilarities in order to compare and contrast which one is more admirable. Talking also of the media published of the machines produced, he points out the tendency to gloss over the quality. Going back to Desktop Metal, he shares his words and review on whether it is a breakthrough in the metal 3D printing industry or not.

Any of you following the 3D print industry couldn’t help but see that an awful lot has happened in the courts and in the government with 3D printing, in particular regarding 3D-printed firearms. Cody Wilson was the first person to create a 3D printable gun and the plans for a 3D printable gun way back in 2013 or so. A big part of a documentary movie about 3D printing, Print the Legend, tells the early story of Cody and his 3D-printed gun which he put it out there and made it available for the world to download and print their own guns. Eventually, he was shut down by the government. Putting all the regulatory stuff aside, the bigger concern is the copyright issue. Tom delves into the topic of intellectual property and copyright violation in the 3D printing industry.

For hardware companies, it has become very challenging to compete in that market. Recovering rocket scientist Joan Horvath and hacker Rich Cameron team up to form Nonscriptum when they realized nobody’s doing any training and authored quite a few books on 3D printing. Joan shares that something that’s been really valuable for them is writing books and teaching 3D printing to try to change how people teach math and science by using 3D prints. Their fascinating partnership works well because it presents two great sides to 3D printing, the educational and the professional side, which are so important because there’s a balance in what you have to teach and what you have to learn between the two sides. What’s important to education and what’s important in terms of the technical side or the design side of things. Learn more about Joan and Rich’s great perspectives to the industry and the education platform.

PLA filament has been the most common 3D printing filament, especially in desktop 3D printing in home and educational environments. The reasons are that it’s pretty easy to print, the temperature required to print is pretty low, and most importantly there are no toxic fumes that are emitted. A material that’s been in development for a number of years and has now become a formidable contender is the PETG filament. It has all these wonderful colors and it’s got some great qualities in terms of translucency. The print characteristics and settings that you would use for it are very similar to PLA in pretty much all respects in terms of speeds and settings in your average 3D printer. Delve deeper into PETG to know if it’s worth switching over and making that shift.

There have been a lot of changes in the 3D print market in the last year. Some new printers have come out that are really capable at a very affordable price, and there are some that have been discontinued. It’s important for an update and a rundown of some of the best 3D printers under $500. There are a lot of good options for a 3D printer under $500 if that’s your market. Whether it’s for you personally or a gift or even for school, you don’t have to spend a fortune to get into it. The 3D printers that are mentioned are ready to go out of the box and don’t have to be assembled. Listen on to check out 3D printers under $500 or even less than $300.

3D printing is an absolutely wonderful process to create a product, develop it over time, and evolve it with flexibility. 3D printing is also absolutely right on the money and allows you to manufacture things a number of different ways. We reveal an important 3D print project that we have been working on, a Microphone Block, a real world project that we have done for our own business which has evolved over two years and now has reached a certain level of maturity. We delve into the evolution and the production of our project so you can learn great lessons and insights to help you along the way in achieving your goals with using 3D printing.

If you have been 3D printing for a long time, you are most likely one of those people who go through several spools of filament a day. The plastic that filament spools come in pile up over time and you don’t really know what to do with them. Steven Gall and his company Keene Village Plastics, one of the original filament manufacturers for the 3D printing industry, came up with a new filament delivery innovation that specifically addresses this dilemma. They introduce and deliver filament coils that come in reusable filament spools that you can buy one time and be able to use repeatedly from that point forward. This innovation not only solves a problem, but is so easy to adopt as a standard that you wonder why it’s never been done before.

With 3D printing where it’s at, more and more people are asking about the 3D print speed. How fast does it work? Some people think its magic like a microwave where you can heat something up in a matter of three or five minutes. The reality is it takes time to print something layer by layer. The higher quality you want it, the longer it takes. If you want better quality, 3D print speed does not really matter. It may take ten hours or you may have to print overnight or even multiple days, but it’s still a lot faster and it takes a lot less of your own personal labor to make parts that you wouldn’t have been able to do ten years ago.

The idea of a 3D printer with one nozzle and four filaments going into it is amazing, and the piece of hardware that comes along it would be as equally amazing because it would be able to print one object with four different and solid colors. This is still a complex area in the world of 3D printing and it would be understandable if the actual printer was not coming out soon. However, at the 3D Printer Display Exhibit at SXSW there was a display of a 3D printers with CMYK printing features. While the display piece itself looks promising the features that it promises at that moment was truly questionable, mainly because perfectly printing every pantone color in CMYK is still not achievable. While most 3D printers came out from kickstarters, it is was a wise choice to keep your eyes open for what you’re going to be getting.