How do consumer 3D printers work?

As a local (Baton Rouge) owned 3D printing business I can answer any question you have.
So you have a few options here:
1. You design your own 3d model. I have free tutorials on how to do this.
2. You pay someone to create the model for you.
3. You can "re-create" the objects using scanning or photogrammetry. But this isn't that easy or great but it is still out there.

The question back at you is "what are you trying to do"? You may not even need a 3d printer.

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I always thought you could re-produce any object you owned (within size limits) with a 3d printer - even the less expensive consumer/amateur/school printers. It's becoming increasingly obvious that you have to purchase pre-programmed, pre-scanned models from vendors.

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There are TONS of free models to download. Check out thingiverse.com and others.

But yeah, while 3d printers are awesome, they are not magical. A digital model of an object must be created before it can be printed. As mentioned above, there are several ways to accomplish this, but IMO the most fun way is to do it yourself. It is a useful skill that may serve you well in the future, and it's quite satisfying to conceive of, draw, and produce something that has never been created before.


And as asked above, what kind of things are you wanting to make? If it's things like trinkets or toys or just things to look at, maybe look into photogrammetry since precise dimensions aren't required. Personally, I find 3d printing most useful around the house to repair or improve functional items. Get a pair of calipers so you can measure things precisely, download some free modeling software, go through a few tutorials, and you'll be printing little brackets and things in no time.

Sorry. I didn't post the link to the tutorials:
LINK To Tutorials
As mentioned above TINKERCAD is a good place to start. I use AutoCAD but it is a very expensive option. Sketchup is also another free option.

Fusion 360 has a hobbyist license (although I think they changed some things up). I'm trying to lear Fusion 360 to model guitar bodies and necks. It's a natural progression, 3d printer>CNC>Guitar parts, right?

Thanks so much for all this good information. I just bought this: LINK

I also ordered a couple of extra rolls of filament. I know this is a basic model (without the heated plate, upgraded nozzle, etc). It's for my 11 yo grandson. He'll grow into it and upgrade as we go.

It works like a hot glue gun basically. Solid stuff goes in the top, through a heater where it's melted, and out a nozzle as a liquid. It cools and solidifies, but not before it slightly melts the layer below it and adheres to it. The printer's electronics control the nozzle's x, y, and z position. Different models of printer have different ways to accomplish this. Mine does x and y by mounting the print head on a gantry that moves left and right and forward and back and handles the z axis by raising and lowering the support bed to raise and lower the printed part. The electronics also control how much plastic gets fed through the heater and deposited so that the proper amount is laid down for the layer thickness and speed you've chosen. The layers can be very thin. My printer will go down to 20 micrometers per layer.

You do not have to purchase a thing. There are website repositories where people can upload solid models or you can make your own in 3D modeling software. The solid model then goes into another program called a slicer that turns the solid model into a whole bunch of thin slices. The slicer program then generates the tool path that the nozzle will follow as it squirts out melted plastic. It lays down a complete layer of plastic, the printer moves vertically the thickness of a layer, then lays down the next layer. It does this over and over until the whole object is printed.

In addition, the printer has to be dialed in by the user and choosing the settings for the slicer does take some experience. This all has a learning curve to get to the point where you're consistently producing good parts.

You can do some really cool shite, though. I've got this bad boy for one of my desk toys. It spins on ball bearings and is a pretty accurate model of the basic workings of a high bypass turbofan. It has coaxial shafts, so the four discs on the right and the large bypass fan spin together and the discs between them spin independently. Everything in the model is printed except the four bearings and the screws and nuts to hold it together.



It ain't fast, though, that's for sure. That print took a total of eight and a half days of print time. You might think I mean that I started it and a week later, all the pieces were done. No. I mean it took eight and a half days of actual elapsed printing time to produce the parts that went into the model. It took something like a month of real time to get it all done because sometimes parts fail, there's downtime, you have to do other things than print, etc.

The large fan on the left took literally a full day (24.03 hours, to be exact) of non-stop printing.

Modified commercial build.

It's a Wanhao D6, but I've upgraded the motor mounts, the build plate, the feet, I have a Raspberry Pi controlling it, MicroSwiss all metal hot end.

Running Autodesk Inventor Pro for modeling and Cura for slicing.