Exploring 3D Printing in the Wood Shop

[JohnG]

Hi All! I’m starting this thread to document my journey exploring 3D printing in the shop. I am not trying to convince anyone to buy one, justify owning a 3D printer, or portray myself as an expert on the topic. I just bought a 3D printer and I think there might be some good opportunities to use it for shop things. 

I’m planning to focus on its application in the shop, but if this thread evolves into non-woodworking focused, I’ll kindly ask a mod to move this to Off-Topic.

A quick note about 3D printing ethics… 3d printing really reduces the barrier to clone the design of a product or a part and produce it relatively inexpensively and/or make it widely available for others to produce instead of supporting a business. In most cases, I do not support this practice. However, 3D printing also opens the door to producing parts that are not readily available, improving upon available products, or customizing products to your own needs. 

I’ll be more than happy to answer questions (if I am able to) along the way and openly discuss the opportunities and limitations of 3D printing. 

I own a Prusa printer and may reference some Prusa pages, information, or products. I am in no way affiliated with Prusa and am not endorsing them or their products in any way, it’s just what I have and I have found some of their information helpful. There are a lot of product offerings out there.

[JohnG]

Placeholder for future bookmarks or info. 

[Mark J]

28 minutes ago, JohnG said:

I’m planning to focus on its application in the shop, but if this thread evolves into non-woodworking focused, I’ll kindly ask a mod to move this to Off-Topic.

Looking forward to the information! 

(But for selfish reasons, I'd rather the thread were in the CNC section--that way it would be easier for me to find again months or years in the future).

[JohnG]

There are quite a few different technologies for 3D printing, but I’ll be focusing on FDM (fused deposition modeling), where a spool of plastic or composite material is fed through a heated nozzle, much like a hot glue gun, in many layers to create the designed piece. 

There are also many different types of filament material that can be used in FDM printing, such as PLA, PET, ABS, nylon, Polycarbonate, and metal/wood filled variants. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses. PLA is generally regarded as the “easiest” filament to print with, has good tensile strength, and is pretty inexpensive but does not have great heat or impact resistance. It’s quite a rabbit hole to go down, similar to comparing the technical specifications of different wood species. 

[JohnG]

On 9/2/2023 at 9:09 AM, Mark J said:

(But for selfish reasons, I'd rather the thread were in the CNC section--that way it would be easier for me to find again months or years in the future).

I’m not opposed to this, mods? 

[Chet]

I can see endless, almost, uses in the shop.  Odd bits for a jig, DC parts and on and on.  Although you could end up making multiple versions to solve all your problems for said parts.  I recently purchased a DC piece for my Bosch Miter saw that greatly improved the dust collection almost to perfection.  The guy detailed his design journey on YouTube and the one I purchased is marked Version 11.

I will move this to the CNC forum.

[difalkner]

Looking forward to seeing how this develops.  I've thought about getting one but I have three friends who between them have about seven 3D printers so I do CNC work for them and they do 3D printing when/if I need something.

There's a fairly new 3D printer forum that's starting to take off if you're interested - https://www.3dprinterful.com/ and I only mention that for your support, not to take away from this thread or forum (mods please remove this paragraph if needed).

[JohnG]

So here’s my setup. I have a Prusa MK4, and I bought the Prusa enclosure. This will live in my wood shop so I wanted the enclosure to reduce the amount of sawdust settling on the print bed, gears/belts, and filament. It just so happens that the enclosure fits perfectly on a the top I made for a HF tool stand. 

The MK4 has approximately 9.8”x8.3”x8.6” print capacity. 

[Chet]

John, does it come with some way to test print something while you are learning how to use it?

[JohnG]

Mine came with a USB drive loaded with several prepared files, and of various print time and complexity. From a simple keychain to a full project containing a lot of parts across many print files. 

There are also several websites where users can upload their own designs for users to download and print. Some of them also contain educational materials and reference information, and even lesson plans for teachers.

Printables.com is run by Prusa. They allow users to creat Collections of print files by various users, and host periodic themed competitions. Files are free.

Thingiverse.com is run my MakerBot and claims to be the world’s largest 3D printing community and has a ton of files. Files are free. 

Pinshape.com is now run by Formlabs. Has free and paid files.

CGtrader.com is a big marketplace for files. Has some free but is primarily aimed at buying/selling. 

And there are a bunch more.

This is an easy way to get started, and you can easily scale the downloaded item as needed. Some also offer a file that allows parametric dimension adjustments rather than just scaling the X, Y, and Z axes. 

[JohnG]

Creating your own 3D print files-

In order to print a 3D object, you need a digital file containing the 3D model. To create this file, you can use a variety of software packages: Sketchup, Fusion360, Blender, Solidworks, FreeCAD, and more.

Once the object is modeled, the files are typically saved in a .STL or .3MF file.

After the 3D model is made, you need to give the printer instructions on how to actually print the file. 3D printers use G Code for instructions, just like CNC machinery. Luckily, you do not need to know how to write or understand G Code.

This is where “Slicer” software comes in. Slicer software takes the 3D model you create (or that someone else created) and generates the G Code that the printer needs. Slicer software also generally allows you to scale the 3D model, lay out multiple copies of the same item or different items to be printed at the same time (limited by the size of your print area), and make some other modifications to how the item will be printed. Once you have your print model laid out as desired, you can run the Slicer which will generate the G Code and will tell you how long the print will take and how much filament is required for the print.

The G Code can be saved and sent to the printer. Then just watch and wait!

I’ll go into more depth on Slicer software later.