As expected, I’ve done a fair amount of 3D printing since getting the set up finished on Saturday evening (easy set up but hosting a guest took priority). I’ve since run a number of things off using the small amount of white PLA that came with the machine and the spools of black PLA and white PETG I bought at the same time. Both PLA and PETG print very well so I’ve run various things off in each.
Up until this afternoon through, all of that had two things in common. They were things I had downloaded from online sources and they were all items to enhance the printing system – cable clips, a bed scraper and so on. Even the Gridfinity bins I printed were done with the purpose of storing the waste material from the two different types of filament. When I gather a bit more (I’ll need bigger bins!) I’ll look into melting and moulding the waste into things like coasters and other simple shapes.
What I did today took a step forward. Working with a design I’d started earlier in OpenSCAD, I created and printed my first item from scratch. It wasn’t anything complex – just a 1cm high circle of plastic with a portion of the perimeter missing, as a prototype stage for the downpipe diverter I want to construct. With this item, I wanted to check that it would securely snap onto the pipe I had in mind, tight enough to hold and loose enough to adjust. It looked a bit small when it came off the plate but proved to be perfectly sized.
Later this week, I can develop the design to incorporate several functional improvements. However, I’ve crossed the Rubicon of 3D design and established that, yes, I can dream up an idea, model it and print it.