1st printer!

[Holydohnut]

Behold! My first ever 3D print!

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I had hoped the test file might have been a but more... Manly! But meh, my daughter will like it!

Typical that the "random" included colour would be Slimer green! Clearly black was too much to hope for!

[rodocop]

Cool! What kind of printer did you use/buy? I'm thinking about purchasing one...

[Holydohnut]

It's the da vinci jr. Been waiting for it to go sub £200 for a while and on prime day it hit £189! It's not the biggest print area at only 15cm3 and unfortunately it uses proprietary filament cassettes but for the amount I plan to use it, I've decided that's acceptable! Took all of 5 minutes to set up out of the box and start printing so pretty pleased with that!

[JadeDragon4866]

Sweet my wifey just bought me an Original Prusa I3 for my birthday!! Only gotta wait 7 weeks for them to ship it to me!!

[moooarcuuuus]

Looks very good. Have fun with your printer.

[Holydohnut]

Thanks all! Can I ask what software people are using to design their models? I was planning on using sketchup but have seen various reports on it making very poor models. At the moment I'm looking at tinkerCAD but if anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

[HoolyHoo]

Thanks all! Can I ask what software people are using to design their models? I was planning on using sketchup but have seen various reports on it making very poor models. At the moment I'm looking at tinkerCAD but if anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Take a look at Fusion 360. Free for enthusiasts, very powerful and not watered down.

[Holydohnut]

Hmmm... Well I had my first failed prints last night. 2 in a row. First was a model for my daughter, which looked fine until 2 thirds built, then started looking a bit... Shrunk. Then the printer just went nuts and "scribbled" over it, then spat it out and declared it finished. Then 2nd was your screen support HoolyHoo. I was trying to print it with supports, but the supports didn't adhere to the bed and messed up. Even though the main unit was fine.

My daughter's model also needed supports. I'm wondering if my printer/software just can't handle supports?

Gonna try Slic3r later today and see if that makes any difference. But if anyone else has any suggestions?

[abrugsch]

I use 123d design (now discontinued) and Cura for printing. If not using Cura, then slic3r for outputting the gcode files. Both of those handle creating supports but you need to select the option before generating the gcode.
You could also try using a raft if supports aren't sticking. Also try using a brim

[Holydohnut]

Thank you! I'll give those a try. Was just reading up on outputting gcodes. Seemed like a lot of work, but thanks to your recommendation I'll give it a go!

Unfortunately, the fails continue! Just tried to print the paddle for the boat on the front page of thingiverse, and this happened!

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Not sure if you can see, but the section in the middle of the paddles has printed out fine. (where it all meets in the middle and the hub is printed) but above and below where the prints were just single lines, it's thin, warpy and full of holes!

Would a "best" quality print have sorted this? Or should I be looking at increasing the wall thickness?