Alexander Chappel

[Ryan]

I recently got a Prusa 3D printer and struggled to find a real use for it. It's great at printing little trinkets with no durability and an ugly surface finish, but... And then, I ran across Alexander Chappel. He has completely changed the way I thin...


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..

 

[PCMusicGuy]

3D printers are a great tool for organization. It's also great to create something new. While putting up Christmas decorations, my wife wanted to hang some lanterns on the wall, but absolutely hated all of the traditional hangers available. She also didn't want the hangers to be permanent and wanted them removed after the holidays.

I spent a few minutes drawing a bracket, another few finding a free vector snowflake, and then printed it. It uses a single, small drywall anchor and once the holidays are over it is almost completely invisible with a wall colored plug.

 

[loganb]

Thanks for sharing Ryan. Another Prusa fan here and I had seen his prior video on the camera swing arm boom but didn't check out the rest of his stuff. Subscribed to see more

I had considered printing boxes like he did...but Schaller bins were actually cheaper to buy than print. That grid setup and how he designed those box bases to interlock in the grid regardless of size is pretty slick...gonna have to thick about that harder...

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[LegacyIndustrial]

Organizational juices flowing!

 

[txvwnut]

I just printed some trays for my spotting drills and round over end mills. One of the first things I printed was trays for the mounting hardware for a couple of my line boring bars.

 

[landlord30]

I just printed some trays for my spotting drills and round over end mills. One of the first things I printed was trays for the mounting hardware for a couple of my line boring bars.

Got any pictures?

 

[Stuart in MN]

I watch Alexander Chappel's videos, he is entertaining and does come up with some good 3D printing stuff. A few other channels that have done interesting things with 3D printers are Mark Pressing (

) and Physics Anonymous (

)

 

[TMcCay]

Thanks for posting, Ryan. Now I'm going to have to rethink if I want to get a 3D printer. He does have great ideas and skills.

 

[Matt M PA]

I too have thought about having a 3d printer. What does the plastic cost to print something like those little organizing bins?

 

[loganb]

I too have thought about having a 3d printer. What does the plastic cost to print something like those little organizing bins?

Great question...and something that is actually possible to determine without a printer!

So 3D Printing Crash Course:

Someone designs/creates a model of something they want to print and then generally saves it as a .stl file type

A "slicer program" imports that .stl files, allows users to make settings changes/tweaks related to how they want it to print(not to the actual model), then when ready "generates" the code(G-code) for the printer to actually use to print.

The great thing is that there are sites specifically to share files(thingiverse.com for example) and the slicer programs are generally free! 2 popular and common ones are Cura and PrusaSlicer, so with a slicer program and a file you can play some yourself!

Without the exact file for the bins can't say exactly what THOSE bins cost to print...but a similar bin found below:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:569241

Using the "Small Tray" file specifically, which is approximately 2" x 1.5" x 1.75" tall

When run thru PrusaSlicer, it says would be 14 grams of filament and roughly 1 hour of print for (1), see attachment for a screenshot where I circled the filament usage estimate. I would print this in PLA which a quality spool(1kg or 2.2lbs) is generally around $20-$22 on Amazon so you should be under 30 cents in filament cost per bin.

You can put multiple parts on the print bed at a time as long as they fit and you can gain some speed there, looks like on this should be able to nest (20) of them on a Prusa and would be a 11.5 hour print time which is approximately half the time per bin vs printing a single bin

 

[Matt M PA]

Thanks loganb!

 

[DenisG]

Someday I'd like to get one to try my hand at lost-wax casting some repair parts.

 

[Jim_No_Garage]

Thanks Loganb - for working out an estimated price for a similar item.

My daughter printed a TON of useful things at college in her 3d printing class. She's probably in the top 5 of the Montclair State University "Filament Printed By User" report and she graduated 3 years ago.

I need another hobby like I need a hole in the head . . .

Cheers

Jim

 

[txvwnut]

Got any pictures?

Maybe... if you look closely at the spot drill tray you’ll notice I missed the length for the biggest drill .

I watched the video and man does that guy need to lay off the caffeine. I do like what he did though.

 

[rlitman]

First, Ryan, congrats on the Prusa. They've got great reputations, and I very nearly had either a Prusa or a Voron.

I've been avoiding the 3D printing world for what seems like a long time now, since with my fabrication skills it just hasn't has the "killer app" use cases that I felt I needed, but I actually have a Creality printer on order for about a month (it should be shipping any day now). My kids got me to take the plunge, and the more I think about it, the more I think I'll be using it at least as much as them.

And yeah, I REALLY like where this video went.

Ok, so, anyone use OctoPi and OctoPrint? That's on my short list, for as soon as I get the printer.

 

[kaymccampbell]

I wound up with 2, a Monoprice Mini, and an Ender 3 Pro. Both have paid for themselves. The Mini in one print, the Ender in 4. I mostly use them to make things I can't buy anywhere, like custom dust collection parts, and the shop clock drum displays. Right now mine are idled waiting for a plexiglass dust enclosure. There's just too much crud generated in my shop.

 

[pwhittle]

Ok, so, anyone use OctoPi and OctoPrint? That's on my short list, for as soon as I get the printer.

I use OctoPi and OctoPrint with my Ender 3. Would not hesitate to do it again.

There are some useful plugins including Filament Manager and Exclude Region.

Paul


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[loganb]

A Pi running Octo is on the short list of upgrades for my Prusa. Would have it now except I was ordered to put it on my Xmas list instead of just buying it

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[Stuart in MN]

I watched the video and man does that guy need to lay off the caffeine.

He is a little overenthusiastic.

 

[abt12]

I work for an industrial/commercial focused 3dp company. I have tons of access to 3d printing (including some metal parts!) But I almost never make use of it because I'm too busy with work (and life). Go figure eh?

I do have a set of similar buckets custom designed for the cabinets I have coming in a month or so though, and plan on doing a bunch of custom pegboard mounts.

For work I do use them a ton for custom jigs and fixturing, prototyping, etc.

 

[Outlander]

Ender 3 guy here, with RPI 3B running Octopi & a USB camera so I can keep tabs. I've been making little useful items for my electronics workbench although I did force Mrs Outlander to indulge me with a couple of Christmas tree ornaments.

I'm enjoying the set up, learning the software & settings as much as the results.

 

[Cryptic1911]

I've had a couple for a while.. I got a tevo tornado that was a bit janky out of the box and did a bunch of upgrades on it, then bailed and went to an ender 5 plus. I like the cube design waaaay better than the way most others are setup. Very handy for making random trinkets that you can't get anywhere else. I've got to find a 3d program that I like so I can start designing my own stuff

 

[kmacht]

3D printing can be a fun and useful hobby. The problem is that people start looking at it as a solution to all problems when making something rather than looking at what else might be easier, quicker, or better. It's the old adage, when all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.

 

[niget2002]

I have a geeetech aluminum i3, which is a Prusa clone. I spent a lot of time modifying the base printer to make it better.

I'm controlling mine via Octoprint.

I mostly use mine to 3d print enclosures for custom electronic projects, but I also use it for various other projects. It works great for rapid prototyping. I've used it a couple of times to 3d print something to verify my design would work before making it out of other materials (namely wood). I've also wanted to try to use it for lost-material casting, but haven't tried that yet.

At some point I want to start doing metal work. I'll be using it to print parts before making the final so if I'm wasting metal, it's because I screwed up the manufacturing and not the design

 

[rlitman]

I use OctoPi and OctoPrint with my Ender 3. Would not hesitate to do it again.

There are some useful plugins including Filament Manager and Exclude Region.

Paul

Thanks! I just installed them, as well as a handful of other useful plugins. Now to learn more about their use. I want to say I have maybe 10 printing hours so far on my shiny new Creality Ender 6.

For the record, I have now also installed the following OctoPrint plugins:
BLTouch Plugin: I still need to get the BLTouch sensor wired in though
Creality-2x-temperature-reporting-fix: apparently there's a bug in the Ender 6 I got that causes an issue that this plugin fixes
OctoPod Plugin: to talk to the OctoPod iPhone app
PrintTimeGenius Plugin: print time estimates have sucked, and I'm hoping this helps
Smart Filament Sensor: I had some filament breakage issues early on that were solved by better aligning the extruder inlet with the filament runout sensor. Their offset was causing an S bend in the filament which was putting shear stress on old filament that would break in brittle spots, but anyway, I learned the hard way that OctoPrint doesn't talk to this sensor on the printer, so I bought a BTT smart sensor that I plan to connect to GPIO, which should let OctoPrint know about run-out, breakages and even clogs.