Tag Archives: Simplify3D

How To: Avoiding Supports By Using Simplify3D to Cut The Model in Half

February 23, 2016 VickyTGAW 3 Comments

After a recent trip the Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center, my husband had a 3D Printing request for me. He wanted a 1934 Buck Rogers Disintegrator Gun.

The Model
Thanks to the great community up on Thingiverse, I didn’t have to do any modeling. I had THREE Buck Rogers Guns to choose from. The one that caught my eye and seemed to most resemble what my husband wanted was “Disintegrator 1934 Buck Rogers Gun” by user bluesroq.

The designer recommended printing the model with supports and there is indeed a lot of overhangs with how the gun is positioning now.

Avoiding Supports
Even though Simplify3D has top notch supports that are easy to remove and easy to control, I wanted to try to avoid supports in this case for a few reasons:

As great as Simplify3D supports are, they would still leave some scarring or souvenirs on the faces– in this case– an entire side of my gun would be subject to that and not look as pretty and finished as the other side.
Supports increase your printing time AND your material usage. In the case of an adult-sized Buck Rogers gun, the print time would have gone from 4 hours 30 minutes to 7 hours 12 minutes!

If it were in half, this particular model would be an easy, straight forward print without any troubling overhangs.

Looking over the Buck Rogers Gun, the model itself was very symmetrical. It would be a great model to print in two halves and glue together. As a 3D Modeler, I could easily pull this model into something like Blender and break in half that way. But, I could also save time and just do it through my slicer! : )

Cutting in Half – Simplify3D
In Simplify3D, anything that is below your build plate will get ignored by the printer. So in the case of this gun, I would want to lower it down so half of it is above the build plate and half is below. The steps would be:

First off, it is helpful to see the build plate while you are working. If yours is not displaying in your Simplify3D, click on Prepare to Print and check the Build Table under Show In Preview.
Next we need to figure out how far we want to lower our model. Simplify3D makes that easy for us as well. Double click on your model and in the information panel under the Change Scaling section, we will get a reference of the exact measurements. In this case, we are interested in the height of the model, the Z value.
Now we have some simple math. We want to lower the model so only half of it is above the print bed. That means we want to divide the height by 2. In this example– 25.43 divided by 2 is 12.71. In our Change Position section, we want to change the Z offset to -12.71 (aka Lower the model 12.71 mm).
At this point, half of our model is under the print bed! If we click on Prepare to Print, you’ll see that only half of the model is going to be printed.

Getting the Second Half – Simplify3D
To make a whole gun, we obviously want to print two halves of the gun.

Click on your model to select it and then go to Edit->Duplicate Models and make one more copy. You may have to move it around to a better spot on the build plate. (You can also click on the Center and Arrange— but you’ll have to reset your Z Offset again for the original model).
Now we have to flip our new part. Gotcha– Watch Out for Mirroring! My first inclination was to go Mesh->Mirror Mesh and mirror my second half over the X or the Y axis. That could work for some models, but in the case where there is text on your model (like this), then that also mirrors your text and it too would be backwards. Mirroring should also be avoided if your model isn’t exactly symmetrical and has different detailings on each side.

D’oh – Backwards Text

In lieu of mirroring, you can rotate it! Double click the object and then in the Change Rotation section, rotate the model 180 over the X or Y axis. Don’t be alarmed if your object suddenly “disappears”. It’s actually underneath your print bed. You just have to adjust the Z Offset now to move the new one 12.71 above the print bed.

Slic3r
I have found Simplify3D to be absolutely 100% worth my money, but if it is not for you or your budget, you are not out of luck. You may be able to do the same thing in your slicer. As an example in open-sourced (and free) Slic3r, once you had your object on your plater, you would go to Object->Cut…

And you can pick the cutting height (and you have options to get both sides and rotate one)

And there you go, you can break your model up without modeling software like Blender. This technique’s applications are not limited to merely cutting objects in half. You can use it anytime you want to isolate out a particular section of a model to print. Say you got a 3D Hubs order and you are worried about a tricky section near the top. You don’t have to waste the time and material to run the whole print to find out that section is going to fail. Instead, you can lower your object down and do a quick print on just the troublesome section to see how it performs.

3D Modeling, 3D Printing, Slicing

Personalized Glowing Valentines for Kids

February 15, 2016 VickyTGAW 2 Comments

My son is named Sagan, after Carl Sagan. Over here in the U.S., that’s a unique name. As a result, he won’t be going into gas stations or souvenir shops and finding mass produced keychains and trinkets with his name on it.

Luckily, I have the MakerGear M2. I am not bound to get what someone else has decided to design and make. I can make it myself!

In my son’s pre-K class, a vast majority of the students are in the same boat– most of them have unique names. This seemed like a great use for the flexibility of a 3D Printer.

The Design
The design is not especially ground breaking. Hey, it’s a little heart pendant/medallion with a name on it. I printed most of it in ColorFabb Traffic Red PLA/PHA (duh) and then the detailing and the name are in GlowFill. One thing I have noticed with my kids is they LOVE glowing things. They love taking it into the bathroom and turning off the lights to see it glow.

Modeling – Blender
The base model I did in Blender. I started with a Bezier Curve. I used the Mirror modifier to make it symmetrical.

I converted the curve to a Mesh.

I did a little cleanup of the Vertices, by Merging a couple of oddly mirrored vertices to the center.

The detailing of my design, I wanted an outline of a heart in GlowFill. I’ve worked with hearts in the past and I knew that just scaling another heart down wasn’t going to do the trick. Inset is key to that!

Scaling Versus Inset – Inset Will Give You Consistent Widths

I did an Inset of my face and did some manual cleanup of the vertices.

After that, it was just straight Extrusion to the heights I wanted.

The hook was just a cylinder subtracted from another cylinder (courtesy of the Boolean Modifier). I decided to keep the hook separate in case anyone wanted to print just straight up hearts.

At the end of my Blender session– I had two .STL files — my heart and my hook to make it a medallion.

Modeling – OpenSCAD
Although I had experimented with Python scripting for Blender roughly a year ago, OpenSCAD seemed easier and quicker for me. There is an Import command in OpenSCAD where you can pull in STL files. I went ahead and brought my Blender STL files into my OpenSCAD project and set a variable name for the “Child’s Name”. I was then able to rapidly run through and create 17 models for all my son’s classmates.

child_name = "Adela";
font_size=10;
y_offset=-4;

union()
{
 translate([30,10,0])
   import("heart.stl", convexity=10);

  
 translate([30,10,0])
  import("hook.stl", convexity=10);  


translate([30,y_offset,2])
linear_extrude(height=0.7)
    text(child_name, halign="center", size=font_size);
}

Slicing and Printing – Simplify3D and MakerGear M2
I printed on my trusty MakerGear M2. Since I have a single extruder machine, I used Simplify3D to set up two processes to print my heart:

Red
From 0.0 – 1.0mm, I printed in ColorFabb Traffic Red PLA/PHA. I printed in 0.25mm layer heights.

GlowFill
From 1.1 – 1.7mm, I printed in ColorFabb GlowFill. I printed those in 0.10mm heights. Usually I have found with detailing 3 or 4 layers were sufficient. In this case, because the GlowFill was a little translucent, going up to 6 and 7 layers made sure the text appeared more crisp and white. (It also gave me a little more leeway to recover if an edge came unstuck from the build plate).

Quick Tip
And a quick tip. Sometimes parenting is harder than 3D Printing. When I printed my first batch of hearts, I was quite pleased. I showed my son and was ready for a positive response. It did not go well. I..uh… I kinda didn’t include his name in the first batch of hearts. He can read and he was quite miffed when he did not see his name. Luckily, I started an emergency print and was able to get back on his good side. But you can avoid such drama. Make sure to print your kids’ in the first batch. : )

On Thingiverse!
If you covet a heart for Valentine’s Day or a special occasion, I was able to make a Customizer on Thingiverse. Feel free to make your own.

Uncategorized

Tour of my Simplify3D Settings – As Of January 2016

January 30, 2016 VickyTGAW 2 Comments

Another post inspired by a Twitter conversation!

Here’s a quick tour of my Slicer Settings for the MakerGear M2 (v3b Hot End) for my PLA/PHA.

Hat Tip – A lot of my settings, especially my speed settings, all stem from Ed Nisley’s Settings for the Bridge Calibration Tool. His settings are for Slic3r. I did my best interpretation to convert them over when I started using Simplify3D. My notes and screenshots of trying to match things up are on Flickr at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tgaw/albums/72157656224789835

Okay without further ado.

Extruder Tab

Nozzle Diameter
0.35 – To match my current nozzle.

Extrusion Width
Typically– 0.35. I have used the “Auto” which sets to 0.42 without issue.

Exception– In the case of super thin details I have decreased that to 0.34 so the printer will pick them up. An example is a Les Paul Slash Guitar I was working on. At 0.35, the strings were not picked up, but when I changed the Extrusion Width to 0.34, it picked them up.

Ooze Control
I have not actually played with those settings a lot. They are likely the stock settings from the MakerGear M2 profile for Simplify3D

Layer Tab

Primary Layer Height
I print anywhere from 0.10 to 0.25. It depends on the projects. Stuff like Cork Kitties, I’m good at 0.25. My multi-colored birds, I want the details to be as close to the base bird as I can, so I print those at 0.10.

Top Solid Layers
I usually keep this at 3.

Exception- If I’m working on a piece where the primary focus of it is going to be on the very top (such as the Les Paul Slash Guitar), I will up the Top Solid Layers, sometimes up to 10 (so 1mm at 0.10mm layer heights). This is particularly important if I am using low or no infill. An overkill example is below, but you can see how the combination of Top Solid Layers and Infill can have an impact.

An illustration of how infill & top layer settings can make a big difference in #3DPrinting. The top example- 40% infill with 15 solid layers at top. The bottom example, 10% infill with 3 solid layers at top.

A photo posted by Vicky Somma (@vickytgaw) on Jun 16, 2015 at 5:51pm PDT

Bottom Solid Layers
I usually keep this at 3

Exception – I have Standing Cancer Ribbon that I print with extra solid layers at the bottom in an attempt to weigh the legs down more. (I have no evidence that is necessary- it worked the first time so I kept doing it)

Outline Perimeter Shells
Typically I keep this at 3.

Exception – If I’m doing something with bronzeFill that I expect to do extra sanding, I up this to 5. (Hat Tip, Barnacles Nerdgasm)

Exception – If I have engraved Text at the top of my piece, I will sometimes lower the perimeters to 1 as it makes the text more crisp.

Outline Direction

Inside-Out – I believe this is the default and it helps with overhangs quite a bit. Because it is starting from the inside, you are more likely to have something underneath it from the layer before to support your new layer. So if it prints inside out, it has a good base before getting to the overhang areas. An example is the 3D Hubs Marvin. If you look at the curvature on his butt. If the first perimeter is printing on the inside, there is definitely something there for it to print on top of.

First Layer Height
With right now how my bed and Z-End Stop is setup, I am having great results with a First Layer Height of 0.10. So this percentage is all determined by my Primary Layer Height.
If I’m printing at 0.10 layers, I use 100%
If I’m printing at 0.20 layers, I use 50%
If I’m printing at 0.25 layers, I use 40%, etc.

First Layer Width
Converting Ed Nisley’s Settings from Slic3r, I came up with 93%.

First Layer Speed
This I keep at 30%. I believe that also stemmed from my Slic3r settings.

Start Points
I use Optimize Starting Points for Fastest Printing Speed. This I stumbled upon trying to get rid of some pimples and oozing on some prints. Once I checked this, my problems disappeared. I suspect this could also be addressed with Retraction Settings but right now, this solution is working great for me.

My #3DPrinting Victory of the day – finding the right settings to get rid of these retraction blobs. Success!

A photo posted by Vicky Somma (@vickytgaw) on Oct 20, 2015 at 7:10pm PDT

Temperatures

Primary Extruder
I use 210 for all my ColorFabb PLA/PHA

For my MakerGear PLA (my White, Orange, Silver, Black, Purple), I will often use 215, but will sometimes drop that down to 210 if I’m doing something with a lot of overhangs.

BronzeFill and GlowFill I typically use 210.

Heated Bed
Get this. I’m in love with printing on a cool bed on painters tape (And I have that luxury with the materials I have been working with). So I have that set to 0.

Cooling

Speed Overrides
When I was trying to print 3D Benchy, I noted my results in Simplify3D were not as good as my original prints in Slic3r. I went back and reviewed my Slic3r settings and found a whole section I had skipped over because it looked waaay too intimidating.

Now if I am working with a print with lots of overhangs or small details that will need to cool, I will check “Adjust printing speed for layers below” and I set it to 30 (down from 60). I also give it way more leeway with how slow it can go– I set that to 10%.

I often will uncheck this setting if my printer is really flat and straight forward and really doesn’t need extra time to cool before starting the next layer.

Other

For my printing speeds, it is all my calculations of my old Slic3r settings that I based off of Ed Nisley.

Default Printing Speed
4800.00 mm/min (which is 80mm/sec)

Bridge Speed Multiplier
I set to 125% to get it up to 100mm/sec.

Conclusion
And there you have it. A tour of my settings. Areas where I think there can be some improvement– I do have a model that is subject to some stringing, so I may want to play with lower printing speeds.

Stringing In the Gazebo

And it is possible I can improve my retraction settings, but like I said above, with my Starting Point settings, that issue has not been bothering me.

Slicing

Quickie Tutorial – Getting the Extruder To Run Some Filament Before a Print

January 30, 2016 VickyTGAW 2 Comments

I butted into a conversation in Twitter today (That’s socially acceptable right? I hear it’s the cocktail party of the Internet) and the question came up how to get the Maker Gear M2 to run some filament before the print.

Well, since I do a lot of material changes within prints, that is something I do know how to do.

Simplify3D – Jog Controls
You can tell your printer to do all sorts of things in the Machine Control Panel section of Simplify3D. For that, you would:

Click on Tools->Machine Control Panel.
And then you can go to the Jog Controls Tab.
There is an Extrude section, where you can tell the printer to extrude out 0.1mm (tiny, tiny!), 1mm, 10mm, 100mm. I am typically using the 10 or the 100 button.

Tip: If you already have a print on the bed, I put a piece of paper over it so it doesn’t get messed up with the extruded filament.

Gotcha: The printer has some built in safeguards– it won’t do a “Cold Extrude”. It won’t extrude unless the nozzle is heated up. If you are hitting those Extrude buttons and the printer is not listening to you, it may be that it isn’t heated up yet. (The G-Code command M302 supposedly turns off the Cold Extrude safeguard, but I have never tried it)

Simplify3D – Custom Starting Script G-Code

Simplify3D allows you to set up custom code for various stages of your print, including the start up. To edit those, you would:

Double click on your setting profile in the bottom left hand corner
Click on the Scripts tab
Click on the Starting Script tab

For all my simple prints, I use the stock Starting Scripts that came with the Simplify3D Default Profile for the MakerGear M2 (24V vb3 Hot End) (I do customizations for my multistep prints)

M108 S255 ; turn on M2 fans
G28 ; home all axes
G1 Y50 Z0.3 F9600 ; move forward to avoid binder clips
G1 X205 Z10 ; move off platform
G1 Z0.4 ; position nozzle
G92 E0 ; zero extruder
G1 E25 F225 ; purge nozzle
G92 E0 ; zero extruder
G1 X190 Z0.1 E1.0 F1200 ; slow wipe
G1 X180 Z0.25 ; lift

Simplify3D -G-Code Via Communication Tab
Want to be a little more hard code than the Machine Control Panel tab, but don’t want to commit to a change to your Starting Script? You can also send direct G-Code commands to your printer by:

Going to Tools->Machine Control Panel
Clicking on the Communication tab
Typing stuff in the text box in the bottom and hit Send.

Tip: A good reference for G-Code syntax is at: http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code

Gotcha: The commands are CASE sensitive. m107, for example will not turn off my cooling fan, but M107 will. : )

3D Printing

Print Diary – Anglerfish in colorFabb BronzeFill and GlowFill

December 25, 2015 VickyTGAW 1 Comment

After months of craft shows and custom orders, my very last design and print for 2015 was something for me! As soon as I received my first spool of ColorFabb GlowFill, I wanted to do an anglerfish. I’m almost done with that roll, so this seemed to be the time. And as luck would have it, PrintedSolid and reddit were running a mixed material use contest. Destiny! I designed and printed my anglerfish in BronzeFill and GlowFill on my MakerGear M2. The GlowFill parts were actually inserted into the fish and sealed in as the BronzeFill printed.

Tada! Anglerfish!

As you may expect, the GlowFill parts glow in the dark and the blacklight.

Glowing Anglerfish

Material Choices
I chose two materials for my anglerfish, both were mainly selected for aesthetic reasons:

colorFabb BronzeFill – The bulk of my print was in bronzeFill. To me, bronzeFill elevates designs. It’s heavy, so it feels expensive. It gets a sheen with sanding so it also looks expensive. I have found it to be a forgiving material as it is so easy to sand afterwards and redeem. I only had time for one print of my design before leaving for vacation. I needed a forgiving material. : ) I’ve also seen it bridge and do overhangs well, so I knew it was a good fit for my fish.
Semantics also play a little bit of a role. Bronze pulls with it connotations of the Bronze Age– gladiators and warriors. Bronze is a material of badasses. Anglerfish withstand immense pressures down there at the bottom of the ocean. They warrant a badass material.
colorFabb GlowFill – And GlowFill was a no brainer. To really do justice to an anglerfish, I needed him to glow. : )

Design
I designed my angerfish in Blender. I designed cavities and supports inside the fish to hold our GlowFill pieces. That way, I could insert the pieces and let the rest of the print seal them in.

Model in Blender

Cavities Inside the Fish to Hold GlowFill Details.

So for example, the glowing eye detail. Inside the head of the fish, I have a little rectangular holder to keep that detail in place. I wanted the pupil of the eyes to remain dark, however, so that glowing eye detail had a circle cut out so the BronzeFill behind it could show through.

A View To Show the Relationship of How the GlowFill Eye Would Be Supported

Printing – GlowFill
I printed all the GlowFill pieces first. Very straight forward– 0.25mm layers, nothing super special.

Printing – BronzeFill
BronzeFill is where the thinking came in. I still printed at 0.25mm layers. Using Simplify3D, I set up nine separate processes for the BronzeFill. At the end of each process, the print would stop, the Z bed would drop 100mm allowing me to insert in the appropriate GlowFill piece(s) before starting the next process.

Preview in Simplify3D, the Blue Lines Illustrate Stopping Points

Using Layer Modifications in Simplify3D

Custom Ending Script in Simplify3D to Just Drop My Bed At the End of the Process

After Eye Detail Was Inserted

I did have a bobble. When I inserted my side panels, I noticed they were a little higher than the BronzeFill layers around it. I thought it would be safe… but it knocked my nozzle and offset the X a bit. The seam you see in the pictures is the product of that shift. Lesson learned — better safe than sorry. : )

The Bobble

I did also end up printing the little dangly do-dad on the top of the fish separately. That was unplanned, but serendipitous as the fish would have been a pain to sand with that delicate detail in the way.

Finishing
I sanded the fish with three separate grades of sand paper and I finished him off with super fine steel wool.

Lessons
I only had time for one print and I do have adjustments I would make for my next run. First off– the teeth are not worth installing during the print. It was a lot of stops in the print to insert the teeth and the sanding. My gawd, the sanding. Those teeth were just a nuisance during sanding. I did get a little thrill each time I installed a tooth and had the print seal it in, but it wasn’t worth it. Next time, I’m just going to glue the teeth in after the fact.

Secondly, I learned to decrease the height of those side GlowFill panels slightly so I don’t get my nozzle knocked. : )

Even with my little bobble, I am thrilled with my anglerfish. Love!

I Did It!

More photos of my Anglerfish and its process can be found on my Flickr site.

3D Printing, Print Diary, Slicing

Print Diary – Fun Police Sheriff’s Badge

November 3, 2015 VickyTGAW 1 Comment

A friend of my brother’s passed away last week. He was in his thirties, so it was an unexpected death. Last night, my sister-in-law texted to see how soon I could 3D Print something for the funeral. She wanted a Sheriff’s Badge with one request– that it simply read “Fun Police”.

Thanks to Thingiverse, OpenSCAD, and Simplify3D, I was able to turn around her request fast.

Thingiverse and OpenSCAD
Thingiverse had a lot of Sheriff Badges to choose from. I went with the design by Bichiatari. I liked the standard six star approach and bonus– it was in OpenSCAD, which I taught a class on last June! I used his base code to make some slight alterations:

I made the points of the stars spheres to give it a more three dimensional look.
I changed the font to “Rockwell Extra Bold”. I liked the look of the text and I liked how thick the letters were
And finally, I changed “Sheriff” to “Fun Police”.

Original Model

Simplify3D
Now, when I was done, the points of my stars did extend below the base of the star thanks to the spheres.

I didn’t want to print those sphere bottoms

For my first trial run, I didn’t go to the trouble of making that flat in OpenSCAD. I just flattened the bottom when I sliced in Simplify3D. I simply changed the Z offset, so the bottom part of those spheres were below my build plate, so those parts wouldn’t print. A nice handy trick.

I also felt the proportions were a little off, so I scaled just the height of the object down so it was only 6mm high.

Hack with Simplify3D – Changed my Offset To Lower the Object Down

Rev 2
The first print was okay— and I bet they would have been satisfied with it. I didn’t like how the “E” at the end of “POLICE” printed out and I thought it would be a better use of real estate to make the letters bigger.

The First Print Had a Messed Up E

So I went back into OpenSCAD and made some changes:

I put “FUN” on one line of text and “POLICE” on another
I made the text bigger.
I resized my object down to 4mm high
Finally, I went ahead and chopped off the bottom of those spheres so it would all lay flat

For those interested in the code, the full OpenSCAD code is below.

As far as the second print— I liked it much better. I used the MakerGear Silver PLA filament.

Second Print

OpenSCAD Code

//I thought the current height was too chunky,
//so scale it down to 4mm high after everything
//else is done
resize([0,0,4])
difference () {

//Rotate the star 30 Degrees, so it is easier to visualize
//and place the text
rotate([0,0,30])
union () {
    //The first two cylinders are our star
    //3 sided cylinder is a triangle
    cylinder(r=40, h=5,$fn=3);
    rotate([0,0,180])
    cylinder(r=40, h=5,$fn=3);
    translate([37,0,2])

    //Spheres at each star's point
    sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
    translate([-37,0,2])
    sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
    translate([-19,33,2])
    sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
    translate([19,33,2])
    sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
    translate([-19,-33,2])
    sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
    translate([19,-33,2])
    sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
}

//These cubes are our engraved lines
translate([-23,10,1])
cube ([50,1,4]);
translate([-23,-10,1])
cube ([50,1,4]);

//This is our text for engraving
scale([0.7,0.7,1])
translate([-30,3,1])
linear_extrude([0,0,5])
text("    FUN ", font="Rockwell Extra Bold");

scale([0.7,0.7,1])
translate([-30,-9,1])
linear_extrude([0,0,5])
text("POLICE", font="Rockwell Extra Bold");

//Finally this cube is to cut everything off at the bottom to make it flat
translate([-50,-50,-5])
cube([100,100,5]);
}

3D Printing, Business

Fall Occoquan Arts and Craft Show

September 29, 2015 VickyTGAW 1 Comment

Well, it was a whirlwind, but we had a phenomenal time at the Fall Occoquan Arts and Craft Show! Everything clicked into place so we could relax and enjoy the show. We had steady enough sales that we didn’t have to worry about not selling anything…. but the sales paced in a way that we didn’t have to worry about running out of everything on Saturday.

When I step back, it is crazy we accomplished in just eight weeks. Eight weeks ago, I may have had some designs up on Shapeways, but for all practical purposes I was just a girl with a 3D Printer. I had NO inventory. NO tent. NO tables. Nothing! So in eight weeks, we (I say we, because from my husband to my mother to my brother to my sister-in-law to a battery of friends– it was a big group effort) pulled off a little business.

19 new designs, over 400 prints, a business license, tax IDs, a logo and signage, infrastructure for display and credit cards reading.

Whew! No wonder I’m so tired.

This All Did Not Exist Eight Weeks Ago!

Surprise Strong Sellers
The most surprising seller was the Glowing Cthulhu Coaster. The Glowing Cthulhu Coaster was actually our first sale, a mere minute after the bells rung to start the show. We ended up selling out of Cthulhu Coasters the very first day. The second morning, we printed more…which was good because in the afternoon we sold another one!

The other great surprise was my Mamie Davis Gazebo Christmas Ornament. I didn’t blog about it yet. That was my very last design for the show- done in a marathon 16 hour design session and then printing the very last week before the show. After a handful of gazebos, I was thinking of switching back to other products. My husband convinced me to print more gazebos and I’m glad I did. By the end of the show, they were all spoken for!

I was also pleased to sell a Schrodinger’s Cat and Box! He is definitely a niche product.

Surprise Slow Sellers
On the other hand, the bird magnets and wreaths did not do as well as I had anticipated. Possible variables- I had that in the back of the booth. I also suspect I mucked up the pricing and made them too high (More on that below).

Leads!
I left the show with a half dozen custom design requests to follow-up on. In Episode 89 of the WTFFF Podcast, Tom and Tracy Hazzard said for them, if they left a tradeshow with just one lead, the show was worth it. I left with multiple leads plus SALES. So yeah, totally worth it.

Beyond Sales
We had a best case scenario. Even if we missed a sale, we still got our egos stroked with compliments to the designs and then the best part- we got to introduce 3D printing to the masses! Visitor after visitor came in and told us, “This is the first time I’ve laid eyes on a 3D Printer. I’ve read about it, but I’ve never seen one.” They would call others over to mob around the printer. That was very satisfying.

One lady admired all my birds and said, “I heard about 3D Printing, but I had no idea you could use it to make beautiful art work.” Beautiful art work! That’s the term she used!

And I got to do something I really do revel in– talking about 3D Printing and showing people how it is within their grasp right now. They can start designing and printing right now!

Surprising Another 3D Printer
Okay… so yeah, maybe it is easy to wow the layman with 3D Printing. But what about people who have 3D printers of their own? Sunday, a local man with a 3D Printer stopped by my booth. We talked about nozzles and NinjaFlex and slicing. All of a sudden his wife interrupted, pointing to one of my glowing fireflies and asking how I did the different colors.

“That’s painted, baby.” the man quickly said.

And I got to correct him, “No, it’s different color filaments.”

He looked at the firefly again. “Ooooh, I see. You print the different filaments and glue them together.”

And I got to correct him and explain how I use Simplify3D to do the multiple processes and start the different colors that their designated heights.

Out of all the visitors that past weekend, I think it was only he who could really fully appreciate the technique.

To Learn: Pricing
When learning 3D Printing, you do a lot of experimentation. Ooh your overhangs are messy, let’s try a print with lower temperatures. Still not perfect? Let’s try a print with slower speeds. You tweak and make adjustments.

I do believe it’s going to be the same kind of thing with sales. Right now, I believe I priced the Cork Puppies and Cork Kitties too high. I was pricing it, thinking the end users were adults (using them as décor, place set holders, and entrée labels). It was very clear at the show, I should have been pricing it for KIDS. The end users are KIDS! They love them.

I also believe I priced the birds too high.

On the other side of the spectrum, it is possible I priced the Mamie Davis Gazebo Ornament too low. Why do I say that? My Mom accidently quoted a lady TWICE the price and she still agreed to buy THREE. (I only charged her the real price). So go figure. hehe

It’s just another thing for me to learn and master. It may take me a while to master, but I’ll keep working at it. : )

Next Up
Next up– a little bit of rest, getting my remaining inventory up on Etsy, doing these custom orders… and then prepping for more shows!

Print Diary, Slicing

My Duh Moment of the Day – Build Table in Simplify3D

August 22, 2015 VickyTGAW Leave a comment

A few weeks ago, I prepped a bunch of birds in Simplify3D and when it started, I noticed one of my birds was only half on the bed. It struck me as odd, because I thought I saw your bed size in the settings.

“You’d think it warn me,” I thought.

Since then I’ve been very conservative with my plating so as to make sure to stay well within my print bed.

Yesterday, all of a sudden I had a breakthrough moment. In my preview screen, if I check Build table under Show In Preview, there I have a lovely visual of my actual bed.

And now that that’s on, when I got back to plating, that visual is still there.

This is proving to be super handy. Now I’m able to fill my bed up to its full capacity.

In preparation of the craft fair, I have a goal of printing 10 items each weekday. If I’m printing birds, particular small birds like a chickadee or finch, BAM. I can meet my craft fair goal in a single run!

3D Printing, Filament, Print Diary, Slicing

Print Diary – August 11 – Archilochus colubris

August 13, 2015 VickyTGAW Leave a comment

Ruby-throated Hummingbird
On Tuesday, I welcomed Archilochus colubris (Ruby-throated Hummingbird) to my 3D printed aviary. He was designed in Blender (based off a Creative Commons photo by my husband) and printed in the MakerGear M2. I used four different Simplify3D processes to print four colors– White, Traffic Red, Mint Turquoise, and Black.

Overthinking the Color Order
Originally, I was printing Red, White, Green and then Black. My thought process was I wanted that White directly underneath the green, so it could be as bright as possible. I was worried if I printed green right on top of the red, it would appear brown.

So I did Red, White, Green and Black…. and I found myself very distracted by the Red outlines to the whole bird.

I switched them up. I printed White, Red, Green and then Black. With the first layer, it does look like my worse fears are realized– the bird is a pretty icky brown.

But I have four layers of green (at 0.10mm each) and by the time it finishes all those layers, the green layer looks just as green as it does over the white. It made no difference whatsoever… for my ColorFabb Mint Turquoise. It is possible my translucent filaments from MakerGear (Grey and Orange) may be a different story.

Multi-processes to the Rescue!
I discovered that running Simplify3D’s multiprocesses one at a time are good for more than changing colors. It does give you an opportunity to recover should a mishap occur. In this case, one of my hummingbirds came unstuck to my bed. My attempts to glue stick him back on failed, so every time my extruder hit that blank spot it was making a nice spaghetti mess of filament (Side note– it is impressive to see how little filament actually goes on a layer– no wonder why my filament spools last forever).

Luckily, since I was running multi-processes, once my base layer of White finished, I had the opportunity to go into Simplify3D and remove the troublesome hummingbird (being VERY careful not to hit that Center and Arrange button). I exported my new processes to my SD card and that allowed me to not have to waste any more time on the MIA hummingbird.

Occoquan Craft Fair Preparation
I also got my application in for the Fall Occoquan Arts and Crafts Show on September 26th and 27th! I’m hoping to be their inaugural 3D Printing booth. Although I have no reason to worry about my acceptance into the show, meh, I still do worry a little bit, so I’ll be happy to hear back from the show director.

In the meantime, we are still preparing. My entire family is pitching in. Ryan is locating a tent and table and getting us a credit card processing solution. My brother, a small business owner, has been helpful in the business side of things. My Mom, as always, is a huge asset. Even my children are helping! They help with “Market Research” and young Sagan has mastered preparing my filament for color switches. : )

On my end, an entire wall of my office is covered in Post In Notes of ideas and action items. My evenings are spent modeling and slicing, so I can make sure the MakerGear M2 has stuff to do while I work during the day.

And our dining room table is currently a staging area of potential products.

It’s going to be a busy fall. 🙂

Print Diary, Slicing

Print Diary – July 31st – Process Improvement and Cyanocitta cristata

August 4, 2015 VickyTGAW Leave a comment

Tethered by Filament Change
First thing in the morning, I started a print run of some coasters. This time I was etching in this lovely Creative Commons Celtic Dragonfly by blah_59. After the first 2 millimeters, I was going to change colors for the top. It was after the print I realized……

Starbucks Day

On Fridays, I usually take my kids out to breakfast at Starbucks. The timing of my filament change was totally going to muck up Starbucks Day. I wanted to be around to pause my print and switch colors.

Compromise. My oldest son and I ran to Dunkin Donuts and picked up a special breakfast and brought it home. I was deprived of my weekly Flat White, but boy, the kids didn’t care one bit. They loved eating Dunkin Donuts on the deck.

All was well and I ended up with my glowing Celtic Dragonfly Coaster.

But it was a sign that I needed a better process. I’m a working mother. It isn’t going to be sustainable for me to be tethered to the printer waiting for the exact moment to change my filament.

3D Printing Nerd to the Rescue
I thought my solution was going to lie in adding custom G-code, but it turns out I don’t even need to do that! I just so happened to watch the latest video from the 3D Printing Nerd that very same morning. He also does a lot of creations by switching filament colors and he also uses Simplify3D. I mentioned yesterday and we saw it before with some experiments with the cardinal wing that I do use multiprocesses to change my settings for different sections of the print. Well, I never thought about the implications of running those multiple processes one at a time. I had always let them run as a single print run, meaning I still would have to monitor and pause my print when I wanted to switch colors.

The 3D Printing Nerd’s video showed me to run them one at a time. So when the printer finishes one color it stops and then waits for you to take the next steps…on your time.

I gave it a test run on my new Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata). It worked splendidly. I ran the white. I ran the blue. I ran the black. Wonderful! This is just what I needed to keep my sanity and prepare for the Occoquan Arts and Craft Fair.

The latest bird from the MakerGear M2- Cyanocitta cristata (American Bluejay). #3DPrinting

A photo posted by Vicky Somma (@vickytgaw) on Aug 1, 2015 at 4:13am PDT

I did notice one tiny best practice for the future. When I start a new color, the print runs through it usually start up process (which I can change if I want). It squirts out some plastic off the side of the bed and then it swipes the nozzle clean on the bed. When I ran a bed full of bluejays, I did notice I put one a little too close to that swiping action. He was just barely getting knicked by the nozzle as it passed by. So either I not place things that close to that section… or I change my start up G-Code.

I’m really excited. A HUGE thanks to the 3D Printing Nerd for helping me improve my process. It’s really going to help as my collection of birds continues to grow!

TGAW 3D