The Start is not the End

The Disclaimer

Disclaimer: I am not an artist, electrical engineer, or a professional programmer.

I thought at least SOME of these would ruin the experience. I was horribly wrong. And not the "you need them all". You need none of these skills. Maybe someday I'll develop extra skills along those lines.

The Beginning of the Maker

I like the idea of making things. I have a dozen or so "MAKE" magazines. My dad had a woodworking shop in the basement where I grew up. One of the things that religion focuses on is the Maker or Creator - it's a high calling.

You want to feel good about yourself? Create something. Do art, cook, weld, drill, glue, sculpt, music. (Gratitude isn't a bad method to feel good, this is about making.) I cook. I like some game design...but I'm not really an artist. I like architecture, but not freehand.

The 3D Print Maker

At one point, I start saving towards a printer. I wanted a list of a dozen or so things I wanted to make, before I started shopping. Was this a fad for me? How serious was I going to be about printing? It took about a month in my off-time. Custom cat-toy feeders (too easy? Print a new one with smaller holes)...game pieces, a specialized pill dispenser (controlled by Arduino, Raspberry pi?), a braider's disk for the girlfriend, dinosaur cookie cutters, flora for D&D games, a shotgun loader for a Nerf gun, a tootsie roll stamp (look up Toot-Sweet Factory from a long time ago). The final game breaker was a PipBoy for Fallout 4. Found here: http://ytec3d.com/pip-boy-3000-mark-iv/

Researching the Printer

I will start by saying it's painful. I joined meetup groups (no responses), I browsed local Reddits. None of my friends were into it. None of my family had done it. An uncle of my girlfriend had tried a kit years ago, and had replaced his stepper motor several times - he has the part, but didn't bother, and I don't know if he ever actually printed.

Eventually through networking at work, a coworker mentioned a guy down on 6th who had done some printing. I tracked him down for lunch.

His experiences:

• Also a kit: he has an electrical engineer background
• Yes, a heated bed is awesome - he installed one later on
• "Auto-level" on a bed is needed - it gives your printer knowledge on the slope of the bed, if any
• Printers are not really that noisy (reviews all had checkmarks on noisy), not more than a paper printer
• Only ABS is toxic-fume smelling. PLA smells like waffles
• PLA itself is natural except for dyes...you can get "natural PLA" without dye - kind of food safe
• Moisture is indeed bad. Invest in a cooler with a way to suck up moisture. (Or only print with one reel at a time, and don't let it sit for 6 months)

My Lulzbot Mini Purchase

I went with a Lulzbot Mini, for about $1300 on Amazon. Tom's Hardware gave it a  strong review as a plug-and-play printer. I wanted to spend time printing (and designing 3D models), not repairing the printer - troubleshooting what was wrong today. A different Tom did a great youtube walkthrough of the setup here. The 6" heated bed is nice, the auto-leveling bed is great.

I picked mine up in October 2015, and it's been a great experience.

Ordering Plastic

I ordered a kilogram of PLA from Amazon at the same time - this is a lot of plastic. If you are printing for a couple of hours every night for a month, this is about a month or two of material. (If you want to print with HIPS, Amazon was my source for this as my local stores don't carry it.)

I also found a selection at Fry's Electronics - I even found some on clearance, so I picked up some more. There's a local electronics shop also on the Eastside of Seattle called "Vetco". Really great people, knowledgeable and interested in projects. They had a lighter selection of plastic, but they carried the parts for the Octoprint.