3D Printing ~ Justify Your Love

[SignOfZeta]

Obviously if you’ve seen more than six of my posts you know that I think 3D printing is, with rare exception, some kind of group hallucination based fraud. This flies directly in the face of many many people who consider it society’s job to prop up and enable this trash, calling something chocolate when it’s clearly crap. “What? My mother never said anything bad about 3D printing. You must be such a sad old man…”, I get a lot of that. My issue is only that 3D printing is the slowest most expensive way to make the worst possible part but mostly just makes trash. To me…that’s bad. And people don’t like that. People want to be told they are amazing and wonderful all day and night and if you insult their dumb hobbies they take it personally.

SO, to reduce this issue I have created a thread. In this thread it is YOUR CHANCE, 3D printing aficionado, to calmly and collectively shut me up. Prove to me you aren’t just wanking your gantry. Show me the BEST thing you’ve ever made. No iterative rubbish. Something that is DONE and FLAWLESS. Show your work. One post. If 3D printing isn’t a scam this should be soooooo easy.

This thread isn’t for debate. It’s judgment. You show us your part. I give it a pass/fail. If it’s truly useful anyone will be able to see that. I won’t be able to deny it. No one will. You will be Justified. Everyone but me wants you to succeed so there will be nothing but encouragement from the sidelines, I’m sure. People love to pump up 3D printing. Even people who have only ever heard about it on NPR.

These are the rules:

Show us good photos of your part or product. The best way to do this easily is to GO OUTSIDE. No feet.

Help us understand what it does.

It doesn’t have to be paintball but martial aids are not allowed. (Too easy).

No parts/items that are primarily cosmetic in nature will be considered. This includes decorative sculptures, shift knobs with skulls on them, etc. In other words, most stuff people 3D print is out. No vases.

No parts that are scanned from “real” stuff and lightly modified. Copyrights and patents aren’t the line I care about but it has to be original. No Thingaverse crap. No Star Wars. No Storm Trooper helmets. No Iron Man helmets. No Halo helmets. No light sabers. No R2D2s. No Star Wars. You didn’t invent Star Wars. It’s not yours. Make something that is yours. No Deadpool. No Monster Energy. No Dye.

It has to benefit from it being 3D printed. It can’t be a crappy version of something metal or plastic, it has to be a good version of something plastic. If I can make a better one out of mahogany in less time…your thing sucks.

No mega machines. SLS is out. No large format. If you are in manufacturing or industry you are banned from buying a 3D printer just to crush this.

What do you get? Well, if ANYONE can produce a part that actually meets these requirements then I think we all win. In addition, I will only dump on one stupid 3D printed paintball part per year from that point on. Instead of just hating everything I will only hate the absolute dumbest thing of the year. I will also show you the best thing I’VE ever 3D printed.

Well, PLA doesn’t throw itself in the trash so get to work and shut me up.

[pdogg77]

I feel like I'm walking into a buzzsaw here but.. why the **** not?!?!?

For ME the single best use of 3D printing I have is for D&D terrain. I produce what I need, for my game, for pennies. I don't have to buy expensive sets of this stuff with parts I don't need, and if I need one more than I have, I print it and quick paint it.

I also think you're missing the point in saying no "thingaverse crap"... there are other peoples' files in these builds. That's "the point"... People can share physical objects with other people who can make them, improve on them etc. for virtually zero cost. That's like saying all open source software on github is "crap". There's a lot of crap but there's a lot of value to the distribution model. You can get physical things around the world, across borders, to people that want those physical things where they may be unable to obtain them. (further expansion of that concept is left as an exercise to the reader)

Anyway... my nerd D&D models won't sell you but here they are.

[Carp]

[KMDPB]

I do foundry work and 90% of the patterns i make are 3d printed. IMO 3d printing is amazing for making a prototype or pattern that will then be made into another material. Your normal pla prints are pretty crappy... but thats not to say they are useless. I dont understand the hate for 3d printing id rather see people spending their time 3d printing than watching anime and playing video games.3d printing has brought design and engineering to people who would otherwise have no interest or means. Heres a couple examples of castings including a 150lb anvil, i made from 3d prints, randomly pulled from my camera roll. I hope this makes sense, im on vacation and have been hitting the wild turkey..

[RAZRBAKK]

That tele is wild. How does it sound?

[KMDPB]

It sounds METAL

[RAZRBAKK]

Parked in front of the emperor cabs is so sick. I saw the neck you made a while back, but this is on another level.

[Spider!]

No feet !??! Harsh rules!

My angle is that I have a printer on my desk; when I need a widget, I make it. I don't expect any one thing I ever make will justify the expense, but it is useful.

My favorite part is this TPU version of the links on my night guard. The originals are something brittle like polycarbonate; they pinch, break and poke you. TPU is more durable, more comfortable and I adjusted the length between sizes (0.5mm). I have been using these every night for years (with no breaks). You CAN buy replacement PC links in 1mm increments "Includes Connectors $120 value"

One set of connectors has one pair at any particular length (you only use one length). I drew this from a photo canvas of a PC link, is that cheating?



Over a year and a half ago, I made a drive wheel for my daughter's Black and Decker blender out of PETG. IF you could find an original, it would be made out of the same weak plastic and strip out the center hole the same way (material/design flaw). Mine has been making smoothies and margaritas ever since. Drawn from part measurements.




This was a pair of simple prints on a little turning of bocote, but I use it all of the time. There's a second razor in the back. All original. I might like to try casting these some day, except this version is non-corroding and doesn't break when other people mess with it.



Ever since I beefed up this Superbolt cram and jam, it has been doing very well. It's fairly intricate and you will have a hard time finding another for a decent price that is not printed. Sometimes iteration of 3d prints is a "feature". All original.

[Olsson]

This thread isn’t for debate. It’s judgment.

My inner linguist wannabe got a nerdgasm from this on the nose simple, yet brilliant wording. Especially since it lunges straight at you like a huge exclamation mark after somewhat of a rant. Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

[RAZRBAKK]

Knitting is the slowest way to make a sweater you can't wash properly or wear without an undershirt, but amazingly I don't see people complaining about that.

I'm really not sure who you've been talking to, because I've never seen anyone on here argue that their 3D printed parts are better than a proper manufactured component. Most of what gets printed on here are single use-case pieces, often a variant of something that exists on the market, that due to some particular circumstance won't work for their intended use.

I'm a ham-fisted moron. I'm certainly no machinist or carpenter. I don't think anything I've designed would impress someone with a background in CAD or Engineering, but it's been a fun journey figuring out how to create something in software that I can then produce and use.

As far as I can tell, your challenge is based on a strawman argument, and the rules exclude probably the largest group of general 3D print enthusiasts. And then to say people get offended when you insult their "dumb hobbies"? Talk about saying the quiet part out loud. Maybe it's because it's disrespectful and unnecessary to constantly point out flaws in someone's pass-time. There are many ways to communicate constructive criticism, and you don't seem to be capable of any of them.

The most useful part I've ever made?




One take, 0.2g of filament used, hundreds of presses. This piece is so good, someone will pull it off at a pick and pull in 5 years and keep using it.

[russc]

This was about 10 years back when I was in early adopter mode. My gf's old Plymouth had a weird non-standard radio mount, and I was able to fairly easily adapt to a single DIN unit. (edit, my feet made it in)

[Jordan]

K-car?

[russc]

F-body, a little before K-cars

[Spider!]

I think a 3d printed inside door handle on my mother's Granada would have been stronger than the original. Prints would have done a lot for mid+70s cars.

[antifat]

For the most part I agree with you that there is way too much crap that gets printed and is just going to go take up space in a landfill, especially star wars trash. I wouldn't actually want you to stop bashing dumb things that would benefit from being made in a different way, but there are definitely ways to make extremely strong parts with a cheap printer.
This is the second and final version of this marker holder that i made for work on my personal printer, the first version was a little loose because I just guessed at the measurements and that one lasted about 6 months before someone broke it (probably on purpose, some people are just destructive out of spite). So I made this new one so no one would be able to break it, I used a 0.8mm nozzle and the fit was tight enough the bar had to be hammered into the plastic. The structure it's mounted to is completely metal and bolted to the concrete floor but if I try to pull on the plastic piece the whole frame sways. I did however cheat a little by saying a solidifying incantation, "that ain't going nowhere," after getting it mounted. This one has been going strong for well over 2 years.

[Siress]

My issue is only that 3D printing is the slowest most expensive way to make the worst possible part but mostly just makes trash. .

You seem like a smart dude, so I'm sure this is true for your applications. I, however, find it to be invaluable for certain applicaitons. The ability to have a prototype implantable component in under 48 hours made with 0.001" accuracy out of structural plastic makes me feel like I'm living in Star Trek's version of the future. Impact resistant fixtures with complex geometry that you couldn't make on a 5-axis milling machine within a month...48 hours. Rubber representation of patient-modeled organs for highly targeted custom device design... 48 hours. And it's only taking that long because I don't use it enough to justify bringing all of the equipment and maintenance of it in house.

Now, even the top 1% of DIYers are not using the same types of printers as those that create what I typically use. When we start talking about the vast majority, that's where it's more about making stuff that looks cool. It's still great for items that have little performance requirements, though - particularly since the throughput is insanely high compared to having someone craft each item.

Here's an example that someone published. The green part here (3d printed) is implanted in an animal heart to gather measurements. It's providing both structure and engineered compliance to assess the forces exerted by the heart.


You can find more of these by going to Google Scholar et al and searching for "3d printed" or the various materials used for these applications.

[Jordan]

Instead of just hating everything I will only hate the absolute dumbest thing of the year.

Judging by the content of 90% of your posts, I don't see that happening.

[ATBen]

Scenario Slugs... End of story.

[KMDPB]

SignOfZeta whatcha think of all these great things?

[gogi19]

My latest project was to CAD up a reg thread cover w/ dual o-ring storage and a fill nipple cap to save like $10 lol

[DarkApollo]

Definitely the most energy consuming and wasteful way to make trash.
My 144 scale ships used to take months to build, with a lot of wasted plywood stock, having wooden ribs cut on my cnc router, and then stripped with basswood, balsa blocks, and covered in fiberglass. Totally a more energy efficient way to make a large model.
It is definitely less efficient to take 5 spools of plastic and over the course of a weekend, turn them into something I can sell for $250+
6’ long Bismarck


5’ long Graf Spee


5’ long USS Arizona

And I do all of the CAD myself.
6’ long Iowa Class in CAD