Hi, in order to print my own PhonieBox Figurines (and out of the desire to make some experiments) i decided to buy a good and cheap 3D-Printer. After reading an testarticle about 3D Printers on Heise.de I decided to buy the open source 3D Printer Ender 3 from Creality for roughly 140,- EUR from 3DPrima.
This video shows nicely how to assemble it:
Octoprint
So far I am really happy about it. Setting it up was fun and after a while hooked it up to Octoprint. It is an open source software that runs on a raspberry pi allows you to remote control and monitor your printer even if its located remotely e.g. in the basement.
First the printer was standing next to my desk in order to get the sdcard (where you store the gcode files) into my computer and and from there back to the printer. But after a while the noise disturbed me and with Octoprint I can monitor and manage the Printer from my Desk through the Octoprints Webinterface:
I can watch it through the cam and stop scrambled prints immediately. I can upload GCode Files and tweak the print on the fly. Octoprint has a large community and a ton of addons available.
GCode-Files and Slicing Software
To create printable Gcode-Files you need to download or create an STL-File and “slice” it to your printers requirements with a slicing software. The Ender3 comes with some Gcode files on the sdcard to print right away (a cat, a pig and a dog) and also with a slicing software for windows 🙁 (a derivate of Ultimaker Cura). But you can also download and run Cura on Linux as an appimage.
If you do so make sure you set the Setting for “Build Plate Adhesion” to “Raft” and also Print Support Material. Otherwise your print might doesnt stick to the bed and the print gets scrambled.
Thingiverse
If you are a newby to 3D Printing you are probably not able to create your own 3D Models right away. Thats where Thingiverse.com comes in handy.
This plattform allowes you to download STL-Files for any thinkable purpose. Its wonderful ! And if you download and like the make please leave the designer a tip.
