3D printing at Davidson is a multistep process, with several decision points along the way. This article aims to provide an overview of the process, as well as information about the available options. Let's get started.

What We Provide

Any 3D printing project involves three basics: software, hardware, and materials. We provide all three.

• Software: The makerspace offers access to and assistance with Tinkercad, a freely available basic 3D design tool. We can also help you use the appropriate software tool for the printer you use, either Ultimaker Cura or Dremel DigiLab (both of which are, like Tinkercad, freely available for you to use on your own).
• Hardware: The makerspace offers three 3D printers: an Ultimaker 3, an Ultimaker 3 Extended, and a Dremel 3D40-Flex.
• Materials: The makerspace makes PLA (polylactic acid) plastic filament — one of the most common 3D printing materials — freely available to students, faculty, and staff for their projects. For models where complex, dissolvable supports are needed, we also offer PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) filament. Other materials may be available — just ask (if you're interested, here's a primer on common filaments).

What You Provide

What you bring to the table is a bit more ephemeral, but even more important, than printers and plastic.

• Creativity: It’s up to you to see a need, and design a 3D-printed solution for it (or to reuse/modify a model someone else designed).
• A Model to Print: Whether you design your own, or reuse someone else’s (thousands of models are available free-to-use online), you’ll need to provide the model of the object to be created.
• Time: We aren't just here to print objects for you, we're here to teach you how to print — from slicing your model to pressing the print button to post-processing. Come prepared to invest a little time in learning the process.

Your 3D Model

The first thing you need for any 3D printing project is a model — an electronic representation of the object you want to print. You can either create your own model using 3D design software or acquire a model created by someone else.

If you prefer to create your own, a variety of software is available ranging from the free to the very expensive. Some commonly-used options include:

•  Tinkercad: A popular and flexible tool for basic 3D design. Runs entirely in your web browser, and is completely free to use (account registration required). Tinkercad is an excellent option for learning the basics of three-dimensional design.
• SketchUp Free: Another popular browser-based option, the no-cost version of SketchUp is a good tool for beginner to intermediate modelers, and is commonly used on college campuses.
• Fusion 360: The personal-use version of Fusion is a powerful, full-featured CAD + CAM (computer-aided design + computer-aided manufacturing) tool with a steep learning curve. It takes time to pick up, but rewards the dedicated student with an ability to create models that simply aren’t possible in Tinkercad or SketchUp.

These are just a few of the available tools. Other options include Blender, AutoCAD, Maya, Rhino 3D, and Onshape.

If you prefer to use an object created by someone else, a variety of free model repositories provide no-cost options, while other sites enable object creators to sell their models.

• Thingiverse: Operated by 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot, this is one of the largest and most popular resources for printable models. The quality of models is variable, depending on the skill of the creator, and not all of the listings on the site are intended for 3D printing, but the sheer quantity and variety of models make it a good starting point.
• YouMagine: Started by 3D printer manufacturer Ultimaker, it’s substantially similar to Thingiverse, though the model selection tends to be smaller.
• pinshape: Run by 3D printer manufacturer Formlabs, pinshape offers models for both SLA and FFF/FDM printing. The makerspace offers only FFF/FDM printing, so check the tags on each model carefully.
• MyMiniFactory: This repository is unique among these four in that it’s curated, so while the selection of models is far smaller than Thingiverse or YouMagine, the models tend to be of very high quality. It’s also the only one of the four that allows creators to charge for models, so not everything is free.

Preparing To Print

Once you have your model, the next step is to prepare it for printing using a piece of software called a slicer. To understand how slicing works, and the effect of the various settings you can manipulate, it helps to know a little about how 3D printing works.

Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF)

All 3D printers in the makerspace rely on the same technology, a process called fused filament fabrication, FFF for short. What this means in English is that, using a tool called an extruder (think “very sophisticated hot glue gun”), the printer lays down many very thin layers of melted plastic, which fuse together to form a finished object. The process of figuring out what those layers look like, and creating the instructions that allow the printer to draw them, is called slicing.

FFF printing is all about balancing a set of trade-offs in the slicing process. For instance, slicing your object into very thick layers of plastic will allow your object to print more quickly, but will render less detail. Printing with very fine layers of plastic will render greater detail, but take longer to do so.

Another trade-off involves the object’s infill — the material that fills the interior spaces of the object (for instance, the interior of a sphere or cube). It’s possible to print an object with 100% infill, making it completely solid. But it’s not desirable to do so, partly because it’s very wasteful of material (particularly with larger objects), partly because it takes an extraordinarily long time, but mostly because it simply isn’t necessary. Most 3D printed objects are sufficiently strong with 15% - 20% infill, leaving the remaining 80% - 85% of the interior space open.

DIY Or No?

These are just a few of the settings that can affect the speed, quality, and final appearance of your print. If you’re new to 3D printing, don’t worry about them — just put your model on a flash drive and bring it to the makerspace. We’ll ask you a few questions, and help you through the process of setting up the print, and you’ll be ready to go in short order.

But what if you're experienced with 3D printing, and understand the settings? In that case, it’s possible for you to run your model through the slicer on your own, and bring us a prepared GCODE file to print (and if you don't know what that means, don't do your own slicing). Here are the basic settings you’ll need to decide on, and how you may configure each:

A Few Final Notes

• If you’re designing your own model using software with the ability to check for 3D printing errors (like a non-watertight surface, odd voids, or disconnected components), take advantage of it.
• Regardless of where it comes from, your model should generally have at least one flat face that can rest on the build plate, even if this means printing it upside down or at an odd angle (objects that require support from the plate up tend to turn out poorly).
• Unless there’s a good reason to change them, we recommend using Cura/DigiLab’s default settings.
• If you need to print multiple copies of any object, consider printing them as a group (copy/paste additional copies of the model on the build plate) rather than running the same object multiple times.