What is a 3D Printer Good For?
When people find out I have a couple of 3d printers and love having them, they invariably ask something to the effect of "yeah but what would I use it for?" and granted, I understand the question, it's hard to imagine the need for something you've never really experienced.
For me the main reason I got into 3d printing is I love to tinker with technology and electronics and making stuff (I'm what we now call a a "Maker"). And even though I didn't have a specific need in mind I knew it was something I had to play with one. To get started, I joined The MakerStationĀ makerspace and learned to use the 3d printer there, and within a couple of days I starting getting ideas for things to make, my first thing was a slip on scale for one of my old cameras to show distance inĀ feet rather than meters.
It was pretty simple design done in TinkerCAD. Which is a great beginner tool for creating 3d objects you can print. While I love having access to a 3d printer at the Makerstation it just wasn't enough for me. I starting having ideas for a ton of things and bought one of my own. This post is about a couple of recent quick fixes I was able to do because I had a 3d printer.
We have some outside DC lights along the driveway, My wife pointed out that one of them was falling over and that the base where it was screwed into the wood was broken.
She suggested I make something to fix it. In about ten minutes, with a program called DesignScape Mechanical, I designed and then printed it out a ring that slipped on the light, and BAM! light fixed. Total time about an hour.
For Christmas I got a really great Induction charger for my phone. I hate plugging the phone in at night and love the idea of wireless charging, Well first time I used it I found the blue pulsing light to be way too bright for me and made it hard to sleep and so I didn't use it.
Ā It then occurred to me that I could probably make a "collar" for it to block most of the light. Again, I went to DesignScape Mechanical and created a cover, and now it works great! I can see the light if I look directly at it, but it's not spilling into the room at night.
All of this definitely has a learning curve, but if you enjoy making stuff, once you have access to a printer and start playing around with it and even just downloading stuff from thingiverse.com or other sites to print, it won't take long before you starting thinking like a "Maker" and come up with ideas of things to make on your own.
Come by and try out our Lulzbot 3d printer we have at the MakerStation and see what I mean.
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