3D Printing

End Devices (Nodes) Hardware
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I’m opening this thread where we can post 3d printing related stuff:

  • Models related to TTN
  • Printer types
  • Tips and tricks
    …
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first question … I am a 3D printing NOOB
buying or building a printer?

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Some thingiverse links:

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You beat me too it per @BoRRoZ suggestion…I stopped to open a few favourites relevant to TTN so I could paste some starting links :wink:

Two 3d printed GW holders:-

And one laser cut/wood version (ok not 3d printed in plastic but better for the environment?! :-):sunglasses:

Cheers, more later/tomorrow :wink:

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And for the Arduino or Rpi hacker in your life how about:-

:slight_smile:

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Just a simple 3D print,

Circle shape in tinkercad with the SVG import function.

Single colour STL as I only have a single extruder, pause at Z plugin in cura.

Simple TTN Community Badge printed :slight_smile:

IMG_20180224_174043045%20(2)

Planning on 3D printing a case for my new Gateway board soon too.

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Didn’t want to invest too much so I’ve started a year ago with Prusa Clone… Geeetech I3 B Pro DYI (150 EUR) but is not for noobs :D. Needs a lot of tuning until you get it running. But once it is running it is a decent printer for the money.

If you can find one second-hand, already assembled, that works I would recommend.

It is important to have an acryl frame.

Recently I purchased a Geeetech E180 (wanted a desk printer). Great design, good hardware, small, for noobs, but the FW isn’t finished/buggy. Since is relatively new, I would wait few months until the fw works and the production issues are solved.

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This is my very lightly modified case for my gateway:

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What printer did you used?

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I have a chinese Prusa Clone (ANET A10 I think) However it’s had lots of modifications primarily being it uses an genuine E3D Hotend & Titan Extruder combo.

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I use a Wanhao i3. Fantastic tinkerer’s machine for the price. Rock solid chassis and loads of upgrade you can print/buy for it. You can get some really good quality from it if you invest the time to get it lined up properly.

I’ve had it about 8 months now and am waiting to receive my new Genuine Prusa Mk3 any day.

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I’m not making any promises but if you guys have any ideas for useful print designs that can’t be found on Thingiverse and are related with TTN/LoRa, I can give it a try when I get some free time :slight_smile:

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Regarding building a printer… It is a great experience, if you have some time of course.

I recommend DIY kits from China e.g. Geeetech/ANET/ since the parts are dirt cheap and you can experiment a lot.

Expect a lot of issues but for everything is a fix and the satisfaction that you got it done is priceless :smiley:

Regarding modeling software: Personally I use Sketchup, but FreeCAD, Thinkercad might fit better for beginners respectively engineers :smiley:

As slicer I use Cura a lot. The plugin version is limited (but for beginners is more than ok, use then Repetier Host), so better go for the standalone version, slice it there and use Repetier Server or Octoprint for sending GCodes to the Printer.

Repetier Server and Octoprint runs pretty well into a Raspberry PI so you can print over WiFi from the browser.

Conclusion:

  • Design the object in Sketchup, Tinkercad or FreeCAD
  • Slice them in Cura
  • Print them with Repetier Server or Octoprint on WiFi connected RaspberyPi (that you can even attach it to the printer)
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Another Gateway housing, haven’t built this one (yet !)

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…and a Din Rail mountable RPi case for more industrial hackers…

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…and of course TTN Uno casing


:sunglasses:

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I can also recommend the DIY kits. I took the approach of upgrading parts as I built mine (Nylon Bearings, Induction levelling and E3D Hotend along with Marlin Firmware and the quality has been better than most pre-built printers on the market.

Repetier Server and Octoprint are ideal for Pi. Astro print also works great and has some pre-done slicing profiles which most of the time are good enough to just upload the STL to their cloud system and then click print. It’ll then slice and download to the RPi. However I used cura for the badge due to needing the Z height pause.

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Re @BoRRoZ “buying or building” question :

That, as usual in engineering, is a tradeoff.
Building will cost you time, but save some of your money and help you understand some of the fine details about how your 3d printer works.

Mostly I would say that it depends on your budgets (time and money) and your goal in acquiring a 3d printer.
If you only want a “click and print” machine and have the wallet stocked, there is no point in building it.
If you enjoy tinkering and learning about the machine you use, building it might be well worth the time.

For reference I’ve been in the 3d printer “community” for around 8 years now. It all started with the “RepRap” movement for me, and this community still have a lots of useful information and people who enjoys helping their fellow builders. You should consider taking some time exploring it : http://www.reprap.org

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That’s mine – thanks for sharing!

I also have something for my ‘trakker node’:

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100% about time/money tradeoff.

One thing I think is important to make to people considering buying a printer tho: even a brand new, factory assembled and aligned machine is still a long way from plug and play.

These devices run to very tight tolerances, run hot, and squeeze melted plastic out of a tube. We’re not quite at HP LaserJet levels of reliability and maintenance :slight_smile: