How I Learned To 3D Print Parts

I just recently fell in love with 3D printing. I had always loved modeling designs in Solidworks but I never really had too many opportunities to 3D print things on my own. I had assisted in designs for school projects but that was about it. I had always wanted a 3D printer of my own but I never knew what to get and I didn't want to pay a lot for a super nice one. During this past year, I had the opportunity to work on a lot of 3D printed parts thanks to my master's thesis. However, it was quite the learning process on how to print a quality part.

For my thesis, I worked on a research project that was entered into the Air Force Research Laboratory’s 2020 University Design Challenge. The goal of the challenge was to create a water rescue device to assist in locating downed personnel in open waters. I researched, designed, and developed 3D printed suction stabilized floats equipped with ultra-wideband locators to establish localized search grids.

The first part of this project was based on a ton of research on trying to understand the mathematical principles behind the concept of suction stabilized floats and their stability. This took several months but after I had a firm grasp of the materials, I began my design of the float. I had to use an Excel model to make sure that my calculations for dimensions would ensure the float could maintain a suction stabilized effect. Soon I had my first design. It was a small float with a height of approximately 3.5" and it was 6" square. It had two pieces and it seemed relatively easy to print.

The next step was finding a 3D printer. I came across a Tronxy X3 3D printer for $100 on Ebay. It arrived in a big box with a gazillion pieces to put together. There were so many extra screws, nuts and other pieces when I finished that I just hoped I had put it together right. The instructions came on a flash drive and well, they were worse than Ikea quality assembly instructions. Not to mention, they didn't include much when it came to the operating instructions. It was basically designed where you just have to figure it out on your own and hope for the best. Overall, the printer took about 14 hours to put together and that included several disassembles because they didn't specify certain steps where they should have been specified and I put them in the wrong place. It was a annoying yet somewhat fun experience.

At first glance, the printer seems to be of somewhat good quality and it has a very spacious print area of 8.7″ x 8.7″ x 11.8″. This area is actually pretty impressive because most of the printers for this price are much smaller. However, there is one major problem with the printer's design. The print bed wobbles all over the place. The bed mount is supported on a single bar by 4 wheels that don't really fit into the t-slot bar tracks. To help with this, I weighted down one side of the bed mount and leveled the bed off of that to ensure the print would not wobble itself to destruction. I still have to adjust it every once in a while because it sags a bit but it still works and does what it is supposed to do.

After I finished the assembly of the printer, I printed my first prototype and it went horribly wrong. Like worst case scenario wrong. I was struggling with the printer settings because I basically had nothing to go on and well my design wasn't that great to begin with. There were gaps all over the place and it leaked EVERYWHERE. This thing was supposed to be waterproof and it was acting more like a strainer. I tried coating it with waterproof products but I had messed up so bad that those didn't even work on it. While most of this error was probably just on me while I tried to figure out how to make a printer with very few instructions work, I decided to do a redesign of my float.

I created a new float that would be made of four different parts. The size ended up being about 6" square and 5" tall. This float design actually ended up being way better because it was easier to maintain the suction stabilized effect. I used the top piece of this float to understand how to print better quality parts. After I got the hang of that I printed the rest of the pieces to make a complete prototype. One of the down sides was just how long a piece would take to make. Since this printer is wobbly and doesn't have the best quality of parts, I have to print things at a really slow speed. So it would take approximately 3-4 days to print one entire float.

The four pieces upon completion would be glued together using a waterproof glue and then high risk components were coated with a waterproof silicone to ensure that it would not sink. After the float was fully assembled, the prototype was tested and four more were made for the project to create the basic float system needed for my location network. I finally had success with this and it was one of the best feelings in the world.

Ever since getting this printer, I have had a love/hate relationship with it but I have learned so much. I don't think it would have been as effective for me to learn any other way. This printer definitely has its quirks but I now know how to design parts specifically for my printer. One of the main problems it has is that it can't do circles unless the speed is around 20mm/s so I try to design part as polygons so I don't have to slow down the pace as much.

While I am often frustrated with the design of the printer because it is so bad, I am also very thankful for it. It helped get me through my master's thesis and I can still make so many cool things with it. I am also glad I was able to get this printer because of the pandemic. If I didn't have one, I would have had to figure out how to access the labs at ASU to get them printed and that would have been stressful to figure out. One day I hope to get a better quality printer like a Prusa printer but that will have to wait. They cost way too much and well, I have one that will get the job done.

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Side note: If you would like more information regarding my thesis, you can contact me on the about page of this website. If you are interested, here is a video I created showing how the suction stabilized floats work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5OEyvBd93s