Just 3D Printed A Chess Set

[sdifox]

As lxskllr pointed out, if you're doing things like replacement parts or prototyping, you need a pretty good handle on 3d cad. For me, 2d cad is a day at the beach, 3d cad is a confusing morass of commands and concepts. I gave up the entire idea of doing anything productive with it after several frustrating hours of trying to produce a simple cube with a hole in it.

None of this was a surprise to me, that's why I waited until a really good deal came along on a used printer. I had a pretty good idea of the things I wanted to print that had readily available models.

gears are pretty easy no? produce 2D drawing, then specify thickness.

<--- can't draw a straight line with a ruler.

 

[nOOky]

3D printing has many good uses, cheap plastic figurines and chess pieces, not so much. As for the plastics debate, I work in the engineered thermoplastics industry. There are dozens of engineered resins, and hundreds of fillers and additives and reinforcements. It's a horrible, horrible industry for the environment. Most of the waste and products can't be recycled or separated out from each other so it all ends up in landfills eventually. Efforts are made to recycle and incorporate recycled materials back into production, but rarely. People want to go "green" when the economy is good and there is money floating around for the effort, but it always dies out when the money dries up. Personally I'd rather see a trend to go back to making more things out of metal, at least recycling metal is a better shot at reusing it over and over. Some of the fillers in everyday plastic products are things like talc and calcium carbonate and other minerals which are strip mined from the earth, and can never be recovered or replaced.

 

[Greenman]

gears are pretty easy no? produce 2D drawing, then specify thickness.

<--- can't draw a straight line with a ruler.

I had the exact same thought, I was wrong. I was so wrong it hurt. The process is alien to how I think. I spent my entire working life making 2d drawings into 3d objects, but that 3rd dimension was always fixed or calculated from x and y. The direction was always known, and the shapes were all specific modules that I understood and worked with every day.
3d cad ain't like that at all. My guess is it's pretty straight forward for a young agile brain, mine is old and calcified so that shit just doesn't soak in.

 

[nakedfrog]

Continuing to learn new things as you age can help maintain neuroplasticity.

 

[Greenman]

Continuing to learn new things as you age can help maintain neuroplasticity.

I do learn new things, and read a ton, but 3d cad just frustrates the shit out of me.

 

[Kaido]

I wonder about the overall utility of a 3d printer for the average Joe . I've run off a few things for my shop that are handy, but the entire group just barely justifies the cost of the printer, and I picked that up cheap. I have absolutely no interest in toys or figurines, though I would probably print an A10 or SR71 if I came across the right model.

I mostly print goofy stuff with mine. This is a great sub:

https://www.reddit.com/r/functionalprint/

The printable organizational tools are excellent. Gridfinity for horizontal stuff:

Gridfinity Modular Storage System: All You Need to Know

Gridfinity is more than a storage system. It also can help improve your workflow and complete projects. Read on to find out how!

all3dp.com

Multiboard for vertical stuff:

Multiboard

www.multiboard.io

Cable management print files:

3D Print Cable Management: 25 Functional Solutions

No matter where you work from, untangle here. We've got 3D printed cable management ideas that will bring order to your electronics!

all3dp.com

You can get a jumbo 16" 3D printer for $400 these days:

ELEGOO Neptune 4 Max FDM 3D Printer

ELEGOO Neptune 4 Max FDM 3D Printer with Up to 500mm/s Printing Speed, 300℃ High-temp Nozzle, Dual-Gear Direct Extruder, 420x420x480mm³/16.53x16.53x18.89 Inch Printing Size.

us.elegoo.com

 

[nakedfrog]

I mostly print goofy stuff with mine. This is a great sub:

https://www.reddit.com/r/functionalprint/

The printable organizational tools are excellent. Gridfinity for horizontal stuff:

Gridfinity Modular Storage System: All You Need to Know

Gridfinity is more than a storage system. It also can help improve your workflow and complete projects. Read on to find out how!

all3dp.com

View attachment 127555

Multiboard for vertical stuff:

Multiboard

www.multiboard.io

View attachment 127556

Cable management print files:

3D Print Cable Management: 25 Functional Solutions

No matter where you work from, untangle here. We've got 3D printed cable management ideas that will bring order to your electronics!

all3dp.com

View attachment 127553

You can get a jumbo 16" 3D printer for $400 these days:

ELEGOO Neptune 4 Max FDM 3D Printer

ELEGOO Neptune 4 Max FDM 3D Printer with Up to 500mm/s Printing Speed, 300℃ High-temp Nozzle, Dual-Gear Direct Extruder, 420x420x480mm³/16.53x16.53x18.89 Inch Printing Size.

us.elegoo.com

View attachment 127554

My BFF just printed out some badge-holder mounts to hold RSA tokens since they now require 3 of them in order to do their jobs, he printed me out some dice trays for a game I play with friends, so yeah, he does the same kind of thing you're up to, generally. He's working on converting the foot pedals from an old organ into a MIDI controller for me, I suspect he may well find some use for 3D prints in that project too.

 

[Kaido]

My BFF just printed out some badge-holder mounts to hold RSA tokens since they now require 3 of them in order to do their jobs, he printed me out some dice trays for a game I play with friends, so yeah, he does the same kind of thing you're up to, generally. He's working on converting the foot pedals from an old organ into a MIDI controller for me, I suspect he may well find some use for 3D prints in that project too.

I mostly print dumb stuff like this:

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7317664708922723590

 

[Gizmo j]

I just went to a pawn shop with some of my prints and the dude gave me $5 for a phone stand and $2 for a kratos bust!

He said he'd give me another $2 for a batman bust, I gave my last batman bust to my math teacher.

 

[sdifox]

lol your cost was more than 2 dollars

 

[Chaotic42]

lol your cost was more than 2 dollars

Just make it up with volume!

 

[Gizmo j]

The weather was really nice today so I went for a walk and had a bag full of these phone stands, I sold 1 to a guy at a barbershop for $5, every other business turned me down.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I do learn new things, and read a ton, but 3d cad just frustrates the shit out of me.

AutoCAD 2000 is the best program I ever used for 3D CAD and was very intuitive. Everything I tried after that pales in comparison. Also I don't do cloud/subscription based, I refuse to, so most of the mainstream ones I consider dead which leaves me with the Linux CAD programs, and they're pretty much all crap to use. FreeCAD is probably the most feature rich one but it's so unintuitive. Blender can work if you're not trying to do any precision work but it's not meant for CAD really.

STL files themselves are standard though and all text based, so in theory it shouldn't be too hard to make a program that generates those files based on some input. I never really played with that myself though but I could see it being fairly easy if you're building a specific thing and just need to tweak parameters. Like gears for example, specify dimensions and number of teeth and maybe teeth style and then it spits out the STL file. It could do all the calculations like ensure that the circumfrence falls within the right range so that the teeth spacing are right etc.

 

[Greenman]

AutoCAD 2000 is the best program I ever used for 3D CAD and was very intuitive. Everything I tried after that pales in comparison. Also I don't do cloud/subscription based, I refuse to, so most of the mainstream ones I consider dead which leaves me with the Linux CAD programs, and they're pretty much all crap to use. FreeCAD is probably the most feature rich one but it's so unintuitive. Blender can work if you're not trying to do any precision work but it's not meant for CAD really.

STL files themselves are standard though and all text based, so in theory it shouldn't be too hard to make a program that generates those files based on some input. I never really played with that myself though but I could see it being fairly easy if you're building a specific thing and just need to tweak parameters. Like gears for example, specify dimensions and number of teeth and maybe teeth style and then it spits out the STL file. It could do all the calculations like ensure that the circumfrence falls within the right range so that the teeth spacing are right etc.

Sounds like a job for ai.

 

[Gizmo j]

I just went to the DPSS building because there's a bunch of those free phones booths there.

A woman at a booth gave me $6 for 3 of the phone stands (I only had 3 more) and said she'll buy more if I print more and come back to her. 😁

 

[lxskllr]

What does it cost to print a stand?

 

[Gizmo j]

What does it cost to print a stand?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XG3RM58/?coliid=I25CD64FGN3HYP&colid=9KRE6O2JE6FJ&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1

This is the filament I have, I could probably make 20 stands with a single roll of filament.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Consider wear and tear on your equipment too. Lookup how many hours all the parts like stepper motors and belts are good for before they need to be replaced. Also the hydro to run it. Probably not much, but still should be considered. And your gas money to get around selling them.

 

[nakedfrog]

Pretty sure Gizmo takes mass transit.

 

[Chaotic42]

Construction work pays better.

 

[lxskllr]

I would say it's a nice way to recover costs from a hobby, but he isn't really designing anything. Just downloading prints, and running them. After the first time seeing the machine work, that gets boring.

 

[Kaido]

After the first time seeing the machine work, that gets boring.

me zoning out watching my printer every day

 

[WelshBloke]

Print lots of 40k figures and set up a stall outside a Warhammer shop!

 

[sdifox]

Print lots of 40k figures and set up a stall outside a Warhammer shop!

You trying to get him jailed right? Games Workshop enforce their IP rights vigorously.

 

[Kaido]

Print lots of 40k figures and set up a stall outside a Warhammer shop!