Fun With A 3D Printer

For my birthday I received a "Creality Ender 3 Pro" 3D printer, which I've mostly been using to make D&D paraphernalia.  It's got a sharp learning curve, and I'm not very good with it yet, but I've managed to make a few useful items.

First thoughts:  I can't wait until 3D printers are so commonplace that they just work out of the box, like an ink printer.  I had to build this thing from the ground up, and the included instructions are no help.  You pretty much have to watch a YouTube video to get it put together.  It took me about an hour to assemble it.

Keeping it working is also a bit difficult, as you're constantly having to relevel the bed and other minor maintenance.  It's kind of a good thing that you have to assemble it yourself, because it gives you insight on to how it all works, which may help you fix it in the future.

D&D miniatures are particularly hard to print.  This type of printer simply isn't designed for such tiny details on one-inch-tall miniatures.  My luck has been mixed, but I've made a few decent minis.  The hardest part is placing supports.  

Mini with Supports

Unless a mini's hands are on its hips, then chances are it will need supports to print correctly.  Otherwise, when the printer gets to the layer where the hands start, the hands would be floating in mid-air and won't print properly.  Supports are basically scaffolding that lead up to suspended areas, which you cut off of the mini when it's done printing.  The slicer software you use to prepare the 3D model can add supports automatically, but it sucks at it.  It's better to add them manually, which takes some practice to get just right.

And then if your settings aren't right, or the filament is too old, or the stars are aligned improperly, your print will fail.  If you're lucky it will fail early, because the nozzle was clogged or bed wasn't leveled.  But you could also be 20 hours into a 22 hour print when it suddenly conks out.

Printer Fail, or Time Warp?

And that's another thing - 3D printers are sloooooow.  Most of my miniatures have taken about an hour to print.  My condition rings take about twenty minutes.  But anything of substance takes hours.  The biggest print I've done so far took seventeen hours, for a dice tray that was only 6.5" x 7" x 1.5".

The pics below show some of the better results.  I still have work to do on most of these prints.  I still need to shave off some of the excess filament and paint them.

Condition Rings for D&D Battles

Lots of Condition Rings

Dice Tower, Overhead View

Dice Tower

My 17-Hour Dice Tray

Xenomorph Miniature

Partially Painted Sleeping Bags and Campfires

Many Minis Preparing for Painting

A Somewhat Stringy Samus

Green Knight in Search of Sir Gawain

Gandalf the Green

Partially Painted Pussycat

If the Joker Used a Hit Point Tracker

Sorcerer Spell Tracker

Bard Spell Tracker

Hogwarts

Hogwarts

Hogwarts

Hogwarts

Dice tower in action:

Anyway, so far I suck but I'm having a lot of fun.  It's a very time-consuming toy, and with all my various interests, it's going to be along time before I'm an expert at it.  But that's fine with me.