Hi.
Welcome to another episode of ShroukieTronix!
I am here with 3D printing expert Allie
they have a channel called Geeky Faye Art. (Now called Katz Creates)
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If you aren't already, why aren't you doing it now?
Whatchya doin!
I'm special guest star cameo in ShroukieTronix! Today.
So today we are going to set up my 3D printer.
And I've never touched a 3D printer before.
A little secret.
We're going to have to run through some of the 3D printing basics today.
So if somebody has never worked with a 3D printer before, what's some basics
that they need to know about? A 3D printer,
it's additive manufacturing.
So you were taking something and you're
adding material to it. As opposed to subtractive, taking something away,
like a CNC machine that's going to take material away.
This is additive, so we're adding material
in and in this case, we're going to be adding effectively plastic.
Different types of plastic, because you've got an FDM.
FDM? What does that mean?
Fused deposition material,
which means that it's going to take spools of filaments and it's going to feed them
through some gears into a hot end where it's going to melt the plastic and it's
going to extrude little tiny lines of plastic,
build them up in layers until you have a three dimensional object.
I can’t beleive I'm going to have a 3D prijter in my bedroom.
It’s basically. Magic.
It is scifi for real.
We're not quite Star Trek levels
of Replicator just yet because it's not instant.
That would be the coolest.
3D Printing is magic.
It really is.
One thing that got me confused is I have
so many filaments and like, some of them say different things on them.
How do you choose the right filament?
There is different kinds of filaments
and they're going to have different materials.
So common ones that you'll find for 3D
printing are going to be PLA, which stands for polylactic acid.
And PLA is a good all around 3D printing
material because it prints at a relatively low temperature.
It's strong, it's easy to print with and it comes in like a million colours.
So you can do a lot with PLA.
PLA is fantastic for lots of everyday uses.
You may also have PETG.
PETG is a little bit trickier to print with.
It requires a slightly hotter temperature.
However, it's stronger, it's a little bit more flexible.
PLA can be a little brittle, but there's all sorts of different
materials that you can find for 3D printing.
Polypropylene will absolutely show up.
That's actually what surgical masks are made out of.
Oh, wow. This is just in a different form.
Wow. That's amazing.
You can also print in carbon fibre, you can print in nylon, you can
print in nylon? You can print in carbon fibre?
Absolutely. You can.
Do you need special 3D printers for that sort of thing?
You basically just need a 3D printer that can get hot enough.
Okay. Wow.
So a lot of them actually.
Can can we do that in the future, please?
I mean, we are in the future.
We're basically living in the future right now.
It's amazing.
And there are even crazier materials
there are wood infused filaments, there's metal infused filaments.
The technology has just blossomed in such an amazing way.
I don't want to see there's no limits,
there's limits, there's limits, there's limits, but it's really broad
and there's really a lot that you can do with it.
Do you think it's important for electronic
engineers to have access to a 3D printer?
It's not necessarily essential, but I think that it's a massive bonus,
like being able to custom design and effectively manufacture yourself your
own custom cases for electronics and stuff like that.
Just think about all the time that you
would save, but also all the doors that opens up.
Yeah, you become your own mini manufacturing plant.
I'm going to be a mini manufacturing ShroukieTronix!
I'm so excited to set this up
Thank you so much. Let's do it.
You can find links to all of my equipment,
everything I talked about today and even some alternatives on DesignSpark.