Thursday, November 29, 2018
7 Must-Have Mods For 3D Printing, CNC Routing, and Lasering
makezine.com: While we all know our printers, routers, and lasers will work well out of the box and wouldn’t want to get in the way of their superior craftsmanship, some of the more wild and crazy of our brood will dive in to modifying them. These mods can improve not only the quality of the finished product, but in some cases improve the experience of using the tool in the first place. With the often open source nature of these modifications, the entire community benefits from these improvements.
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I am going to be predictable on this one and comment on CNC technology and how simple design integration can make the process significantly better. One thing this article discusses is a touch probe for a CNC router. It is a straightforward concept where you have a piece conductive metal that is a known measurement and a second conductive clip that fixes onto the tooling bit. When the two touch it creates a short circuit that resets the zero point of the bit. Something that seems rather trivial can make or break your project and experience. The only piece of advice is not to leave the clip on the bit when you power up the machine. The second and final pro tip in this article is a good dust collection system for your machine. This is especially important when using MDF like material that can particulate into the air and cause severe health problems in the long run. The greatest thing I did over the summer was creating a dust boot that prevented the material from getting kicked up into the air.
I found this article super interesting as so many of these upgrades for 3D printers and CNC Routers are very inexpensive yet add a lot to these devices. The tip that rang most true to me was the tips for dust collection. Dust collection is something that I have struggled with in my own shop at home for a long time. The hardest part is keeping the filter of your shop vac unclogged. The best thing to do in this case is built a separator just as the article talked about. This keeps most of the sawdust out of the vacuum itself, keeping the filter unclogged. This is exactly I did at home, and it worked great. Another small but great thing in this article is the Ikea 3D printer stand. While cheap and not a huge item, it adds a lot to space your 3D printer is in. When I buy one, I will probably be building a similar stand for it.
I am taking a Maker Course next semester that I’m very excited about, we will be learning about 3D printing and laser cutting which I don’t have much experience with, but that’s kind of why this article appealed to me. It introduced a lot of common problems in the processes and some potential solutions, which I think are important things to be aware of when you’re learning something new and need a jumping off point for trouble shooting.
Something that stood out however, because it felt like simple common sense to me, was the dust collection system. Not only because it keeps your area cleaner but because there are harmful chemicals in certain materials should not be inhaled. There are dust collection bags / attachments on more rudimentary tools that I’ve worked with, so it only makes sense to include some sort of dust collection system in this case as well.
So it is really cool for me to look at mods for 3D printers, laser cutters, and CNC routers because while it’s unlikely that I would actually use any of the specific mod designs on any of the equipment at Carnegie Scenic it is exciting to see other making mods. The reason why this makes me happy is due to the fact that if we are making mods as a consumer based that means that we truly are able to understand exactly how this devices work and what might help improve them. The one mod that really makes me interested to try out is the one of use a CNC to shape of ply wood to fit over a trash can while also connecting to a shop vac. Basically making yourself a larger shop vac for you personal home use cause I could only see it being used well in anything but a small personal shop.
This is really what I love about the maker community and the maker cutlure at large. While there is the possibility to buy on-the-shelf products that accomplish laser cutting and cnc fabrication and 3d printing there is always the option buying the servo-motors and belts all yourself and building the whole thing on your own. It is true, however, that when actually producing parts for business, it is advisabel to buy machines that have been specially designed, engineered, and built for precision to the tenths of thousandths of inches. But for the maker at home, there is no reason not to embark on the adventure of CNC machining on your own. This article specifically talks about modding off-the-shelf 3d printers, laser cutters, and CNC routers, which is great in its own way. The possibilities are endless.
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