My First NFT Collection for 3D Printing

Welcome to my first post about NFT’s and 3D Printing!

If you’re new to NFTs like me, I hope you find this interesting with a few little tips and tricks along the way. If I can say one thing about NFTs (aka. Non-Fungible Tokens), it’s that they’re difficult to wrap your head around. Even just a few months ago, I was telling people I didn’t have any interest in making them or buying them. But here I am, dipping my toes in the water, and enjoying the learning process. For me, I found that just jumping in, committing some time and money, and making some NFTs was the best way to figure it all out. You may also need to jump into cryptocurrencies as well, but let’s not fall down this rabbit hole now!

As for explaining the whole concept of NFTs, I’ll leave that to The Verge or Investopedia to describe much better than I can. What’s important to know is that it is essentially a way to buy and sell digital information, which might be an artwork or animation, or even a 3D model. It’s also a way to verify who actually owns the information, even if other people are using it.

This obviously presents some opportunities for 3D printing files. If you wander around my blog, you’ll find dozens of free files that I’ve shared on websites like Thingiverse and Printables (formerly PrusaPrinters). These are normally shared with a Creative Commons license like CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, allowing anyone to download, 3D print, remix, copy and share the design, as long as they don’t try and sell it. I’ve even sold some files under different license terms. However, what can be much harder to document is who actually owns the design if thousands of people have downloaded it. For example, the designs I share online all link back to my profile, and it’s relatively clear who created the original. As long as someone doesn’t re-upload the file under their own profile, which is unfortunately a common problem! But what if you really love a particular design, and don’t just want to download a copy of it like everyone else but own the rights to it? Typically this would require some contracts between the designer (e.g. me) and the buyer to formalise, including payment and royalty conditions. This is where the NFT system can work nicely, as it is set up to be a digital contract that documents this, and supports the transfer of payments and royalties.

This is what I wanted to learn more about. So, I’ve created my first NFT collection for 3D printing, which is called BITSnATOMS – 3D Typeset for 3D Printing. As the name suggests, it’s a collection of 44 numbers, letters and symbols that people can collect to represent their name, initials, brand, etc. Through 3D printing, they can exist in the digital and physical worlds at the same time, which is a bit beyond what most NFTs offer. The GIFs below give you an idea of the voronoi geometry used for the typeface, but if you check out the link to the collection you’ll be able to actually interact with the 3D models.

The design itself combines several of the things I’ve shown in tutorials on this blog before, for example my video showing how to lightweight a bike brake lever. I might write another article later about how I actually created these, but the short version goes something like:

• A basic 3D model was created in Solidworks and exported as a STL file.
• This mesh was then rebuilt in Rhinoceros to have a more random and controlled collection of faces.
• Next, it was imported into Meshmixer to create the voronoi lattice structure you see.
• Lastly, and this part is important for NFTs on OpenSea, I used Microsoft Paint 3D to convert the STL file into a GLB file.

A GLB file is used for virtual reality, and OpenSea can directly embed this within its listing of your NFT, making it interactive so people can properly view your design. At the time of writing, there was no support for other 3D file formats that might be used for 3D printing, and there was also no GLB export method in any of my CAD packages. The good news is that GLB files open in Cura, making them directly 3D printable, or they can be opened up again in Paint 3D and converted back to STL files. There are also plenty of free online converters.

The actual process of listing NFTs gets a bit more complex (at least for a newbie). Thankfully OpenSea provides really great tutorials on getting set up with an account, as well as creating and listing your first NFT. I followed these to the letter, and had no issues, opting for a MetaMask wallet to hold my cryptocurrencies. Again, I could write a whole article about this part of the process, and may do so in future.

The rest of the NFT process is much like listing any item for sale online: Uploading the actual NFT (or information about how it can be accessed after purchase), a description, price, listing duration and you’re done. Multiple items can form what’s called a “collection,” although I found that the process of uploading each item individually was a bit painful, there is currently no batch upload process. Most of the things you hear about NFTs are actually collections, sometimes many thousands of items, rather than one-off items, and some of the items in these collections are worth hundreds-of-thousands of dollars each! For example, the Bored Ape Yacht Club is probably the most famous collection, with 10,000 artworks. The cheapest of these is currently selling for 111 ETH (which is worth $395,000 USD, or $527,000 AUD)! So multiply this by 10,000 and there is some serious money involved in this collection.

But this would be the exception, rather than the rule, for NFT success.

The challenge now seems to be all about marketing – there are so many millions of NFTs available that it’s extremely difficult to stand out, especially as a newbie who has neither bought nor sold an NFT before. So stay tuned as I figure out this part! For now, if you check out my collection and could share it on your social media, that would be a fantastic start.

I hope this was a useful intro to NFTs for 3D printing, please comment with any questions or ideas, or let me know what you’d like me to cover in the next blog article.

– Posted by James Novak

Meshmixer Tutorial: Brake Lever Lattice

Recently I was asked to put together a Meshmixer tutorial for students studying additive manufacturing at Deakin University. The result: a 20min demo project to show you how to turn a pretty standard brake lever into something really cool for 3D printing. If you scroll through the tutorial section of this blog you will find many other demos of how to use Meshmixer, it really is one of my regular go-to tools.

Even if you’re not interested in the brake lever, through the tutorial you will learn to divide a single part into multiple segments, modify mesh quality, convert a part into a lattice structure, and join multiple parts together into a single part ready for 3D printing. You can apply any of these tools to your own project.

Enjoy.

– Posted by James Novak

3D Printed Sea Urchin Light

This project has been a little while in the making and it’s exciting to finally be writing about it. About a year ago I posted about 3D scanning some shells, and as part of the scanning I captured a sea urchin shell. At the time I didn’t know what I’d do with it, but fast forward a year and I’ve found a perfect application; turning the sea urchin shell into ceiling light covers in my house.

In this post I’ll go over the main processes and experiments I went through to get the finished product, but in case you’re just here for the big finale, here’s the link so you can download the final Sea Urchin Light exclusively from my Pinshape account and 3D print as many as you like!

3D Scanning

As explained in further detail in my previous post, I used an EinScan Pro 2X Plus 3D scanner, which included a turntable to automatically capture all angles of the sea urchin shell. This resulted in a full-colour, highly detailed model of the shell, as shown to the right. However, as anyone familiar with 3D scanning will know, this model is just a skin with no thickness or solid geometry, and was just the starting point for the design process.

Design

If you don’t have access to expensive CAD programs, good news; this project was completely designed in free software! I’ve used Autodesk Meshmixer for many of my tutorials and posts, it’s a surprisingly powerful tool and a must for anyone involved in 3D printing. Additionally, it’s quite useful when you are working with 3D scan files, which are typically a mesh like a STL or OBJ. The process took a little time, but has been outlined in 6 basic steps below:

1. Fill any holes and errors in the 3D scanned sea urchin shell. In Meshmixer, this simply involves using the “Inspector” tool under the “Analysis” menu.
2. Scale up the shell to the appropriate size, then use the “Extrusion” tool to thicken the skin into a solid shell. So that the shell would allow a lot of light through, I used a 0.7mm thickness for the overall design.
3. I wanted to create an interesting pattern when the light was turned on, so separated several areas of a copy of the original mesh to be used to create thicker sections. This was a slow process of using the brush selection tool to remove areas, before repeating step 2 with slightly thicker geometry. For this design I ended up with 3 different thicknesses around the shell.
4. To allow the light fitting within the shell, a larger opening was needed at the top. A cylinder was added from the “Meshmix” menu and placed in the centre.
5. By selecting both the shell and the cylinder together, the “Boolean Difference” command became available, subtracting the cylinder section from the shell.
6. Lastly, a neck section measured off the original light fitting was added. I cheated slightly and modelled this in Autodesk Fusion 360 (also free if you’re a student), but you could use Meshmixer – it would just take a bit longer to get accurate measurements. Then the separate parts are joined together using Boolean Union, and the design is finished.

3D Printing

As well as the new design needing to fit the geometry of the existing light fixture, it also needed to fit the build volume of the 3D printer – in this case a Prusa i3 MK3S. As you can see below, the shell is only slightly smaller in the X and Y dimensions than the build plate.

In terms of print settings, I stuck with some pretty typical settings for PLA, including a 0.2mm layer height. Support material is necessary with the light printed with the neck down – this is the best orientation in terms of ensuring the surfaces visible when standing below the light (remember, it is ceiling mounted) are the best. Where support material is removed is always going to be messy, and you wouldn’t want to have these surfaces being the most visible. Overall, this meant that each light took ~32 hours to print.

Material & Finishing

One of the steps that took a bit of experimentation was choosing the right material in order to look good when the light was both on and off. Each of these lights are the main, or only, sources of light in the spaces they are installed, so they need to provide a good amount of light.

As shown above, 3 different materials/finishes were trialled. Initially I began with a Natural PLA from eSUN, which is a bit like frosted glass when printed. While this allowed all the light to escape and illuminate the room, most of the detail was difficult to see in both the on and off settings. It was just like a random glowing blob. I then tried pure white PLA, hoping that the print would be thin enough to allow a reasonable amount of light out. Unfortunately very little light escaped, however, the shadows from the different thicknesses looked excellent, and when the lights was off, it was very clear this was a sea urchin shell. Perhaps this would be a good option for a decorative lamp, but not so good for lighting a whole room.

So the “Goldilocks” solution ended up being in the middle – I 3D printed the shells in the translucent Natural PLA, and then very lightly spray painted the exterior with a matt white paint. Just enough to clearly see that it is a sea urchin shell when the light is off, and translucent enough to allow a lot of light out. Perhaps there is a material/colour of filament that would achieve this with needing to paint, but I didn’t want to have to buy rolls and rolls in order to find it. PETG would be interesting to try, and if you have any other suggestions, please leave them in the comments section.

The Result

To the right are the dimensions of the ceiling light fixture within which the sea urchin light comfortably fits. The light itself is a standard B22 fitting, so the sea urchin can comfortably fit most standard interior lights. However, if you have a different sized fitting, or want to fit it over an existing lamp, you can easily scale the design up or down to suit your needs. I’ve already fitted one of the early small test prints over an old Ikea lamp, it just sits over the top of the existing frame. In total I’ve now installed 5 of the large ceiling light covers in my house, and am planning a new design to replace some of the others (my house is full of this terrible cheap fitting!).

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I have made this design exclusively available on Pinshape – it’s just a few dollars to download the file, and then you can print as many as you like! If you 3D print one, please share a photo back onto Pinshape, I love seeing where my designs end up and what people do with them.

– Posted by James Novak

Mannequin Head Remix

Close but no cigar.

Sometimes you find something close to what you want on Thingiverse, Pinshape or other 3D printing platforms, but it’s just not quite right. Well, there is often something you can do about it, and it won’t cost a cent.

I’ve written several tutorials about using free software Meshmixer to make various modifications, for example creating a mashup of 2 different files or adding some text to a design. On this occasion I found a 3D scan of a styrofoam mannequin head on Thingiverse, which included all of the messy details you’d expect from a foam model (smaller head in the image above right). Great if you’re after realism, but not great when you want nice smooth surfaces for 3D printing. The model was also not at the correct scale, and I wanted a mannequin head to use as a model.

The scale was an easy fix, and of course could be done in your slicing software.  Cleaning up the surfaces was also quite simple using the ‘Sculpt’ tool and choosing one of the smoothing brushes. This essentially irons out all the rough details, smoothing out the model as you brush over it. A few minutes of work and a rough model is now clean and ready for 3D printing – which of course I’ve uploaded as a remix on Thingiverse so you can download it for yourself.

The above left image shows the 3D printed result from a Creality CR-10 S5, a very cheap, very large FDM machine with a build volume measuring 500x500x500mm. Obviously my settings weren’t great, the seam is in the worst possible position, and because I wanted a quick result I used only a single wall thickness and almost no infill, which split apart at the top. However, it’s fine for my purposes, and the surface quality on most of the model is fantastic.

Happy smoothing!

– Posted by James Novak

Update 20/02/2023

Below is an image showing the dimensions of the model around the head where you might need to fit a helmet or hat (in mm). If you need larger/smaller, you can just scale the model to suit.

Shim the 3D printed shim

We’ve all experienced that wobbly table at a cafe and struggled to wedge coasters and napkins under the legs to balance it out. This is where you need a shim, a small wedge that can fill the gap and ensure your drinks don’t go flying. Shim is also fun to say, quick to 3D print, and a good test of your print settings due to the top surface exhibiting the stair-stepped effect.

There are many designs available on popular 3D printing file websites, but I just wanted one that was a useful size (easy to carry with you in a small bag) and that said what it was. So here it is, Shim the shim! You can download it for free on Thingiverse, Pinshape, Cults or MyMiniFactory. Alternatively you can follow the basic outline of the design process below to make your own from scratch in your favourite CAD software. It’s similar to some of my previous designs including an “edditive” desk logo which might give you some inspiration for different ways to use text in 3D.

Shim was designed in Solidworks by using the text tool on the top sketch plane. The key is to squish all of the text together so that the letters intersect, meaning they will 3D print together as a single object (in Solidworks you can simply change the spacing of text within the text tool). The text was then extruded 10mm, creating solid geometry. All you need to do to create the wedge shape is then slice a triangular portion off the top, which in Solidworks uses the extruded cut tool. Save to STL and 3D print, it couldn’t be much simpler!

This is a nice quick 3D print and could easily be used as a keyring or give-away item, especially if you design your own. Enjoy, share and print!

– Posted by James Novak

A 3D Printing Workflow with Free Software

One of the challenges for designers (beginner and advanced) creating objects for 3D printing is finding software capable of doing the complex things we enjoy seeing in 3D printing news and exhibitions. There really doesn’t seem to be one program capable of doing it all, and this has been re-emphasised to me during my recent studies at MIT and a visit to Autodesk. However, there is some good news: if you’re able to quickly learn software, you can find an increasing number of freebies that seem to be specialising in small aspects of the workflow, which you can move between to create complex designs.

This tutorial will show you how I used completely free software to create a complex object during my time in the MIT course “Additive Manufacturing: From 3D Printing to the Factory Floor” as part of a group project, and is actually very quick once you become familiar with the programs. This particular design combines a hollow object with an internal lattice structure suitable for SLA printing on a printer like the Form 2 from Formlabs, which is what was used for the translucent version in the photo above. The white version in the background is a cross-section view of what is going on within the SLA print.

Step 1: The Overall Form

There are loads of free programs to use for creating 3D models – Tinkercad, Sketchup, Openscad, Sculptris, Fusion 360 (if you’re linked to an educational institution)… there are many more and you can certainly use your favourite. For this project, I actually used Onshape for the first time, which runs completely in the cloud (so no software downloading or limitations on computer operating systems/specifications). If you are at a school or university, you can get a free license. It works very similar to Solidworks or other high-end CAD packages, so if you are familiar with sketches and features, you will pick it up very quickly.

Basically, whichever CAD software you use, you want to create the overall shape of your object. In this case, I created an organic tear-drop shape using a “loft,” and cut a section out of the back so that it would clip onto a desk and act as a bag hook (part of the MIT design challenge).

Step 2: Make it Hollow

Many CAD programs will allow you to “shell” your design, making it hollow inside. However, if you can’t find the tool, or aren’t getting good results, we can do this in the next piece of software. But first, export your solid file as a STL (and if you managed to shell it in this step, export a STL of the hollow version as well and skip the rest of this step. You will still need a solid version for the lattice process).

The next free program, which I think is a must for anyone with a 3D printer, is Meshmixer. It allows you to edit the normally un-editable STL file format, and I have previously written tutorials about how to do download files from Thingiverse and combine them in creative ways or add your name to a downloaded part.

If you weren’t able to hollow out your design previously, click on Edit>Hollow and set your wall thickness. Just like that, your solid object is now hollow, and can be exported as a STL.

A note for SLA printing:

When using the Form 2 3D printer for the first time, I was surprised to learn that the PreForm software doesn’t allow for the user to specify infill patterns in the same way that is commonly done with FDM printing. That is what created the need for this custom lattice infill, and this tutorial. So, being a liquid resin printer, the final important step is to add drainage holes so that the form doesn’t end up completely full of liquid, and errors don’t occur during printing.

Meshmixer again has this function built in. While in the Hollow tool, you will have the option to “Generate Holes” and manipulate their location. This is really important, as you won’t be able to do it again later once your hollow and lattice are combined (unless you’re familiar with the boolean commands in Meshmixer and manually add a cylinder from the Meshmixer menu to use as a cutting tool).

Step 3: Creating a Lattice

Lattices and 3D printing are best friends. But creating a lattice in many CAD programs is close to impossible, usually requiring advanced skills and a computer that can handle very large patterning features. nTopology Element is a free program that will dramatically simplify the process for you – simply load a STL file, choose a lattice pattern, and boom! your object is now a lattice. But let’s go through it a little more slowly.

1. Import your solid STL file into nTopology Element.

2. On the top menu, click Lattice>Generate

3. In the pop-up, you can play with the lattice patterns (called “Rules”), the size of each lattice volume, and click Generate to get a preview. When you’re happy with the result, click on Apply.

4. You will notice that the result has the lattice coming outside of the original object. This is because only whole lattice volumes are used to fill the object, rather than automatically being trimmed to fit. So we must do this manually. In the top Edit menu, click on the Trim tool. A new pop-up will appear, asking you to select the Lattice geometry and the Trim Volume (original model), which you can select from the drop-down menu on the left. Click apply and the lattice will be trimmed to fit perfectly within your original design.

5. At this point, the lattice is made up of vectors – they have no volume. So the next step is to use the Thicken tool on the top menu to provide a diameter to your lattice.

6. Lastly, the thickened lattice needs to be turned into a single mesh that can be 3D printed. The Mesh button (where it says Interchange on the top menu) will join everything together and give you a single mesh. In the drop-down menu on the left, you can now right-click on the mesh, and click on export to get your STL file.

Step 4: Bringing it all Together

The free version of nTopology won’t let you stitch multiple files together, however the Pro version will if you ever end up with the need for a full license. So back to Meshmixer to bring it all together ready for 3D printing.

1. Import the hollow STL and lattice STL into Meshmixer (when you click on import for the second file, use the Append option).

2. You will notice that the ends of the lattice stick out from your object. There are 2 ways to correct this: Option 1 is to use the sculpt tool with the “Flatten” brush to go around and push the ends of the lattice inside of the object boundary – it’s just like pushing clay.

Option 2 is to ever so slightly reduce the scale of your lattice. With the lattice selected in the pop-up Object Browser window (on the right of my window), click on Edit>Transform and you can either manually manipulate the scale, or more accurately type in the reduction in the transform window (with the uniform scaling option ticked). You should only need a small reduction until the lattice fits just inside the outer skin of your object.

3. By turning off the hollow part in the Object Browser, but keeping it selected, you will get an X-Ray view into your object to check if the lattice and hollow part are intersecting. This can help with any final alignment. Remember; you want the lattice touching the solid shell, but not poking through so it’s visible, or loosely floating within the hollow.

4. In the Object Browser, [shift]+click to select both parts at the same time. A new window will appear that will allow you to Boolean Union or Combine both parts together, creating a single object.

5. Export the final STL and you are ready for 3D printing.

Step 5: Getting Creative

Once you get a bit of experience with this process and some of the other tools in Meshmixer, your imagination is the limit! You can really begin to play with different combinations of solid and lattice structures depending on the result you want. Have some fun and feel free to share any of your own creations in the comments section.

– Posted by James Novak

The Meshmixer Mashup: Mashup-Rex!

The mashup is a favourite technique in the music world that combines two or more songs together into a single song. They might be from completely different eras or genres and when cleverly mashed together, they create a new smash hit. But did you know that creating a 3D printable mashup is just as easy as creating a musical one? Take a bit of File A, mix it with File B, and you now have your own creative design.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been putting together a new tutorial for my friends at Pinshape, which includes my first video tutorial as well as the usual step-by-step process to follow along with. Click here to learn how to mashup STL files in only 10 easy steps using the freely available software Autodesk Meshmixer.

The mashup is often called a Remix in the 3D printing world, and is a great way to build upon other designs and add your own creative touch, or re-purpose a design for a new application. The video tutorial is a real-time look at the process, which with a bit of practice, will have you remixing new designs in a matter of minutes. If you want to follow along, you just need to install Meshmixer on your computer, and download the 2 T-Rex files used in this tutorial which are free on Pinshape:

1. Low Poly T-Rex by steven_dakh
2. The T-Rex Skull by harry (we are only using the head piece, not the jaw)

Alongside the tutorial is my latest design, the Mashup-Rex. I have made this available for free on Pinshape, just click here to download the file. Maybe you you will create your own remix of my remix? If you do, or you just 3D print the Mashup-Rex for yourself, please share it on Pinshape to add to the community and see how far the design can go! In the version pictured above I simply used a coffee stain to “age” the skull, similar to my previous print of the Star Wars Deathtrooper. I’m enjoying this simple technique at the moment, although you may like to use a 2-tone print, or go all out with some painted effects.

Happy mixing!

– Posted by James Novak

Is That A Clogged Nozzle, or…

No it’s just a clogged 3D printer nozzle, thanks for asking!

2017 seems to be my year for repairs on the Cocoon Create 3D printer, it was only a few months ago I wrote a big post about repairing and replacing the PTFE tube after it got seriously clogged. I did some research and found out exactly what the tube is for, and bought a roll of spare tube for future repairs (click here to read more).

Lucky I did! This seems to be the same sort of problem, however instead of the PTFE tube just getting clogged, when I opened up the nozzle the tube had become melted and broke off inside, completely stuck as you can see in the photo. I wonder if the spare PTFE tube I had installed was made from dodgy materials, allowing it to melt? Or maybe the ABS filament had just found a way around the outside of the tube and caused it to clog. Either way it’s getting a bit frustrating to have the same issue.

Luckily this wasn’t too difficult to fix (although I did jump straight on Ebay and buy a couple of spare brass nozzles – just search for RepRap MK10 0.4mm nozzle since the Cocoon Create is based on the RepRap Prusa i3). Using a drill and holding the nozzle with some pliers, I gradually worked my way up from a 2mm to 4mm diameter, clearing out the clogged material. 4mm is almost exactly the same as the internal nozzle diameter, so it cleared everything out nicely.

With some new PTFE tube installed, I’m back up and running again and the first print is coming out nicely (stay tuned to see what it is). Let’s see how long it lasts this time…

– Posted by James Novak

From Sketch to 3D Print

Designing your own 3D printable object can be daunting if you’ve never used a 3D CAD program before. This is a challenge that one of my university classes is facing, with most of the students new to 3D design, but eager to begin experimenting with 3D printing. So this week we explored a workflow that allows them to take their hand-drawn sketches through a couple of simple processes, resulting in a 3D printable file, without having to model in 3D from scratch. So here it is just for you – follow along and let me know how you go.

Step 1: The Sketch

This is the easy part! Find a sketch that you’d like to turn 3D. It’s best if it’s drawn clearly in pen, so if your sketches are in pencil just trace over them on a fresh sheet of paper. For this example I’m borrowing a sketch from online. You must then digitise your sketch – best using a flatbed scanner, or take a photo in good lighting conditions so you get good contrast between your linework and paper.

Step 2: Vectorising

We are going to use Adobe Illustrator to automatically trace the outlines of our sketch. Place your sketch into a new document, and you will see a “Live Trace” or “Image Trace” button appear (depending on your version of Illustrator) near the top menu. You may find that one of the preset options will give you an accurate tracing, or you will need to get into the options and start tweaking the settings. I have an older version of Illustrator, but the settings that work for me are shown above. What you are looking to achieve is a good level of detail, and nice closed lines. Once you have a good result, you can use the “Expand” button to turn the result into individual lines that can be selected. You can also go to the menu and select Object>Ungroup so that your linework is no longer all grouped together as a single item.

Step 3: Exporting

If you have a collection of sketches like this example, you will want to now Save your file (so you can come back to it and make changes later on), and then delete everything from the file that you don’t want to turn 3D. For this example, I have just left the flower tracing that was in the top-right corner. Go to File>Save As and save this drawing as a SVG file. This is a 2D drawing format that will be recognised by our 3D software.

Step 4: Going 3D

For this example we are going to use the freely available 3D software Tinkercad – one of the best features being that it runs from your internet browser, no need to download and install anything. I recommend it as a great place to start your 3D modelling journey, however if you’re already using a more advanced 3D CAD program you can still follow along with this tutorial – the process will be quite similar.

Create a new Tinkercad file, and at the top right of the workspace is the “Import” button – select your SVG file and it will automatically be turned into a 3D object as shown above. Depending on your sketch and requirements, this might be all you need to do and you can jump straight ahead to Step 7: Exporting. However I want to make some modifications to this design now that I have a good starting point in 3D.

Step 5: Modification

For my needs this object is too thick – I only want it to be 2mm tall. In the right panel of objects is a translucent box – this box is like a cutting tool, anywhere it touches my 3D object it can be used to cut away at it. Place a box in the middle of your 3D model, and use the Length and Width sliders to fully enclose your 3D model. Lastly, rotate your model to a side view and you will see an arrow pointing up or down – click-and-drag on this to move the box up 2mm above the workplane.

Now select both the 3D model and the box (either click-and-drag a selection box around the workplane or hold the Shift button and select both objects) and you will notice at the top right the Group icon becomes available. Click on this and Tinkercad will subtract the box from the 3D model, leaving just a 2mm thick object.

Step 6: Patterning

Rather than just printing one of this design, I want to create a more complex pattern. Firstly I need to scale the design down so that it’s a bit smaller. Do this by clicking on the object, holding the Shift button and using the corner handles to click-and-drag the object down in size – mine is about 40x40mm.

With my object selected, at the top left of the window are the standard Copy and Paste actions, as well as the Duplicate option – this is the option I use to make copies. It may copy the object in the exact same position as the original, so when you click Duplicate just click-and-drag this copy out into a new position. Repeat as many times as you like to create a pattern.

When you’re happy with the design, you will need to join all of these individual elements together into a single object. Similar to step 5, select all the objects together and the Group button will become active – however because all of these objects are solids, the Group function will join them together rather than cutting away.

Step 7: Exporting

When your design is complete, use the Export function at the top right of the window to download the object to your computer. The STL option is most likely what you will want for 3D printing. The STL format is the standard file type for all 3D printers.

Step 8: 3D Printing

Finally you can load your STL into your 3D printing or slicing software and 3D print! If the print doesn’t give you the result you want you can either go back to the Tinkercad file and make some more modifications in 3D, or take a step further back to Illustrator and modify the original linework.

The process is not perfect or overly accurate, however for designs like fashion or simple experiments, this can be a good workflow to try if you’re better/faster at drawing by hand than modelling directly in 3D software. If anyone has some different workflows they enjoy using, please feel free to share them in the comments section 🙂

– Posted by James Novak

New Year 3D Printer Repairs

After something like 150 hours of 3D printing leading up to Christmas it’s no wonder that my Cocoon Create decided to extend its holiday with some down time to kick off 2017. There have been 2 problems to do with extrusion that I’ve come across, and thought they might be handy to know how to fix for others with this printer, or indeed any of the many derivatives of the original RepRep Prusa i3 which this printer is based off.

The top image shows the first problem which I noticed after some jamming and issues swapping out filaments – basically a build-up of filament “powder” over time from the gear grinding it when it’s been jammed. This one’s a nice easy fix, just a cleanup and a reminder to open up the extruder occasionally to keep things clean. If you’ve never opened the extruder before it’s nothing scary, just 2 bolts on the left where the fan is mounted to the heat-sink which opens the whole thing up as shown above. You might be surprised how simple the whole mechanism is.

After fixing this problem and doing a couple of prints, I then noticed the filament was getting jammed again and I couldn’t push filament through the nozzle no matter what I did. Opening the extruder (same process as before except now removing the small screw on the right of the metal block to release the actual nozzle) the problem was pretty clear – a clog in the PTFE tube which you can see above. A lot of people are surprised to open their extruder and find a plastic tube inside, and this is the first time I’ve really had a problem with it. This tube is made from PTFE, basically Teflon like in your non-stick frypan, and seems to serve a couple of functions from what I’ve read online:

1. it stops heat from the nozzle climbing too high into the extruder and prematurely melting the filament, which would cause serious clogs.
2. being non-stick, it helps the filament keep sliding smoothly down to the nozzle without sticking as it gets warm.

A very cheap, simple part that has a lot of responsibility. Mine must’ve gotten worn out or slightly dislodged during my last attempt at fixing the extruder. Thankfully my printer came with 1 replacement, which I cut to size (make sure both ends are nice and square so that there are no gaps for filament to get caught in) and now I’m up and printing again with no problems. Also I’ve jumped onto Ebay and ordered a 2m length of PTFE tube (inside diameter 2mm, outside diameter 4mm) from China for $2.50 – I recommend anyone who has a 3D printer with this part order some PTFE tube as backup, it’s very cheap but if you need to buy something locally in a 3D printing emergency, prices look at least 10 times higher. For a couple of dollars it might just help keep you sane.

Some good forums discussing PTFE tube issues:

• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/flashforge/8RBXZhlggvM/C8wP4w6hzlYJ
• https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/2hca7w/ptfe_teflon_tube_in_hot_end_what_does_it_do_is_it/
• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/flashforge/8RBXZhlggvM/discussion

I’ve previously written about another type of clog where filament breaks off inside the extrusion tube as you’re retracting it, and you can’t force a new piece in – check out the post here if this sounds like what you’re experiencing.

Happy 3D printing, happy new year.

– Posted by James Novak