This thing is freaking amazing!

Well, I’m officially hooked now!

This morning I started a long print (only the fourth thing I’ve printed), and I wasn’t actually sure it was going to work, but it did! And it is abso-f-ing-lutely amazing!

Here are some pictures as it was printing-

And here is the final product-

What is truly amazing is that this was all printed in one shot! And I don’t mean all the parts were printed and it was then put together- it was all printed as a complete, working unit. This truly blows my mind (my hat is off to the guy who designed it- you can download the files on Thingiverse here)! The screw thread that lifts and lowers the platform was printed inside the threaded piece it fits into that was printed around it at the same time, do you have any idea of how close the tolerances must be for that to work??? I guess the fact that this worked shows that I’ve got the settings for this little printer pretty well dialed in 🙂 All I had to do when I took it off the build plate was remove the “brim” around the bottom (this helps it stay stuck down while it’s printing) and gently wiggle the joints to break the single layers of filament that held them in a few places. Once I had done that I could just turn the knurled wheel and it worked!

You have to see it in action to truly appreciate it- and thanks to modern technology, you can 🙂 Please excuse the vertical video, I needed the height 😉

A few details- I used Cura beta 3.6.0 to slice and scaled the original file down to 75% so that it would print and be ready before I went to bed (it took 9 hours and 50 minutes), and I printed at 0.1mm layer height to get the best quality I could.

Right now the printer is printing a simple phone stand I also found on Thingiverse that should just take about an hour (next I have to get myself a CAD program so I can design this stuff myself!), then I shall let have a well deserved rest until I decide what to print tomorrow 😉

I am flabbergasted what I can do with a baby $99 3D printer like this- imagine what I could do with a bigger one with a heated bed and a bigger build volume… ?