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Episode: 3204
Title: HPR3204: Getting Started in 3D Printing
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3204/hpr3204.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 18:44:49
---
This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3204 for Thursday 12 November 2020. Today's show is entitled,
Getting Started in 3D Printing. It is hosted by Thadj Sarah
and is about 16 minutes long
and carries an explicit flag. The summary is,
Thadj gives his opinions and recommendations on how to get started in 3D printing.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by An Honesthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code
HPR15. That's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's Honest and Fair at An Honesthost.com.
Hey, what's good at Hacker Public Radio? This is Thadj and I'm here to do a little episode.
There was a request put on the mailing list to do a show about 3D printers.
Being a guy who knows a little bit about that, I figured I'd go ahead and do that for the people who wanted it.
Just sort of a background of me and how I know anything about this.
I've been doing 3D printing pretty much since the beginning of when you could do it as a consumer at home.
Back in the days when RepRap just started and if you wanted a 3D printer
and you didn't have a large sum of money to drop on it, you had to build it yourself.
It's been a lot of time building 3D printers and even going so far to design 3D printers and things like that.
I know a little bit about it. That's my background and I will tell you as we talk about this
that I'm highly opinionated about it and that will show through.
You can definitely make different decisions and there will be different parts during this where I will say,
okay, here's where we're going to make a decision. I'm going to go down one path.
There's no problem with anybody going down a different path. They're all valid.
I'm just trying to push it in the direction I think is the simplest to get started and not be as frustrated as you could be.
To begin, we really have to make our first decision.
You've already decided you said self, I want to get a 3D printer and I want to get involved in 3D printing.
Cool, so that's the first decision we've made. Now we need to say a couple things and make the next decision.
Probably the most important one to make the thing to know at this point to move forward is that if you were expecting to buy a machine,
unpack it, plug it in and start printing and it worked perfectly every time.
You're going to be disappointed with 3D printing.
Unless you're spending just unreal amounts of money and even then you're still going to run into issues.
These are not appliances. These are definitely machines that require maintenance and you have to know a little bit about them.
Now don't let that scare you off. The 3D printing is very much a community and everything you need to know is out there.
People like myself will help anybody who comes with a problem.
So I would say look at the internet. They're definitely going to be your first stop if you run into an issue.
If not, you know, definitely drop me a line and I can help you out or at least attempt to help you out.
So after you get over that hump and you're ready to take the dive and start doing 3D printing,
there are really two different types of printing that you can do as a consumer desktop version.
I am going to simplify a lot of things and this is a simplification that are really more than two.
But if you're going to buy a printer, really you're looking at two different methods of 3D printing.
The first, which is the oldest and probably the most popular, is using a filament printer.
And you'll see two acronyms thrown around. The first one is FFF, which that itself stands for fused filament fabrication.
And filament is just a string of plastic. A 3D printer really works basically like a high glue gun.
You're melting the filament and you're putting it down in layers and that's going to build up a 3D model.
So FFF is that design. You'll also see the term FDM for fused deposition modeling.
FDM used to be the acronym that everybody used. Then it was either I think it was trademarked by Stratisys,
who is a massive 3D printing company and they own MakerBot or they bought MakerBot.
Nobody in the community really knows why that happened other than they just wanted to not be cool to the community.
So one of the big recommendations I have is don't everybody anything for MakerBot.
Just avoid Stratisys like the plague.
So there's your first might hot take on 3D printing.
So like I said, this is probably the most common. When you see most 3D printers, they are FF printers.
And it is really good at doing a vast amount of things.
To me, this is the most flexible type of printing, even going so far as being able to print flexible things.
So it is literally the most flexible.
The second type of printer that you can have is a stereo lithography printer or SLA.
And the way that these work is they take a photo curing resin and there's a vat of the resin.
And then it uses UV light typically. There's something to do it differently.
And they will cure layers of this UV resin to make your 3D print.
Now this is really good at certain things. Stereo lithography printing is very to me specific to certain use cases
where FF is pretty varied. You can do lots of things.
You can do most of what you can do with an SLA printer with an FF printer.
But you're going to make sacrifices.
A stereo lithography printer is if you're going to do something like jewelry making.
If you're going to do something like model making.
If you're going to do like 3D printing minis for an RPG or you're going to make toys.
Or you're going to do something where detail is very, very important.
SLA is the way to go. To me it's a little bit harder to start with.
The learning curve is a little higher and the materials that you're using are a little more dangerous.
So you need to weigh that in your mind if you're going to go this way.
I know people who have started with SLA printers and they've had a good experience.
But I think you need to have a use case for that.
And I will say I personally don't own an SLA printer. I would love to have one.
But I don't do enough in those use cases where I think it's worth spending the time to do it
and get that learning curve and everything.
Now I will say we are at a wonderful part of time where you can buy, get into both types of 3D printing
for about the same amount of money and it is very cheap.
So once again this is the path point where we take our path.
I'm going to go with FFF.
If you want to go with SLA, cool.
You can do that. You're going to get in at about the same price and you're probably going to be happy.
But from here on out, we're going to talk about FFF because I think it is the most flexible and the easiest to learn.
Okay, so once you've decided that you're going to go with this FFF printer,
you're going to have to pick material for it.
There are several materials that are kind of really common.
There's polylactic acid, which is PLA.
This is what you should start with.
A lot of people will talk about PETG or ABS.
They're both wonderful, not so much ABS.
I don't like it that much.
But PLA is the easiest to print.
It is definitely where you should start and it is usually the cheapest.
So that works out.
You can use the other.
So PLA, it's big issues are that it tends to, it's very temperature sensitive.
So if you're going to print something that's going to get hot, you should not use this method.
That's another place where SLA prints really hold up is in heat.
You would want to go with something like ABS or PETG if you were doing FFF for those types of parts.
But really, you should stick with PLA to get started.
Like I said, it's usually the cheapest.
Okay, so we've gone down this pathway.
We've decided that we're going to go FFF and now we need to decide on
there are a million printers out there.
What do I do?
Like I said, I'm going to get opinionated and I'm going to make a very specific recommendation.
This is a recommendation I've made to many people and the pathway from this,
I'm not only recommending the printer itself, I'm recommending the pathway out of the printer.
I've seen it happen many times and it works pretty much without fail.
And the printer that I recommend, I've used in lots of schools.
I've used it with people just one on one and the results tend to be the same.
So the printer I'm going to recommend is the Ender 3.
This is a printer made in China by the company called Creality.
They are, to me, one of the best balances of cost to performance, to features, to reliability.
They tend to work fairly well out of the box.
There's not really a lot you need to do.
Mainly when I open one of these up and I put it together, I level the bed and it prints.
And it prints fairly well.
So your initial frustration will be pretty low.
The cost for this printer, like I said, is one of the cheapest printers you can get.
You can get cheaper printers, but in my experience, having played with some of those cheaper printers,
you're not going to get a very good experience.
Usually you can get an Ender 3 for less than $200 US.
If you're paying more than that, you should be buying a different printer.
It's solidly worth the $200.
And like I said, you're going to get what you want.
It does pretty much everything out of the box.
Now, the reasons I choose this one are those benefits.
Lots of nice features to it.
It's very reliable.
It's robust.
It is extremely popular.
I'm not the only person recommending this as a first printer.
It has a very, very, very large user base.
And so it's very easy if you're having a specific problem with that printer to find the answer.
Another reason is that this is an open source printer.
Reality decided with this design that they were going to open source it.
In general, the basic mechanics of this is actually based on another open source printer called the Prusa.
And it's a good printer.
You could buy a Prusa and they're fantastic.
But you're looking at three times the cost, maybe four times the cost, depending on how you do it.
The Ender 3 is a great way to just get in and get the technology to build it.
And you have that community out there.
And since it's open source, lots of people have put out there how to modify the design, how to improve the design.
And that's really where you're going to go from here.
So you have the printer. You've used the printer, you're printing things.
What do you do now?
Because you're going to realize that once you get into 3D printing, it's a little bit like a drug in the best and worst possible ways.
And in the best ways, you're learning all kinds of new stuff.
And the worst ways, once you have a 3D printer, everything needs to be 3D printed.
And then one 3D printer is not enough.
So having the Ender 3, this is going to get you to that next step.
You're going to get you into 3, you're going to start printing.
If you don't know how to 3D model, that's perfectly fine.
There are repositories of 3D designs that you can just download, pretty much the GitHub of 3D printing.
And there are several, there's Thingiverse that is also owned by Stratuses, but it is kind of the GitHub of 3D printing.
There's things like you imagine, there's GrabCAD, there's lots of different places you can get models to print.
But eventually you're probably going to want to start designing things on your own.
That's a series of HTTP hours that I've been toying around with, maybe, making is how to get into 3D modeling things using CAD.
So maybe, maybe, if people like this, we'll go down that road.
But you have your Ender 3, the first thing you're going to do after you get done playing with it, which playing with it is awesome.
You know, you print your first lightsaber, you know, Sonic screwdriver or whatever, and you want to do more.
Start by printing mods for your printer.
The nice thing about 3D printers is the self replication aspect.
You can use a 3D printer to make a 3D printer.
We live in the future, this is awesome.
So start building, you know, mods. Maybe you want to have an auto leveling bed.
Maybe you want to put another fan on it. Maybe you want to do a direct drive extruder instead of a Bowden drive, which is what's on this.
There are lots of different things. The more you learn, the more you'll want to tweak it and move it forward.
From there, once you get to that point, your next goal is to build your own 3D printer.
And you can do that basically by just using the printer you have.
You'll have to buy some the mechanical parts, the motors and things like that.
But really, the structure of a printer, you can make with a 3D printer, which is amazing.
Once you hit that point, it opens up a whole new world of technology to you, but you actually understand 3D printing better.
This is when you get to the point where you can look at a 3D printer you've never seen, and really start to diagnose what's wrong with it.
And it gives you a lot of information to sort of look at the 3D printing landscape and make better decisions.
Now, some people may never make it to this level. Some people just want to print their toys and that's it.
And, you know, God bless, go forward. You've got what you need.
But if you want to get a little further, this printer will allow you to get into that realm.
Like I said, for, you know, my base recommendation is, you know, buy the Ender 3.
Like I said, usually about 200 US by a cheap role of PLI.
Usually, if you're looking at Amazon or something like that, there's brands like Eson or Hatchbox or Inland.
These are pretty good cheap brands. If you're paying more than $25 a role for a kilogram, don't buy that for your first thing.
You're going to spend a lot of that first role just making bad prints that don't work.
So save yourself the time and the money and just buy the cheap to begin with.
Run a role through it. Do things. Once you get to the end of that role, you should be making good prints.
That's the time to start buying good filament and good filament really to be completely honest.
I, for a lot of things, I use those brands because they're good enough.
If you're going to do something a little more intricate or something that you want to be a little more sturdy or you don't want to fight with customizing the way that it prints.
You might want to spend a little more. Good filament, a kilogram role, maybe $30 US. You could get some up to $50 US.
I'm not sure in my opinion and having used it that that's really worth it, but mileage may vary depending on what you want to do.
So really, you've made all your decisions. You know what you're doing and you've got a pathway to go.
And from there, like I said, it kind of opens up and you could do lots and lots of different things.
But really, your initial decision is FFF versus SLA. Then you're going to pick what filaments you want to use my advice is to use PLA.
And then your printer and I'm recommending the Ender 3. I think personally, and this is a moral ethical thing for me.
I think you should choose an open source printer to begin with because that gives you the greatest ability to learn.
You can go buy printers that are not a whole lot more expensive than the Ender 3 that have every bell and whistle you'll ever want.
That's fine, but you learn something by building it yourself and it's very easy with this design to put in those extra bells and whistles.
So like I said, I'm highly opinionated. That is my opinion on where you should go with this.
If you have any questions, be sure to hit me up, drop a comment.
My email is on the website. You can come get it there or I'm typically on mastodon where you can reach me at at Taj.
And that's THHJ at Fostanon.org. That's my Fediverse Presence.
And that's typically the thing I check the most. So if you want to get a hold of me, that's where to go.
And with that, I will talk to everybody later.
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