Many of you came to hear my presentation on Thursday evening, September 21, 2023, on the 3D printing work I do. Thank you for being there! And for those who didn’t attend, here is a link to the Youtube video.

I have a 3D printer that I use to make beads that I assemble into earrings. Here are some examples of the earrings.

My Thursday presentation covered many of the details about how I create the beads, but I thought I would add some more background here on my 3D-printing experiences.

My interest in 3D printing began in 2005 when I picked up a book from a sale table in a Borders bookstore (remember those?). The book was Fab, by Neil Gershenfeld. It talked about new technologies that were likely to revolutionize manufacturing, particularly of custom products. 3D printing was one of the technologies mentioned, but the machines involved back then were only affordable to large corporations.

About 5 years later, I began reading articles about do-it-yourself 3D printers. Some of the key patents were expiring, and lower-cost options were starting to appear. But the machines were still out of range for me, both in terms of cost and in terms of the skills needed to build and maintain them.

In the spring of 2013, two things happened that made it possible for me to actually do some 3D printing. First, I found myself unexpectedly unemployed, which meant my schedule was suddenly more flexible. 

The NexFab phase. Second, I attended an open house at Philadelphia’s remarkable “makerspace”, NextFab. NextFab has all kinds of equipment, from computer-controlled embroidery machines to huge supersonic waterjet cutting machines that can cut granite and steel. And they had several kinds of 3D printers. NexFab had a low-cost weekends-only membership, and I took advantage of that to learn how to do 3D printing.

My months at NexFab taught me a lot. I mostly used the crudest machine they had (which was free for members), but I also learned to use some of the high-end machines they had (which had substantial extra fees attached). I tried out a variety of different design software packages, settling on two free ones called TinkerCAD and 123D. Since they were web-based and free, I could use them at home to create designs ahead of time that I could immediately try printing when I arrived at NexFab.

I decided to focus on earrings, having previously done jewelry work with polymer clay. Earring beads were small projects that could be printed in the relatively short periods that I could schedule machines for at NexFab.

Here are some examples of the earring beads I made at NexFab.

At NexFab, I started the practice of printing all my beads in white and adding color later. Initially, I used Sharpie markers for the colors, then switched to acrylic paints (which I could mix to produce exactly the color I wanted).

That summer, I attended a Maker Faire in New York. The Maker Faire was a wonderful, chaotic gathering of people (both users and vendors) who were excited about doing all kinds of things with technology. 3D printing was a prominent part of that. I ended up buying a 3D printer from a company that exhibited there, called PrintrBot (now long gone).

By September, however, that phase of my 3D printing career was over. I had landed a new job, NexFab was raising its rates, and—try as I might—I could never get my Printrbot printer to work properly. It never made a single bead, and I ended up giving it to a friend who was a tinkerer.

The library phase. I soon began noticing 3D printing appearing in libraries in the area. There was one in a library near me, and I used it a bit. But it didn’t always work, and none of the staff seemed to know much about it.

Then I discovered that the Exton library, half an hour away, had a fully staffed makerspace with a decent-quality 3D printer. On top of that, I could email my jobs to them, and they would put them in the print queue. They sent an email to notify me when the job was ready to be picked up, usually within a day or two.

During this period, I also switched to using a different software package for design work. I had been using mostly TinkerCAD, but I began to come up against its limitations. I switched to Fusion 360, from Autodesk. It is basically an engineering tool with a steep learning curve, but it can do almost anything.

I continued working with the Exton library when I arrived at Kendal. By this time, I was producing useable earrings and painting the beads. The process worked well, but the library machine had limitations in producing fine details. Also, it was hard to experiment with different design variations, because it would be at least a day (and often more) before I could see the results of my work.

The in-house phase. Ultimately, I decided I needed my own machine. I discussed it with my wife Jan, and she was supportive. The fiasco ten years prior with the Printrbot machine that wouldn’t work right had left a bitter taste, and I didn’t want to repeat that experience, so I looked carefully at equipment reviews (especially the negative ones) to see what the best choice would be for me.

I settled on the “Mini+” model made by a company called Prusa, located in Prague. It is one of the few non-Chinese vendors in the market. Prusa’s machines had an excellent reputation, but an important additional factor was that their US distributor and tech support location was in Newark, DE, an easy drive from Kendal. I picked up the machine in person, rather than having it sent, and while I was there I got a lot of useful advice about getting started with it.

I have had the 3D printer since March 2023, and it has proved to be a good choice. The output quality is excellent, and the machine is very reliable. I have only had two problems with it in 6 months of heavy use, and they were easily fixed.

Our new library in Kennett Square opened in August, with a makerspace that features four 3D printers. I knew the library was going to have 3D printing, and I considered waiting to see what they would provide. But I’m glad I didn’t wait. I can sit here typing while my Prusa machine chugs happily away on job after job. I certainly wouldn’t be able to spend a comparable amount of time hanging out at the library. And whereas the library has a limited selection of filament colors and I would have had to continue printing beads in white and painting them, I now have 30 or 40 filament colors, which gives me the luxury of avoiding the painstaking painting process.

I am now set up to explore additional earring design ideas, and I have dozens of them. Other residents have inquired about the possibility of buying my earrings, and I’ll be checking out the options for that in the future.

I encourage other Kendal residents who might be interested in 3D printing to try the machines at the Kennett library. Someone is there every day to help with the software and hardware, and there are “Monday Makers” gatherings on Monday nights at 7:00. They have a selection of filaments of various colors to get you started, and there are no fees!