Starting 3D Printing - the prologue

I have been fascinated by the idea of 3D printing for some time, but it seems such a black art. Everything in computing, and elsewhere, has its own collection of jargon but that surrounding 3D printing seems particularly impenetrable. It appears that the only way to find out what is involved is to dive straight in.

A brief encounter with an Ultimaker printer at DoES Liverpool made me decide to investigate further, especially after I was recommended to try an Ender printer, which are very reasonably priced these days. I considered buying an Ender 2 - you can pick them up for about £100, but plumped for the Ender 3. No, it wasn’t because it has a bigger number, although that always has an influence, but the larger print size seemed to make sense. Maybe I’ll never need to print anything larger than the 150mmx150mm limit of the Ender 2, but if I do I would certainly have regretted not paying the extra £50 for the later, and larger, model.

The Ender 3 is due to arrive tomorrow, if Parcelforce keep their promise, so that’s my weekend spoken for. The Ender 3 (and the 2) comes in kit form so the first job is to build it up. apparently this is a good thing, it familiarises you with the product and its way of working - although I have never seen Ikea use that as a benefit of buying their products!

My plan is to document my progress, through building the printer to using it. Firstly to just print files available from the likes of Thingiverse, then onto modifying and maybe even creating my own. Watch this space!