Unfortunately, I don’t know if I’m actually eligible to enter into this contest, but I’ll give it a go anyway.
At the current moment in time, I do not own a 3D printer, so that is probably the biggest downside to my current setup. 3D printing is a skill I’ve been interested in learning for a while. I’ve always been interested in prop making/collecting my whole life, so I thought it would be an awesome and useful medium to learn (especially as the tools become more advanced over time).
I was about to purchase my first printer pre-lockdown, but with all the uncertainty, and an immunocompromised family member, I held off. Had I made the purchase, I was interested in the Creality CR-10 V2, or the CR-10 S5 (for the additional build volume). From what I have seen, Creality makes an affordable product that is capable of producing very accurate and clean prints. Of course, with affordability comes the trade off of some glitchy, substandard parts and components. From my research I understand that the CR-10 will require some maintenance, but hey, it’s another skill I can learn; 3D printer repair. What I like is it appears to be a fairly open source design that allows for upgrades and customization, as well as a very large and supportive community willing to aid in troubleshooting issues.
While I get ready to order my first printer, I have been finding files I’d be interested in printing, and tinkering around with them in Cura 4.5. What I like about Cura is the price point, it’s free. It appears to be fairly user friendly, and capable of producing some very nice prints (from what I’ve seen on YouTube). One area where I could see some potential headaches in the future is when it comes to supports. The software doesn’t allow for much customization from what I can see. Even with the custom support plugin, it appears to be fairly limited (but again, I’m just starting to learn, so I’ll reserve any criticism until I have truly seen what it’s capable of). Perhaps once I get a feel for what all the settings do, and start to get some decent prints, I’ll experiment with Simplify3D (or some other slicing software).
Hopefully I’ll be ordering a printer in the coming days. In the meantime, I’ll continue to be researching, tinkering, and watching YouTube videos and forums such as Do3D’s (Uncle Jessy, Nikko Industries, The Broken Nerd, 3D Printed Armor and Weapon Props Facebook group, etc.).
Projects I look forward to working on: the awesome files provided by Do3D (Black Panther, Sub-Zero), Iron Man helmet, Stargate.......... but first, Dark Helmet!
https://www.creality3dofficial.com
https://ultimaker.com/software/ultimaker-cura
