This content aims to demystify 3D printing for beginners, recommending specific printers and outlining how to get started with practical applications, emphasizing problem-solving over mere novelty.
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so it seems like everywhere you turn
someone's yapping on about 3D printing
and how cool it is not interested right
well then you see someone use it for
something well useful and you start to
think hm maybe it's worth looking into
but you have no idea where to start you
can barely spell 3D so you start
learning and you fall into this deep
dark Rabbit Hole of printers and
filament and 3D modeling and what the
heck's a thing of verse well stop I'm
going to make this simple for you I'm
going to tell you exactly which 3D
printer to buy tell you why and then
now maybe I'm one of those annoying
people on YouTube you've seen talk about
3D printing or maybe you've just
stumbled onto this video well long story
short I've spent the better part of 5
years printing pretty much non-stop in a
professional engineering setting I've
worked with very expensive industrial
printers and crappy desktop models
throughout that time and I currently run
a production print Farm of about 40
printers that have amassed tens of
thousands of Print hours not just some
dork printing Pikachu figurines from my
desk I may be a dork but at least I know
what functional 3D printing actually
looks like and that's really where my
passion lies using 3D printing to do
real world stuff and chances are if
you're watching this that's what you're
interested in too and don't get me wrong
printing dumb things can be fun but
solving problems is fun so what printer
to buy this is the prusia markv and it's
a beige Toyota Corolla with cloth seats
it's not going to win any drag races but
you can bet your ass it'll get you to
work and this is the the bamboo Labs X1
and it's a Tesla Model S with a Sleek
interior and fake leather seats it's
very fast will still probably get you to
work but doesn't quite have the track
record of the Toyota but what if I told
you that the price point was the same
you get the Tesla right well not so fast
these two printers right here represent
in my opinion some of the absolute best
hobbiest 3D printer options on the
market right now and that includes for
complete beginners I will also say that
every printer you see in this video was
purchased by me I'm not sponsored or
affiliated with any of these companies
these opinions were formed myself after
opening up my wallet and buying them and
I'm not going to bore you with tech
specs speeds and feeds there's plenty of
nerds out there that can do that for you
instead I want to explain why they're
great options and it comes down to this
you ready both of these just work that's
it and sure you can save money a lot of
money by going with a cheaper option
like an ender 3 but as someone who wants
to get into 3D printing and not into
working on 3D printers this is an
invaluable feature that unfortunately
costs some money nothing is going to
kill your printing curiosity like trying
to manually level a print bed or
endlessly add thirdparty components just
to get the damn thing to work right
there's plenty of time for that later
the prusa brand is synonymous with
reliability much like Toyota that's why
I run exclusively prusa Mark II s pluses
in my print Farm they're reliable
machines that can also be easily
serviced due to the open source nature
of the design and part availability Bru
has been developing manufacturing and
providing customer service for their
machines since 2012 I bought my first
machine in 2018 and it's still going
strong last I heard they sell somewhere
on the order of 10,000 of these per
month they're popular for a reason but
the new kit on the Block bamboo lab is
attempting to give prusa a run for their
money with their lineup of 3D printers
what they've done is essentially
democratized the features of expensive
industrial 3D printers and make them
available on a relatively cheap consumer
machine they really have shaken up the
Hobbies Market because most of these
customers have never seen anything like
this it's blowing their freaking minds
and since I come from the industrial 3D
printing World these features are not
groundbreaking on their own right but
having them all in a printer that anyone
can afford is really cool to see and
like most tech advancements it's
primarily driven through clever software
implementation not necessarily Hardware
the reason why bamboo lab 3D printers
are so ridiculously fast and they are
fast isn't because they figured out how
to make stepper Motors move faster
they're using a process called input
shaping and this is essentially
factoring the resonance or natural
frequency of the printer and
compensating for it in the movement of
the machine if the print head
accelerates in One Direction the
software anticipates how the printer
structure is going to react and
effectively cancels it out this is why
prints can be up to four times faster on
this machine than the prusia although on
average I found it to be about twice as
fast which is still really considerable
I should be fair and note that the
prusia markv which is the one I showed
is their brand new model which is
capable of input shaping as well at
least from a hardware stpoint point at
the time of its release that feature
isn't available but it should be in the
next software update so that Corolla is
getting tuned up and should print much
faster but probably still won't be able
to touch the speed of the bamboo lab
machine so what the heck does all that
mean why do you care well as a new 3D
printing Enthusiast absolute speed may
not be the most important consideration
getting the damn thing to work without
you thinking about it should be top of
the list both of these machines have a
bevy of sensors and automation to help
accomplish this for starters both
printers run through a bed leveling
process before each print which is very
important for getting that first layer
plastic to stick to the print bed this
is one of the most common failure modes
on a 3D printer and having this handled
by the machine and not your chubby
fingers is great the next is software
every 3D printer uses a program called a
slicer it takes a solid shape slices it
into very thin layers and creates a file
containing G-Code that the printers need
to run and you really don't need to know
anything about that other than there are
some settings that you can tweak to make
your part print potentially better prusa
has developed one of the absolute best
out there called prusia slicer and
bamboo lab has essentially taken that
exact same open source program and put
their spin on it so the good news is
that both of these printer options use
very solid software that's easy to use
both machines have these big clear color
screens that are easy to navigate they
both also have the ability to wirelessly
connect to your computer so that you can
start a print from anywhere this beats
the hell out of transferring files on a
USB stick or an SD
card ask me how I know and finally both
printers have a hot end and extruder
this part that squeezes the molten
plastic out that can handle a wide
variety of materials so you won't really
be constrained on what you can print
with okay so we got two solid options
here which one do I ultimately recommend
you go buy if you're getting
started neither instead I
recommend you go buy this one this is
the bamboo lab p1p which is the stripped
down less flashy version of the X1 I
showed previously it's about $500
cheaper and is still an absolute Beast
of a machine you lose some side panels
the fancy touchcreen and a couple of
sensors but the printer itself is
fantastic it checks all of the boxes of
what you need to get started my default
answer to anyone asking what printer I
would recommend has always been Pria but
now since I've got to test the offerings
from bamboo lab this p1p is the clear
recommendation going forward but if
you're more of a Toyota guy which I
totally get and like the idea of
reliability and a track record instead
of buying the new prusia markv which I
showed earlier pick up the now
discounted Mark II s+ kit it's about the
same price as the p1p and you just have
to sacrifice the big screen Wireless
connectivity and some speed you may have
heard me say kit and the benefit of
going with a kit versus a pre-built
machine is that you get to build the
printer and become intimately familiar
with how it works I built my first
couple prusas and I really enjoyed this
process and even made a video a while
back showing what goes into it and go
check that out if you're interested
you'll have a good understanding of your
machine and how to fix it should
something need to be replaced place down
the road and that's one of the biggest
knocks on the new bamboo lab machines
fixing or replacing parts does not
appear to be anywhere near as user
friendly or even possible in some cases
but honestly you won't go wrong with
either one but all things being equal I
give the nudge to the p1p all right so
youve pulled the trigger you have a 3D
printer sitting on your desk
but what do you do with it this is where
the confusion typically sits in for most
people yeah 3D printers are interesting
but what would I even use it for until
you have one and have seen how it can
solve problems it's honestly hard to
imagine any benefits it just looks like
a new thing you have to learn I imagine
it's similar to how many people thought
about microwaves when they first came
out yeah but I have an oven that I warm
food up in why would I even need a
microwave nowadays we can't even imagine
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when you're ready to eat simply pop them
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now you guys get back to the video and
want finish my lunch all right back to
printing you've got your new printer
sitting on your desk you're eager to get
started so what do you do first well I
would recommend you get some reps under
your belt meaning you need to go through
the process of printing things to become
familiar with how it works and all you
need to do that are some 3D models uh
what don't worry at this stage you don't
need to know a damn thing about 3D
modeling there's a couple of great
websites with entire libraries of parts
and widgets you can download and print
for free the most popular ones are thing
ofers and printables there you can
search for just about anything and
someone probably out there has already
modeled it my advice is to pick some
projects out of here and start printing
get in there get your hands dirty and
heck even make some mistakes it's the
best way to learn and when you get stuck
there's endless videos here on YouTube
to help you along the way so once you
get the hang of your new 3D printer
you'll start to see how quickly and
easily it is to make things out of thin
air it's pretty fun to be honest but fun
isn't why we're here this is a tool that
is capable of doing some really amazing
things that supplement Al to your shop
so how do you go about using it to solve
specific problems for you well this is
another sticking point for some it's
going to take some 3D modeling there
just isn't any getting around it at the
end of the day you need a 3D file to
feed your printer and if that model
doesn't already exist somebody has to
make it but before you frustratingly
click away you should know that you
don't actually ever need to do any
modeling yourself learning a modeling
software is intimidating and it does
take some time to get proficient but
lucky for you we live in the time of the
gig economy all you need to do is head
to a website like Fiverr or upwork and
you can find lots of skilled eager
individuals from around the world that
can model whatever part you need
sometimes all it takes is five bucks and
in 24 hours you get the part file to
send to your printer the best part is
that some of these people will actually
design your part specifically for 3D
printing which you'll learn is a thing I
know lots of people even some Who Run 3D
printing businesses who don't do any
modeling themselves they rely strictly
on contracted hired help to handle that
now look if you want to learn how to use
a tool like Fusion 360 which is my
personal favorite there are amazing
resources out there one of my favorites
is product design online which I'll have
linked down below it's a very wellth
thought out course that takes you from
complete beginner to competent user in a
self-pace environment highly recommended
and way better than just cobbling
together some random Youtube tutorials
so all that to say don't let the
intimidation of 3D modeling stop you
from unlocking the power of 3D printing
you don't actually need it but I will
say learning it is a worthwhile
investment if you choose to go down that
path all right all right so you've got
your printer you've printed some stuff
and maybe even come up with your own fix
in your shop that is literally all it
takes to set the hook the realization
that this Mystery Machine shrouded in
nerd culture is actually a very capable
tool is the entire point I'm trying to
get across the availability and
popularity is only going to grow I mean
look at CNC routers and laser cutters
those used to be Fringe subjects but now
everyone in their grandma has one in
their shop except for me look I'm using
3D printing to help solve shop problems
for the masses like like dust collection
and jigs but that is just the beginning
there are so many possibilities that you
can apply this technology to and there's
people out there doing truly amazing
things that I know you would find
interesting it's a whole new world out
there I hope this video at least sparked
your curiosity let me know if this video
was helpful down in the comments I get
lots of questions asking about 3D
printing which printer to buy and how to
get started my aim with this video is to
try and answer that so now I can forward
a link and not have to type it all out
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