Does anyone have some advice on 3D printing services? I am looking to clean up my wiring rack and have about half a dozen mounts that I need printed. I have all the files downloaded from thingverse but am not sure where to go after that since I dont have my own printer.
Out of curiosity, what amounts are you wanting to print? I've been mining Thingiverse for various things to print, but mining thingiverse is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
I've manage to print a couple ubiquiti 8 port switch stands....but haven't found much else.
Ive found hubitat mounts, a caseta mount, hd homerun, and SmartThings hub mount. Still looking for ones for my cable modem and netgear switches.
Do you care what color? I can try printing a Hubitat mount...I found 5 or so, which one were you looking at?
S.
1 Like
Completely indifferent on color. I’ll look for the shape file once I’m at my computer. I need both a c4 and c5 mount.
What printer do you have?
That's fine, I have both as well.
S.
Prusa Mk3s
Have you checked your local public library? Mine has a 3d printer. They set it up and prep the printer and then you go and baby-sit it while it's printing. Only cost me $1.70 for a mount for my Motion Sensor.
1 Like
Also, some areas have "Maker spaces" that are willing to do runs for people and some of the 3D printing communities/forums will have spots to ask around for local people. Although all those depend if they are actually allowed to be open. I live in New York (state not City) and none of those should be open for now.
We could probably even start a thread about that here somewhere. I would be willing to print things for people assuming reasonable expenses (not in it for a profit). Although shipping is costly it is pretty much the only option at this time.
I have checked the library and we do have one but it’s closed for the foreseeable future.
Scottgu3,
This is the hubitat mount I had saved.
Printing it now. We'll see if it turns out.
S.
1 Like
3d printers are cheap. I started with a Monoprice Select Mini v2. It was a refurb. $100. But I had to replace the bed heater wires. I got an Anycubic Photon resin printer for Xmas, but haven't used it yet. Those are only a couple of hundred bucks. I used my old printer to build a vent for the back of the anycubic so I can hook up a flex pipe to it and pipe the fumes through a carbon filter with a fan. Resin printers stink, and it does not smell healthy.
The amount of stuff I've printed has saved me probably thousands of dollars. Cases for projects, KTM dirt bike parts, a replacement part for a $400 Kohler faucet that is not available, etc. All of this was printed with PLA, PLA+, or PETG.
I highly recommend getting one. There's a learning curve, they are not plug and play. But once you get things dialed in, you can print anything on thingiverse, or design your own stuff with Fusion360 or Tinkercad.
1 Like
If you don't mind waiting the Prusa Mini (349 US / 379 Eur) is a great printer for the money. It assembles in minutes and should reliably pump out anything you want.
I've been enjoying it's bigger brother the i3 MK3S. Next up is assembling the MMU2s upgrade for it 
I am a fan of Snapmaker now. I backed their original project and got a Snapmaker 2.0 once that one kicked off. No regrets yet, plus their forum is fairly active.
Of course, I still have my very first MakerBot Thing-O-Matic around... maybe one of these days I should hook it up and get it recalibrated if only to use up all the old 3mm filament I have left from it.
So far, I'm a fan of the Prusa. I've only had it for a couple of months. Still have the training wheels on.
I've been amazed at how easy it has been to get things from thingiverse and print them successfully.
Totally worth the investment.
S.
1 Like
OK. It printed out pretty well. I need to test it with the c5 (which is still sealed in the box), but I'll print another copy tomorrow assuming it works as expected. We'll need to pick one of the C4 models to print next.
Scott
This might work for both the C4 and C5, they seem to be similar dimensions.
Initial fit test before I went to bed resulted in a failure to fit the C4. Admittedly I didn't try very hard, but it seemed pretty certain it wouldn't fit.
I'll fiddle with it when I get home tonight, and I'll start printing one of the other models.
S.
