3D Printing-a new world of puppet building.
My first 3D printer.
This page is just to document my first steps into the 3D printing world.
3D printing has been around for quite awhile. The first puppet building job I did that used 3D printed parts was 9 years ago. There is no doubt that 3D printing is a tremendously useful tool for puppet building and creature fabrication, but printers have always been out of my price range until recently. Now there are very reasonably priced user friendly and reliable printers to be ordered online, including all of the ancillary requirements like the filament and upgraded parts.
One of the last puppet building jobs I did involved quite a few 3D printed parts, and my gut was telling me that it was time to commit to buying a printer and figuring out all of the skills needed to create models and print successfully.
A useful 3D printed object also involves a 3D model. There are many printers and many applications for modeling 3D models. I had to narrow down my focus.
My final choices were the Ender 3 Pro printer and to use Fusion 360 for the modeling and then export the model and use the software that came with the Printer called Creality Slicer to set up the 3D model for printing. But before I made my choices I got help from my colleagues.
I visited some studios while they were engaged in 3D printing and I got recommendations for how to start. I was so impressed by the things my colleagues were doing, both artistically and practically. I saw a tray of handles for puppet rods being printed and something as simple as that really got me excited.
I ordered the printer but let it sit in the box for a few weeks while I watched DIY videos, and dove into learning the software.
There are many sites that allow hobbyists to download fun models and print them, but my purpose was mainly to create usable parts for puppet building. My first focus was to create a model that represents a Hand/Wrist Mechanism that I have fabricated many times using Delrin and wood. This is a fairly simple mechanism but it has been tested and used many times with the rigors of theater and TV production.
As simple as the mech may seem, there are properties that have to be precise for the mech to work properly and reliably.
I downloaded several 3D modeling programs, but eventually paid for a tutorial on Udemy to learn Fusion 360. Within just a few lessons I was already modeling parts for the Hand/Mech project.
After I had a decent model that I felt comfortable testing on the printer I dove into the task of assembling the printer.
3D printers typically come unassembled and it take a few hours to properly assemble the printer, it’s a bit like IKEA on steroids. The difficulty is not steps, but simply in making sure that all of the components are square to each other and all of the parts operate smoothly. There is a lot of adjusting and fine-tuning, but this is critical for the printer to work properly. Fortunately there are quite a few DIY videos to be found online, and I recommend watching a few all the way through before even opening the box.
I also spent a few hours building a custom wooden platform for the printer. I wanted to make a small table for the printer so that I would have a solid base dedicated for just the 3D printer.
After a few false starts and a recalibration of the printer bed, I was able to print out my test design.
There is still so much I have to learn and develop but I was very impressed that within only a few days of work I was able to make a usable Hand/Wrist mechanism. So this small 3D printed object will still need to have more work before it is a finished working mechanism, but I can now set up my printer to go into production and make multiples of these parts thus saving many hours of puppet building time. But the real goal is to have puppets that have beautiful wrist movement with parts that are solid, and reliable which I think the 3D printing will definitely accomplish.