Kickass3DPrintsI designed a cardboard cutter that turns boxes into free cat scratchers
TodayAwesome! Is that a real device that’s available for sale? Those would be good school or scout projects to donate to animal shelters.
I have the STL files on Thangs for 3D printing.
I’ve been thinking about getting a 3D printer. Well, yesterday I decided I need a 3D printer. I know nothing at all. What should I get?
I have an AnkerMake M5 and it’s gloriously painless. There are intrinsic unavoidable challenges to 3D printing, but this thing has been incredible for casual creation.
Do I need the M5 or can I get away with the m5c? I really know nothing about it or how much material things need. I just want to make cool things. How much filament did your cardboard cutter require?
I’m not the OP but I went ahead and bought his file and sliced* it and with 20% infill, it will require about 77g of filament. So with one normal spool, you could print 12 of them.
I can only vouch directly for the M5, but looking into the differences, it looks like the M5C would be a solid option. I would miss the onboard camera and the ability to check my prints and get notifications of suspicious issues, but the printer itself is more or less the same otherwise.
- Slicing is the process where a program takes the 3D model and turns it into layer by layer instructions for the printer and where you configure lots of settings such as infill, which is how much of the interior of the model is printed with a lattice for structural support. Prints are rarely 100% solid material but rather a hull with infill.
I ordered the m5c. I got the printer, 13 lb of material, and some accessories for $339. Can’t wait to make some Braille Play-Doh presses.
Nice! Congrats and I hope you enjoy it!
ikiddEnder 3 is pretty good introductory model and does nice prints with little effort.
If you’re a buy once, cry once sort of person, Prusa makes good stuff that has a lot of community support.
I have a 3D printer buyer’s guide on my website that lists a few. I mostly use and would recommend any Bambu printer, there’s a few that can suit any price range. Elegoo also make good printers too which won’t break the bank
I don’t recommend bambu because they’re locked in and against right to repair. I have an Elegoo Neptune 4 pro that works great. If you have more money, Prusas are great too.
Don't get an ender unless you want your hobby to be working on the printer. That's fine, but it's not the same as having something ready to go when you unbox it.
Prusa printers are quality and open source; very much worth supporting if you have the money. Your hobby will be printing things for other things if you get one.
Bambu printers are cheap, but not open source. However, you will spend most of your time actually making stuff instead of fixing the printer.
Cheap, reliable, open source/modifiable. Pick two.
Personally I would get a Prusa. I want to own my stuff. I have an elegoo neptune which is also easy to repair and cheaper. Eventually, I hope to get a prusa.
Bambu Labs A1 Mini
I own an Ender 3, 5, and a Prusa Mini. The mini is by far my most reliable printer, but both enders have had a lot of work done to them to get them where they are… and not quite click to print yet.
At one of my jobs I maintained some 35 Prusa Mk3s, about a dozen Elegoo’s, and witnessed their graveyard of Anycubics and some other brands. The Prusa’s generally only needed to be unclogged or have their nozzle changed less than once a month, with only a couple failures per week max, the room also was not temperature controlled and they had some… questionable engineering practices.
The elego’s were like pulling teeth, needing glue to keep it adhered, frequent clogs and skips, thermistors needing replacement after under 100 print hours, blobbing would get into the part coolig fans. Small leveling knobs. Prusa’s IMO were designed to be serviceable, but seem to need it way less.
Especially at a business, the premium on Prusa printers over say bambu labs is well worth their customer support. Ive never used a Bambu so I cant necessarily recommended or not, and I do wish I had an MMU on the cheap as you’d get with their mini, but Im most pleased with my Prusa mini
I looked at prusa and pretty quickly realized that I couldn’t afford them.
Check local sales, as much as I hate Facebook, marketplace around me sometimes has some nice steals, like my OG ender 5 for 100$, and that job was selling off their Prusa MK3s to afford MK4s about half off. You never know -o-
Oh that’s a good idea. I should have checked there. Bought the ankermake m5c for 339 including 15# of material and accessories.
A lot of libraries offer 3D printing for about the cost of materials.
It’s worth trying out before dropping huge cash if it’s possible near you.
You’ve designed a niche solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Use a box knife. Or, for a more versatile tool, get a Morakniv Companion.
Welcome to the world of 3d printing
SzethFriendOfNimiIf I don’t design and print something I could buy I might be tempted to do more mods for my printer.
Things like this give us… balance. Luckily I have a new project… building a Voron so it’s both something new AND printing printer parts.
dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️Things like this give us… balance.
Otherwise known as, “Justification for ownership of printer.”
Look, I totally didn’t just buy this thing as a hobby to make more parts for itself! See, I actually do occasionally make useful things with it!!!
That’s what I tell myself, anyway…
Exactly… this printer is useful honey.
I can make parts for the printer, accessories for filament management for the printer.
Halloween decorations… once I get the printer back online when I have this mod finished.
Parts for another printer.
Mounts for the brooms… when more filament comes in since I used the last of it for the parts for the new printer.
Save 450 on a unique appliance part they’re not making anymore which now justifies the thousands I’ve spent on this thing.
Seriously though. It is a fun hobby and if you want to just print and make things and not tinker there are plenty of good options out there. Me? I like tinkering. It’s a blast.
kellenoffdagrid❓️I mean that’s kinda the whole deal with 3d printing, it’s useful for really niche applications where you can just add a small amount of convenience to your life.
Someone else commented about this being good for school kids so they can safely make cat scratchers to donate to animal shelters, and as a cat owner with a constant pile of recycling I can see this being actually useful if I wanna avoid spending $20-$40 on one of those fancier cardboard cat scratchers from Target or whatever.
I mean that’s kinda the whole deal with 3d printing, it’s useful for really niche applications where you can just add a small amount of convenience to your life.
Is it? All I ever request to be printed is the proprietary part that prematurely broke as it was designed to do.
Someone else commented about this being good for school kids
Instead of teaching them to use scissors? We’re raising a generation that can’t think or do for themselves. They’re reliant upon consumption.
as a cat owner with a constant pile of recycling I can see this being actually useful
As an adult you think it’s more useful than a box knife? It’s not even going to be faster than a box knife with straight edge. And, why do you need a product to pet your cat?
Boomer posting
“Kids today!!!”
Not a boomer and it’s not just kids. My suburban neighbors are calling plumbers to fix toilets and fix light switches. They just mindlessly consume resources, as they’ve been instructed. They’re choosing fiscal slavery, like lemmings off a cliff.
You don’t have to be a Boomer to be boomer posting.
“Kids today” is an illustrative phrase, not a literal one.
People have been interested in new gadgets for all of human history, no matter the cost or utility. Acting like something changed is boomer posting.
People have been interested in useless gadgets since capitalism has mandated perpetual increase in consumption. It’s now so bad that the solution to all problems is needless consumption.
But, neolibs gonna’ neolib until they can’t afford their filament.
No rational response, huh?
You’ve completely departed from the original topic, and the topic of this post, so I’m not following.
Such limitations aren’t received well by intelligent and ethical others. Best of luck.
Cutting carboard with scissors? It can be done, but it’s a chore amd the results are poor. I wouldn’t wish it on school children.
Cutting carboard with scissors? It can be done, but it’s a chore amd the results are poor. I wouldn’t wish it on school children.
Your tools probably suck.
Any knife and straight edge is faster and easier. Any warehouse worker knows this. Any compost bin is better than cat scratchers. Any environmentalist knows this.
For scissors I recommend Fiskars titanium nitride. Just yesterday they gave me a nice curve in 1/16th aluminum. Cardboard cuts like a hot knife through butter. And, I bet they cost less than the materials used in the tool in the OP.
Box knife reco: any metal housing without an auto-retract safety feature but with a retractable blade
Knife reco: Morakniv Companion: cheap, sharp, extremely versatile.
Aviation snips reco: Klein J1102S will take 12" cheater bars and be fine
Fence: use a metal level instead of a metal ruler to prevent mistakes
Learn how to make a jig for speed and accuracy in any repetive cutting task.
Well, I don’t think we’re on the same page. I’m not really into OP’s design, but I also don’t think that school children use Fiskars scissors.
Don’t know what’s wrong with cat scratchers. Cats love them, and if you use an environmentally friendly glue you can still compost them later.
I do have good tools at home, but I trully appreciate your recomendations - that’s rather wholesome of you, thanks.
For adults: box knife with a jig consisting of a fence and stop block
For children: auto-retract safety knife and add a second fence to keep the blade enclosed
A child learns nothing but dependance on stupid gadgets from the device in the OP.
I work with kids with significant disabilities who we keep in public school until they’re age 22. They do unskilled jobs and volunteer ‘work’ and safety is a big concern. If there are five students and one teacher at a table, a plastic device that automatically measures and has a hidden blade is going to be much better for them than scissors or box knives. Yes, we do need to teach children to safely use everyday items and for most kids that’s fine, but there are some for whom ‘just do it my way’ doesn’t work. Your life experience may not be the same as that of other people. Teach generally, but make space for the individual.
That’s great. Use this thing. It’s what I’d give my developmentally disabled 55 year old uncle as well.
But, it’s definitely not what I’d teach my child or the vast majority of other children. A typical child only needs a couple of safety accommodations relative an adult: an auto-reteact safety knife and a double fence.
PrimeErectiveGood luck getting consistent cuts while you’re freehanding. The idea is to make the nice flat cat scratching pad, and also being able to make the tool with the tool printer you have at home
I mean, you could make a jig to use a box cutter to make consistent width strips very easily with three pieces of scrap wood. But this commenter coming in here for the express purpose of trying to shit on 3D printer hobbyists was a stupid move on his part.
make a jig
You mean like the handheld jig seen in the demo?
I meant without printing anything, for anyone without access to a 3D printer. This was in response to the above comment about freehanding it.
To use an ordinary box cutter for this purpose all you need is something to use as an endstop and something to use as a fence, and they have to be parallel to each other.
Or a ruler. And make the strips the width of the ruler. The only “extra” needed is a cutting surface. This plastic gizmo simply eliminates the need for a work surface, nothing else.
I hope you only drink room temperature tap water. Any flavor makes you a hypocrite.
Your reasoning is so obscure very few will follow. CONSUME!
Hard disagree.
Honestly, my bigger gripe with the video is the little dots of hot glue. That feels like wouldn’t hold up (I’ve had cats disassemble store bought scratchers). I’d brush on flour paste or thinned down school glue for non-toxic full coverage. You could even mix in cat nip to encourage use.
My objection is that it’s needless consumption that sucks relative alternatives such as learning to use a box knife and starting a compost bin.
It's essentially just a jig to use regular utility blades to quickly cut strips of equal width.
And, it sucks relative a box knife, straight edge, and stop block. The only decent use case I’ve seen presented is for the small minority of developmentally disabled individuals that require extreme safety measures.
𞋴𝛂𝛋𝛆This looks a lot like trolling. The community here certainly doesn’t seem to care for it.
I don’t like what you’ve said so you’re a troll. We don’t serve your kind around here.
SMRT.
I found this one online from last year
STL files available on Thangs
This would work with regular shaped blades, right? Like this? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GIZ9164/
Yes any standard sized utility knife blades should fit. I tested a bunch of different brands from my local hardware store.
FYI those are stupid expensive. Your can get 50-75 for that price at your local hardware store.
Ceramic?