Hello World

Hi everyone!  My name’s John and I’m a 3d printing enthusiast.  I figured a fitting first blog post would be to talk a little about my background and how I got into 3d printing.  The biggest 3d printing influence in my life has been the Invention Studio at Georgia Tech (inventionstudio.gatech.edu) (and the fantastic people in it!!).  It’s an awesome student-run makerspace that Georgia Tech has with 40-50 3d printers, among other awesome tools.

Specifically, I served as a 3d print master in the Invention Studio for almost 2 years.  As print master, I was one of 2 people responsible for fixing all 36 of our Up Mini and Afinia H480 3d printers, running jobs on the more advanced 3d printers (more about those later!), training everyone on advanced printer usage and good design practices for 3d printing, and generally keeping the space in order.

Because of my time at the Invention Studio, I have been exposed to (and had a lot of experience using and fixing!) so many 3d printers:

• Up Mini
• Afinia H480
• Up Box
• Formlab Form1+
• Leapfrog CreatrXL
• Makerbot Replicator 2
• Makerbot Replicator
• Makerbot Z18
• Hyrel Engine
• Hyrel System30M
• Mcor Iris

I’ve cadded multiple things for printing (and successfully printed them), so I’ve learned a fair bit on my journey.

So, by now, you’re probably asking “why is he telling me all this?” or “why do I care?” :).  Basically, I want to use this blog to chronicle my 3d printing experiences over the past few years and help pass the experience on to either individuals looking to get a printer, or other organizations looking to start a 3d printing-focused makerspace.

I’ll feature projects I’ve done, what I’ve learned by doing said projects, and projects I will do in the future.  My future projects will all be done on the Hyrel Engine, so future projects will talk a lot about my experiences printing with that printer.  However, understanding why I have chosen the Hyrel Engine as one of my personal printers involves knowing my opinions about the other printers I have worked with as well, so stay tuned for an in-depth evaluation of everything!!

Any questions, feel free to use the “contact” page!

John