CAD Projects

💾 SW Side

When it comes to printing 3D designs, you will need a slicer. I’m using Cura, and for designs, well that’s a whole thing of it’s own.

You can find a lot of designs ready to print on a whole lot of websites, to name a few:

If you can’t find a suitable design, you can make your own with one of the many readily available CAD softwares. Among the ones I tried, these would be my notable mentions:

  • OpenSCAD: Hands down my absolute favorite (as of now) for creating parametric designs!
  • TinkerCAD: Used a few times, but mainly when it comes to combining different STL’s.
  • Slic3r: Good tool for splitting large models that don’t fit on your build plate, albeit might be outdated.
  • Fusion360/FreeCAD: Not really my cup of tea, way too many options and buttons, OpenSCAD had a much quicker learning curve. Fusion is kinda messy with the whole “cloud only” saves deal, and FreeCAD seems to bug out every now and then. I haven’t used em that much other than a few kitchen tools but maybe one day!

🛠 HW Equipment

Ender 3v2 🖨 with the following upgrades:

  • BL Touch probe
  • Metalic extruder
  • Most likely something else I don’t recall, been a while since I got this

Upgrades I should have but I probably won’t, as may be worth/cheaper upgrading to something better and faster:

  • Ferrules on screw terminals
  • SD2microsd
  • Dual Z axis motors

Quality of life tools:

  • Digital Calipers
  • Electric stove top scraping blade - best tool to clean my glass bed

My G-Code setup using Marlin on the mobo:

Start code 
; Ender 3 Custom Start G-code
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder

; Home Before Bed Level
G28 ; Home all axes

; Bilinear Mesh
G29 ; Auto bed-level (BL-Touch)
; M420 S1 F10; Load Saved Mesh

G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X0.1 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to start position
G1 X0.1 Y200.0 Z0.3 F1500.0 E15 ; Draw the first line
G1 X0.4 Y200.0 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to side a little
G1 X0.4 Y20 Z0.3 F1500.0 E30 ; Draw the second line
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X5 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move over to prevent blob squish
End code 
G91 ;Relative positioning
G1 E-2 F2700 ;Retract a bit
G1 E-2 Z0.2 F2400 ;Retract and raise Z
G1 X5 Y5 F3000 ;Wipe out
G1 Z10 ;Raise Z more
G90 ;Absolute positioning

G1 X0 Y{machine_depth} ;Present print
M106 S0 ;Turn-off fan
M104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend
M140 S0 ;Turn-off bed

M84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z