3D-printing design suggestions
2I have an idea that I would like to get 3D printed, but I have pretty much ZERO graphic design experience. I have access to a 3D-printer through a co-worker, but I need help putting the actual design together.
Is there a design website that’s both super-noob friendly and free (or reasonably cheap) where I could work on getting this thing put together?
- 11 comments, 11 replies
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Tinkercad is free, web based, and great for basic design stuff.
Depends on what you’re trying to do. Sketchup is free and very noob friendly, mostly built for people who want to make a 3D model of their house, but you can work your way up to more complex things. I learned 3D modeling with that and then worked up to Blender (also free, but much more complicated. Kinda like MS Paint vs Photoshop)
maybe get some modeling clay and gold spay paint
Fusion 360 is also free, but apparently not easy to learn. I have it downloaded but I haven’t had time for tutorial yet.
Windows now has Paint 3D. You can make files in that now. Who knew. I fiddled around with it for a few minutes and it seemed easy enough.
Honestly, you can probably find a helix STL file, an S and a G and just smush them together and call it a day.
/Me goes searching
Here’s one of many helixes that are already created. You should be able to import this into whatever program you use to design it and smush an S into it.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2300772
I consider myself at the hobby skill level with Fusion 360, which has free licenses for students and hobbyists. However the learning curve has several steep spots.
The design you posted looks too thin on the sides of the helix to print free standing. Plus free standing letters will be difficult to attach to a necklace. You will need a large disk to either cut the letters into (but not all the way through), or to extrude the letters out of.
@fibrs86 this. I didn’t read it earlier somehow. An easy shortcut would be to emboss the design into a disk printed in whatever color you like. Spray paint the whole thing gold then after it dries sand the surface down leaving a smooth medallion with an embossed gold $G
@djslack @fibrs86 probably want to sand first then paint.
@Ignorant you’re going to need to get the rest of that gold off somehow, unless you want a solid gold medallion. Which is more pimp but less contrasty.
@djslack if you want a smooth 3D print there will need to be sanding before painting, can follow that with more sanding if needed.
@Ignorant oh, yeah, I wasn’t addressing that. So to do it completely properly, one should:
Sand it
Paint it
Sand it some more
Wear it
Sand it
Wear it
Paint it
Sand it
Wear it
Repeat as necessary until it ages out of the system or runs for political office.
@djslack that looks correct now.
I would recommend wet sanding.
@djslack @Ignorant
Needs more Daft Punk
If that picture you posted is the actual design you want, I can take a stab at it. Basically you drop the picture into 360 as a canvas and draw on top of it, then extrude to your heart’s content. I might be able to pound that out tonight. How big do you want it?
Edit: I’ll play with it a bit, but I would just smoosh the G to the left a bit so it’s touching the $, or if that looks terrible, add some sort of supports from one piece to the other. When you paint the whole thing gold, just paint the supporting parts black.
For pendant purposes, it might actually be cool if you just extrude this 2d design to have a little thickness rather than do a full on double helix. Place and scale the helix so the crossing points overlay the S to avoid weak points, and make the helix slightly thicker than the S so it appears over it the entire way. That would be an easy cheat to designing it.
If structure is a problem and supports look funny, lay the whole thing on a medallion circle. You can then paint it multiple colors to make it stand out, or even layer the print in say silver and gold filament.
We called our photography teacher in high school T-Money whether he liked it or not. He was in his 60s so probably didn’t care for it at all but he rolled with it with a decent sense of humor.
The back-story: my freshmen students this year have asked if they can call me G-money as a nickname (I usually introduce myself as Dr. G). I politely declined for classroom decorum purposes, but I would like to put together a costume that can run with their nickname.
I want to design a large pendant for a necklace that is a $G, but the cross line on the dollar sign is a DNA double helix. Kinda like this:
That’s my quick and dirty 2D sketch for my idea. Any help y’all can give is greatly appreciated. And if you have any design suggestions or considerations I need to make let this noob know!
@thejackalope for structural integrity the base pairs might be thin in the design, so just make sure they’re not minuscule when you make the model. Otherwise, your design is not too complicated for a 3D print, so sketchup (or possibly there might be some phone/web apps?) might be great for it. Good luck!
I believe, if you have a flat image like the one you posted you can drop it straight into a slicer and it will make it 3d. though I think you’d need to work on it a bit to make it a single piece
@spitfire6006006 if you drop flat images into the slicer I believe they only make lithophanes.
When you get to the point where you want to invest time into learning how to design your own stuff may I suggest Autodesk’s AutoCad? It’s free to students and teachers. But be warned, it has a fairly high learning curve.
@Mehrocco_Mole Autodesk also makes Fusion 360. It’s a little weird that they compete with themselves, but Fusion 360 is also free for non-students, so I don’t complain.
Thanks everyone for all the replies! I have started playing around with things in TinkerCad and Paint3D to see which one I can figure out best. This has all been very helpful!