WTFFF?! 3D Printing Podcast: 3D Print Tips | 3D Print Tools | 3D Start Point

Today, we're going to talk cheap 3D printers. We were really impressed to find and to learn that there are some really cheap 3D printers out there. If that's your biggest limiting factor is cost. They’re kits though, we have to be really careful that most of the ones with the cheap prices and the one we're particularly talking about, the Lewihe. It stands for length, width, height, the first two letters of each. It's not bad looking for what is a $75 printer. It's a kit printer. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

This is a big episode. Seriously, the biggest 3D parts I’ve encountered are what we’re going to talk about today. I’m so excited about this episode. I really love Buddy Bernhard from Local Motors, which is who we are going to talk to. We’re going to talk cars, 3D printed cars if you didn’t guess already. He just has such a passion for 3D printing in general. I love the whole model, that you’ll hear as we go forward and listen to this episode, about really how open they are about sharing what they’re doing with 3D printing. They just are passionate about moving the market forward. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

In today's episode, Tom and Tracy Hazzard answer one of the most common questions they get asked. "Why should I buy a 3D printer? Should I buy a 3D printer? Is it for me?" They share their thoughts on what they think are the best reasons, and also some reasons not to buy one. They also share some of their personal experience with their daughter to show how buying a 3D printer may really be for you.   To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

Today, we've got another in our series of product reviews. It is a review of our experience with the Matter and Form desktop 3D Scanner. For those of you who have been following the podcast, that is a big deal if you've known us, if you've listened to a lot of episodes. We don't usually scan. We talk about that, I don't know how many times. It's a big deal. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

We've got a really good interview today that I think takes us further into the whole 3D scanning and creating a real product out of that exploration. I was at CEO Space, which is our networking and executive and entrepreneurship education forums we participate in quite a few times a year. They have five of them. We've done two this year or something like that already. It's just one of those things where you meet people and they know that we are in the 3D printing industry and they bring me things. LoraLee Harmon, who I absolutely love, she's a CEO Space Club President and such a great connector, excitedly runs up to me on the last day of CEO Space and has these 3D print figurines in her hand of a bride and groom. She had some with her. I'm sitting there looking at them going, "I've never seen this good quality before. The face's expression is there. The colors look vibrant." I was shocked at that and she goes, "I know this woman of 3DTransformations, Barbara Wood. Would you like to meet her? Maybe you could interview her." I go, "Maybe? We're definitely going to interview her. I may even go and order one of these for my daughter's wedding." She was explaining a little bit about Barbara Wood and 3DTransformations out of Charleston, South Carolina. It's more than figurine printing to me. She started the business with this vision of really helping to give people something to feel and touch about people they love. Especially, started out in helping the blind to be able to have a better experience through 3D prints of loved ones and things like that. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

In today's episode, Tom and Tracy Hazzard share their experience creating 3D printed wedding favors for their daughter's wedding. They talk about how much time it took to create the designs, to test print and iterate, and to do the actual printing. They provide tips that you can apply to your situation if you ever have to 3D print wedding favors or things of that nature for yourself, a friend or relative, or for your business. They also explain how 3D printing has added a very personal touch to the wedding that only 3D printing can provide.   To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

We are back. We were gone a lot longer than we thought. It was one of those things where in April, things just started to get overwhelming with everything that we have going on in our business, in our personal lives. We thought it was going to be a short hiatus and then it turned into a bit of a longer hiatus. We realized we’ve never taken a vacation from our 3D print podcast since we started it. We really appreciate your patience with us and that you're back with us as well. Thanks again guys, for all the support in the interim. We are going to do our very best to bring you great new episodes with lots of energy and lots of new angles and topics. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

We had a listener communicate with us over Facebook recently and leave what was the longest comment we’ve ever had to a post. It wasn’t just the longest, it was the most detailed and informational I've ever read on Facebook. This was in response to our recent episode sometime last month about 3D printed surface textures. Her name is Jen Davis-Wilson, who we actually realized we have a lot in common with once we talked to her. She used to work for IDEO, and has some great experience and insights to share. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

We have an interview today with Scott Tarcy of CAD Design Help. I love that we’re going to bring in somebody else who has a different CAD design view. Somebody else really who is trying to do something similar that we are in helping to be a resource for people interested in 3D printing in one way or another. His focus is a little more in the CAD side of things. It’s a bit of a cross section. He’s more of an engineer, actually is a degreed engineer, a mechanical engineer. He has worked inside a couple of different corporations, doing real serious engineering work on products. He’s complimentary to what we do on WTFFF and 3D Start Point and we thought it would be good to have him on. He’s a great resource and he’s got a podcast. It’s called The Engineering Entrepreneur Podcast. I think he’s 24 episodes into it or something at this point. I think it’s really an interesting model of who he’s talking to that’s very different than who we’re talking to. There’s plenty of room in the space for someone else with a little different perspective. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

We've been having a lot of CAD software and slicing software reviews in recent months. We're going to continue to do that because there's so many of them out there. Today's episode is a little different. We actually have an interview with a new startup company who's created a new CAD software called SelfCAD. This is a product that's been in beta for a little while. By the time this is published, it is fully released. We're going to talk with the CEO and creator, Aaron Breuer, who had decided to create SelfCAD, about why he did that. Honestly, I was a little surprised to see someone who's entrepreneurial going after what seems to be a really crowded market of CAD software. When you listen to him you can really understand why he did it. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

In October MakerBot launched their first new 3D printer in years, since the 5th Generation 3D printer was released back in 2013. Ever since the Smart Extruder+ was released in February, 2016, there has been hope that MakerBot, with the backing and resources of Stratasys, is on a path to deliver best in class products, and continue to be a leader in desktop 3D printing. Here at WTFFF!? and 3D Start Point, we were given the opportunity to work with MakerBot’s latest 3D Printer, the Replicator+, as soon as it was released. The testing for this 3D printer review has been conducted over the course of several months, more than 100 3D prints, and three large spools of filament.  So after all of this testing, has this new MakerBot 3D Printer proved to be a big step forward for the market leader, or is it just another incremental improvement? To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

We have a returning guest today, Buzz Baldwin from 3D Printlife. He’s got something new to talk about today, which is why we wanted to have Buzz back on, because so many things have changed. We saw him at CES earlier this year and said when he was ready to launch Life Support we would have him back on the show. Buzz illuminates what 3D Print Life Support is all about, and teh details of 3D Printlife's new Kickstarter Campaign. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

Today we’re talking flip-flops, sandals, 3D printed sandals. We haven’t been able to talk about it since we visited Wiivv Wearables’ factory a month and a half ago. We went down to San Diego and got to see their whole operations with how they make their custom fit insoles today, but they gave us a preview that we couldn’t talk about until now. We had such a great conversation with Shamil Hargovan of Wiivv Wearables almost six months ago now. We did our first interview podcast with him. As soon as we were done we were asking them, “When are you going to make flip-flops?” He was like, “When I come down to San Diego next, I will share something secret with you but you can’t air it.” So, we’ve been holding out. It’s only been maybe about six weeks since we were down there. We haven’t had to keep that secret too long. It was fun to not only see how they were currently making their flagship or their first product line that they’ve really refined that manufacturing process. For those who don’t remember or haven’t listened to that episode, we’re talking about their custom fit orthotic insoles. They fit the form of your foot. That’s what they primarily make in that factory in San Diego. They will be adding this new line to be making the Wiivv Wearable sandals. It’s really an interesting idea that they’re really looking at their factories not being 100% 3D printing. That’s going to come across a little bit in the interview with Shamil here. We are doing something a little bit out our ordinary course of Wednesday, because it’s a Wednesday podcast, and we’re adding an interview in here because we thought you should hear straight from Shamil about why they’re doing this and some of the great features that they built in. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

Today we wanted to respond to a listener’s email, who wrote in very recently, March 22nd. Actually, We also want to just point out, and this is a good example, that we do get your emails. We do get your social media posts. If you’ve got a question or a good suggestion for a podcast topic, please write in and let us know. We just may very well put it on the show and sometimes without much delay. I thought this one that wrote in just this past week was a really good one. Something we’ve touched on a little bit in some past episodes, but I think some of those episodes may be so old now that they’re not even really available on iTunes because we’re getting up there now in episodes. The subject is surface textures. This is written by Casey Snider. Casey wrote in about the idea of adding subtle or maybe shallow surface textures to 3D models for 3D printing. Casey is really looking for methods that would preserve an object’s basic geometry. Let's dive into this subject and review the best ways to do it! To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!

We had a rare opportunity to interview two current employees of MakerBot on the record about a lot of issues around not just the new printers, but really all the things that are surrounding the 3D printer that are going on within MakerBot to support the user. When they dove in, they talked about the fact that just upgrading the printer and solving features wasn’t really enough to support the user overall. Whether you’re a prosumer, an educator, a hobbyist, it doesn’t matter where you’re coming in from. It just wasn’t enough and they had to dive deeper into all of these areas, ecosystem and software and other things, to try and really make a more robust system. I think that in the world today of 3D printing, as a company, if all you’re doing is creating a 3D printer and shipping it and that’s all you want to do, or maybe also sell some filament, you’re really doing a disservice to the customer or you’re leaving it up to the customer to figure out the rest of it on their own. I think they may not have as much success. I certainly admire what they’re doing at MakerBot. We’re going to speak with Mark Palmer, who is Head of Experience Design at MakerBot, which is more of the hardware side of things in the world of MakerBot. We’ve spoken to Mark before. There’s a previous episode about it. We really talked more about the industrial design process and thinking about that. This is not a repeat by any means of that conversation, this goes beyond that and where MakerBot is today with all of the things they’re doing around the printer to support the users. We also have Andrew Askedall joining us for the first time. He’s the Senior Director of Product Design. Now, at MakerBot, he’s more on the software side of things and speaks with that knowledge and experience behind him. We get to hear a lot of different aspects today. To send us a message, go to 3dstartpoint.com or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our facebook or twitter! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!