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Exclusive 3D Printing experiment

It’s been a few years I saw these 3D Printers in the news, on Slashdot, however, the prices were never really accessible (just too expensive !)

Recently, my son has been begging me to find the company that makes the BeyBlades spin games, which basically are some spinning devices, used by kids to “battle”, as he couldn’t find whatever he wanted on the market.

This, linked with a PR about a device from XYZPrinting (the de Vinci printer), made me realize that finally the prices went down! A printer for around 400 GBP is a lot easier to buy. On Amazon.co.uk, it looked so small, that I didn’t even look at the description. I also bought some expensive cartridge (around 30 GBP each) of “coloured material”.

After a few days, it arrived!

First issue, I have understood that the picture was quite misleading, and that the machine is the size of a small sized fridge, which is not something that you can put easily on your desk.

After setting it up (unwrapping, removing stickers, papers, foam), plugging it in via USB to the computer, it got immediately detected. Now, the biggest issue, how to make 3D Models? From my actual knowledge, these software come in expensive. After a quick look on the internet, I found a very nice alternative for beginners like me: tinkercad. An online software, very easy to use, with basic and more complex shapes.

1 hour after starting, I created the “Dice of power”, which is basically a dice, featuring holes looking like an exclamation mark, a heart, a “X”, a “@” and a star, which all have a special meaning to me, for my crazy decision making process !

Inserting the colour filament into the printer was a bit difficult, but after some reading and tries, it was a success!

Using the XYZ printing tool, I did import the “STL” file generated by tinkercad, and for a 32x32mm Dice, a medium quality printing took around 35 minutes. The machine in itself was noisy, but obviously, first regular non-3D paper printers of the past, were even much noisier!

The Dice was done. Sadly, it didn’t come out as I would have wanted, the edges look rough and surely it’s not a product that could be sold as a Dice. However, as a very nice art form, it fits.

Therefore, I started to create beyblade’s parts, and amid the roughness, these fits perfectly into my son’s toys.

So, in summary, the XYZPrinter Da Vinci 1.0 is very good for personal use, amid the size, the noise and the finish of the products, but I would not use it for commercial uses (apart if I was an artist basically).

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