Design for 3D Printing

Design for 3D Printing

Instructor: Shelly Bartlett-Farrell

Wednesday -9:00am – 5:00pm 

The sky’s the limit when it comes to designing and printing your own miniatures. You don’t even have to own your own 3D printer! You can send your designs to small companies to print for you, or you can use a printer at your local maker space. Whether you want to use a 3D print as your canvas, part of a mixed-media project, or to stand alone, you are limited only by your own ideas and creativity, as long as the design is within certain parameters.

We will learn to design miniatures for 3D printing, within those parameters, using a computer assisted design (CAD) program and prepare the design for printing using a slicer. We will begin with unboxing and setting up a physically present resin printer and a virtual filament printer. Understanding how the printers work is essential to good design.

This class is a general overview on using the 3D printers themselves, including tips and tricks for printing. However, calibrations for each 3D printer vary widely depending on the type of printer, including make and model, types of resin and filament used, as well as the printing environment. Even identical models vary. We will touch on these variations, but the main focus of this class is design for printing.

We will design miniatures from a simple vase to a lamp with complex shapes. Students will leave this class with skills they can immediately use for their own designs. While we will not be printing the lamp in class, we will observe it being printed virtually, including all steps leading to a final print. Students will receive a pre-printed 1:12 scale lamp to finish in the last part of the class.

Within a week prior to class, students will receive an email containing links for downloading the CAD and slicer programs, as well as pictures we will use for design.

IGMA Members $192.00 / Non-Members $202.00

Max. Students: 15