I have written about his before, but have not got around to printing it.  So this weekend I’m at the AEC Hackathon hosted by Facebook.  There are lots of toys here including a few 3D printers.  Now is my chance to try 3D printing for the first time.

I grabbed the .stl 3d digital file from  makerbot thingverse. Credit C Perlman for this.  You can also buy one from his site.  So first step, downloading this .stl file.  Done.

One thing I could have done is opened this file in a 3D editor and made some modifications, however,

Next, I need to get this file to the printer.  The good people from Cubify brought 3 3D printers.  I put the .stl file on a usb stick and walked it over there.  They then opened their custom application and converted from .stl to .cube format used for their printers.  This file is the conversion from 3D to 2D layers building up into the 3D object.  Save.

Next we take the USB to the printer and the magic happens.   In this case it is a simple PLA plastic material coloured grey.  Perfect for the grey Pebble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The total printing time was around 2 hours.  Not too bad.

And here is the final result!  I can take some soft sandpaper and smooth it out, or I could paint it which would do that same thing.  However, I like the raw layered look.  The whole process was extremely easy.  Not that I ever thought 3D printing was hard, but now that I have gone from file to finish, I want to print something else!