Essential (and obscure) 3D printing tools and spares

by request your guide to the most essential and obscure tools and spares to keep your 3d printer running smoothly [Music] being a 3d printing enthusiast requires a lot of tinkering so it makes sense that i've had many requests to create a guide like this full of tools and spares to keep your 3d printer humming along if you're a beginner looking to establish a makerspace this video should be pretty useful for you but if you're experienced there's still two reasons you should watch firstly i've got some obscure tools at the end that might entertain you and secondly if i miss anything it's up to you to go to the comments and help your fellow viewers let's get into the list let's start with the tools that almost everyone that has a 3d printer will need and that's because when you get your 3d printer you're likely going to have to partially assemble it yourself beyond this you may do some upgrades or you just might need to pull things apart for general maintenance i think most 3d printers come with a basic set of hand tools so the question is which of these are up to the task and which of these should you probably replace the majority of fasteners on our 3d printers are metric socket cap bolts they're used to hold the frame together as well as bolting many of the components to the frame our 3d printer normally comes with allen keys but i would suggest that the quality of these is not really up to the task and you should look for a higher quality set these are three sets that i have that i've bought from a reputable hardware store we have metric imperial and metric again but this set has a ball end the difference between the two should be fairly obvious and the advantage of the ball head is that it allows a greater range of input angle when engaging the bolt every now and again this becomes really important here you can see i've got the allen key angled to clear the fan as i do up this bolt when you need something done tight however you should always switch to the flat side for maximum engagement so that's an l-shaped allen key but you can also get them with a screwdriver handle use an l-shaped allen key for long enough and you'll get pretty dexterous with it and you can use a single hand with your thumb rotating the end and you'll be able to work quite efficiently with this technique the straight key with handle however is always going to be more efficient and easier to do up fasteners quickly you won't be able to apply as much torque however so you're still going to need your l-shaped allen key for your final titan if you don't want to commit the space and money for a set of screwdriver handle keys one of these sets with multiple drivers can be a pretty good compromise an added bonus is that all of these drivers will fit into a drill or a rattle gun although i'd still recommend doing your final talking by hand so we've covered the bolt side but what about the nut it's rare but sometimes we need a spanner or a wrench for these nuts and one of the ones that comes with the printer is definitely a keeper the large end has two purposes the first is ptfe tube fittings the second is the eccentric nuts that we use to tension our v-rollers hold on to this spanner as this is an essential part of maintaining your 3d printer the smaller end typically matches the m5 nuts that hold on the v-roller assembly so it's handy for this too typically you'll have a smaller spanner which is designed to match the outside of the nozzle but i don't recommend using this more on that later in terms of additional tools i'd highly recommend getting a high quality adjustable wrench these will allow you to hold the heater block while you're doing a nozzle change without marking and damaging the outside now instead of using that little spanner for the nozzle we have some other options that work well for this job as well as other ones around the printer one set i rarely use are these individual spanners instead i much prefer this cheap socket set having all of the various sizes on display makes it convenient you should find the size you need for common things like nozzles and you can change the handle when you need a lot of torque or alternatively when you need to work quickly you can switch over to a screwdriver handle the other sockets aren't needed that often but for some nuts on the printer and even around your house this type of socket set will come in handy other general purpose tools are screwdrivers you'll need philips head flat head in a variety of sizes obviously not all fasteners on the printer have a hex head there's things like the screw terminals for wiring in main boards trim parts if you're altering your vref and don't forget the need for really little screwdrivers too these are sometimes needed for specific jobs such as calibrating abl sensors again a multi-set with its multitude of options can be a good alternative to buying individual screwdrivers as can one of these small electronic sets that will come with torx bits that you never know when you might need another good general purpose tool are pliers and again i recommend having a variety of sizes and shapes these really come in handy for odd jobs around your 3d printer by far my favorite tool in this category comes with your printer and it's the set of side cutters these are great for clipping and removing existing cable ties or snipping the tails off new ones you've just applied they're also excellent for cleaning up the end of your spool of filament before you reinsert it into the hot end i have them easily accessible in my filament drawer in fact i have a set of side cutters in each of my tool drawers and to close this section let's talk about organization try and have your tools easily accessible so you can grab what you need quickly this makes it easier to set up as well as pack up and remember you have a 3d printer so use it to print organizational tools to make your workflow more efficient next up some specific tools for the tuning and maintenance of your 3d printer let's start with the basics and if you're after the perfect first layer you need to get good at leveling the bed fortunately a humble piece of paper is sufficient to do this however some people prefer feeler gauges for this just make sure there's no oil or residue that's going to contaminate your bed lubrication is frequently overlooked and this synthetic grease is excellent for places like the lead screw and lead nut to ensure nothing binds and your printer is operating smoothly many calibration techniques rely on accurate measuring tools so let's go through them and some of their uses the humble ruler and marker is a great tool when calibrating e-steps both for marking the initial filament and then measuring how much is remaining many tests however require the use of vernier or digital calipers because we need high accuracy whether it's measuring the exterior dimensions of an object or measuring the wall thickness you want a set of calipers that has at least one decibel place preferably two so you can take accurate measurements less common is a dial gauge which measures linear movement very accurately the last time i used mine was back at the start of 2013 where i designed a mount to put it on the front of my solar doodle printer the idea is that if you can mount it squarely and accurately you can request repeated manual movements from the printer and then see how accurate they are on the dial gauge but generally most people will never need this another tool that's more of a luxury than a necessity is a sound level meter if you're tuning your printer to be as quiet as possible this will give you objective evidence rather than just relying on your ear if you are tuning the current set to your stepper motors and your driver's required manual setting of the vref then a multimeter is an invaluable tool i think most cheap generic ones will be accurate enough for this purpose but if you do spend a little bit more you'll likely get additional functionality such as measuring temperature which can be quite useful as well when this video has been requested a common topic that comes up is knowing what spares to have on hand over the years i've built up a significant amount of spares including electronic parts nuts and bolts and specific 3d printer parts but for most people you just don't need this much in terms of consumables some of the most important relate to your first layer and the bed whether it's ipa steel wool and paper towel for cleaning off imperfections and greasy fingerprints or another substance like hairspray or glue stick make sure to have these on hand so you don't get stuck i also think it's worth having spares on hand of whatever build surface you use whether that's build tack or pei build surfaces will eventually wear out and get damaged so why not have a spare on hand if using a new material it's nice to have an old sacrificial surface that you can experiment with ptfe tube is another good thing to have spares of as the tube will degrade over time especially when used in aligned hot end this tube can also fail from blockages or from the fitting cutting into it and making it weak this capricorn tube cutter is optional but a nice accessory to have it's also useful to have spare push fittings on hand these can wear and the little metal teeth can break off and once again they're really cheap so have some on hand so you don't get stranded i seem to have built up an enormous amount of old hot ends over the years but you really don't need this much nozzles are one part of the assembly that will eventually wear out if you don't want to spend big money on a hardened nozzle then just buy a series of cheap ones and sort them by size as far as the rest of the hot end goes thermistors heater cartridges as well as silicon socks are all handy to have spares of especially if you have a long print dislodge while you're not around and have the dreaded blob of filament build up around the hot end even if you're careful heating up the hot end and removing this blob it's very easy for the wiring to be damaged cooling fans is something else i consider a consumable and i have mine here sorted by voltage i like to keep spares of stock fans because they inevitably get noisy and fail and i like to keep larger blower fans handy in case i want to upgrade my part cooling system if your printer uses v-rollers you might like to keep some spare rollers on hand in case you have flat spots and it's also worth mentioning that micro sd cards are small and can be easily lost so maybe have some spares on hand as well your 3d printer will likely come with some spare nuts and bolts it's a good idea to measure the diameter and length of these and use them as the start of a collection of spares particularly if you like doing printer upgrades the most common sizes are m3 through to m8 and here's a sample of what i keep on hand for m3 washers aren't commonly used on 3d printers but it's still good to have them often they're valuable as spaces there are two types of nut i prefer locking nuts as they don't come loose from 3d printer vibrations even so i keep a good amount of both on hand as for bolts i keep an assortment of various lengths labeled for quick access this also includes specialty types such as grub screws which are commonly used in the pulleys of the belt systems on our 3d printers finally t-nuts are good to have on hand for modifications if your printer uses v-slot extrusion using short bolts with t-nuts is the most convenient way to mount custom parts to the frame anything i stumble across that's not conventional goes into here and trust me i've been saved many times by these odds and ends sets of nuts and bolts are cheaply available online but you'll probably find you have better quality if you visit your local hardware store next up is wiring and not everyone does it so i'm going to move quickly here we'll start wiring with wires and you can visit your electronics store to buy them on a spool i also reclaim them from old printers and parts and i keep them sorted depending on how many sets of wires there are in this example we have 4 3 and then ribbon cables whether you're soldering or crimping a good set of wire strippers is invaluable simply place it in and squeeze with one hand insulation gone wire ready to use if you're soldering you will need a soldering iron the good thing about this one is it's cordless which means i can carry it around to the printer and that's really convenient some quality solder from your electronics store will help a lot as will one of these tip cleaners they keep old solder and other debris off the tip for reliable usage once you're finished soldering you're going to want to insulate your wires with some heat shrink and to go with that i'd recommend a lighter or small torch if you don't want to solder but instead crimp on your own connectors to keep everything looking like factory you can buy kits for achieving just that this one here being for dupont connectors they come with the metal female connectors as well as the metal male connectors and then plastic housings in a variety of configurations to suit whatever job you're undertaking you will of course also need a crimping tool for crimping the metal pieces onto the end of your wiring is a less common tool it's just a pointy little pick using a pick or any other really narrow pointy object you can press down on the metal pins and release each wire from the plastic connector they can then be reinserted in the correct position allowing you to change the wiring in a plug without cutting anything since we're on wiring let's look at another mode of our multimeter and that is testing continuity in this mode the display will give a reading when electricity can flow between the two probes this is handy when we're trying to match up two pins in a loom or make sure that the wiring in between is still unbroken finally when our wiring's done we're going to want to protect it with some sort of sleeving or spiral wrap after that we can then use cable ties to constrain the positioning of the looms against the printer before coming back to our old friend the side cutters to snip off the tails so how about post-processing when we clean up a finished print it should go without saying that the most important tools are personal protective equipment for your eyes ears and lungs but not every project requires this type of work and therefore hazardous mess so let's go back and start with some basics if you're not using a modern build plate system on your printer then removing prints is likely going to need a scraper you can get tools however that don't have sharp edges and make removing such prints a lot easier the idea is that you only use the scraper to get the edge up and then you slide these tools underneath the print to release them and because the edges aren't sharp it's much less hazardous i reviewed these tools as part of a larger 3d printing set from amx 3d and it also included a set of pliers for removing support a series of other wooden handle tools for prying off support and other odds and ends a set of cutting tools including three handles and a multitude of blades as well as a small matching cutting mat the construction of these blades is all metal and they've held up really well over time for me the combination of these tools has worked extremely well for the removal of support material generally i'll start with the pliers and then move to the wooden handle tools to pry off other chunks and then the blades if need be to get the surfaces smooth while we're cleaning up prints let's not forget the humble drill and drill bits 3d printers often print holes undersized so the drill is handy for getting the round and accurate again let's turn our attention to the process of sanding to remove layer lines ready to print everyone knows about sandpaper but not everyone knows about these sanding sponges the abrasive is bonded onto each side but in the middle is like a kitchen sponge this makes them easy to grab with your hand but they'll also form around rounded contours to help conform to the surface tools i use less often are a series of small files as well as a cordless dremel tool one great shortcut to remove stringing is using a heat gun or hair dryer to simply melt away the fine wisps of filament portable hair dryers are cheap and can save you a bunch of time one last gem is this small deburring tool let's say you had a print with some elephant foot and you wanted to remove that edge this deburring tool does a tremendous job on printed plastic it's not particularly sharp to touch with your finger but it's very effective in removing thin shavings off the edge let's say we want to measure design and model our own parts if we're measuring existing objects to 3d model around it's hard to go past digital calipers but this time we don't quite need the same accuracy so a cheaper set that only goes to one decimal place will suffice when designing unusual shapes there's nothing to stop you using foam or cardboard to make a mock-up of your object and once you know it fits use a simple ruler to take key measurements to translate to cad it's also worth taking reference photos with a normal ruler in shot most cad programs will let you import pictures and the ruler will help you scale them correctly so you can design accurate parts that fit your intended purpose if you're designing around an existing 3d part there's no need to print it out just to measure it free programs like mesh mixer have built-in measuring tools to help you establish wall thickness as well as the distance between two phases our last category is for the obscure unusual and those that don't fit into the other categories let's start with the humble toothbrush for whatever reason let's say that your hobbed gear is grinding filament there's nothing better than a toothbrush for cleaning up the debris and particularly for getting in between those tiny gaps in between the teeth in the hobbed gear on some printers you can do this without any disassembly it's rare but sometimes a rubber mallet is the right tool for the job sometimes a tight assembly needs a little persuasion and using a rubber mallet allows you to be gentle but thorough also suitable for inducing artificial layer shifts when testing closed-loop stepper motors how about a miniature metal walking cane let's say you have some brittle filaments snap off down in the hot end and you won't be able to get it out without disassembly with a metal rod just skinnier than the diameter of the filament you can feed it through pushing the broken piece of filament through the heater block and out the nozzle which means the new roll of filament can be loaded up as usual the nozzle then primed and ready to print but what good could some equal size wooden blocks be unfortunately quite often when i'm loading filament into the cr-10 max i managed to push down and move the gantry so it's no longer horizontal since this printer has a solidly mounted bed i put the wooden blocks on either side and manually twist the two z lead screws until the blocks are touching the underside of the excantry on both sides this next one's not so obvious but applies to many situations and that's having sufficient light i use these cordless portable ryobi work lights for all of my filming they twist into different shapes including hanging up by the inbuilt hook and they sit nicely on the ground if you're looking for a dropped bolt or if you just need to see how badly a vacuum is needed last but not least an old plastic id or credit card even after you run out of money these are very useful they're great for smoothing on pei sheets and stickers and if you happen to be calibrating for linear advance a card like this is ideal for removing all of the fiddly bits from your build surface without damage and it's equally effective at quickly removing priming lines as well as skirts who would have thought there are some items not on this list because they're not so glamorous but they are essential as with any electrical appliance there's always a risk of fire so don't forget things like fire blankets fire extinguishers and of course smoke alarms that's my list done if i've missed anything please write it down below in the comments apart from that thank you so much for watching until next time happy 3d printing it's michael again if you like the video then please click like if you want to see more content like this in future click subscribe and make sure you click on the bell to receive every notification if you really want to support the channel and see exclusive content become a patron visit my patreon page see you next time

Channel: Teaching Tech

Views: 172,734

Rating: 4.9336567 out of 5

Keywords: 3d printing, 3d printer, 3d printed, 3d print, creality, ender 3, tools, spares, spare parts, guide, assembly, disassembly, tinker, mod, modification, upgrade, allen keys, wrench, spanner, screwdriver, bolts, hardware, fastener, meshmixer, post processing, maintenance, tuning, calibration, calipers, measurement, sanding, accurate

Id: XBoXp31PCo8

Length: 21min 36sec (1296 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020