Mistakes 3D Pen Users ALWAYS Make

I get a lot of comments and questions about how to use a 3d pen on my channel I also search around to see what creations and art people are making with their 3d pens through all this I've noticed a number of the same mistakes 3d pen users almost always make and believe me I'm totally included in this as well because I've made all these mistakes myself my goal with this video is to point out some of these areas and then give tips on how to avoid them the five main areas I'm going to talk about are trying to draw completely up in the air pushing out too much filament sticking and not sticking to surfaces combining different methods and what to use at the center of three pen creations let's start off by talking about one of my biggest pet peeves with 3d pen marketing drawing up in the air I bet you've seen them videos and thumbnails using a 3d pen to draw straight up into the air unaided for example here's my marketing clip for a new 3d pen introducing the world famous potent printables pen about PPP wait a minute that doesn't sound quite right well what they don't show you is how long and how many attempts it takes to get that one clipper picture I'm gonna take you behind the scenes and show you that this technique is very difficult to do and quite unreliable the biggest problem is that you need long pauses to let the filament harden if you don't pause for long enough this happens note that I'm calling out where I've used editing to speed up these cliffs most attempts end with an outright fail like this or they end up looking completely distorted this will be the last one I show where I make the full pyramid shape here's that long pause where I also have to move the pen upward very slowly so the filament doesn't sag note that I'm not talking about going from point to point between two solid surfaces which is a different technique called bridging this is a more advanced technique that is actually achievable and very useful so how do we avoid the marketing hype and make some cool 3d shapes and structures well we do that in a number of ways the first option is to pen flat pieces over a stencil and then assemble them into a 3d shape there are lots of free stencils available or you can even make your own the second option is to pen over different materials or build up the plastic layer by layer I talked more about this later in the video in the info section finally you can even use cardboard or a pencil to support your creation of 3d structures this is essentially using bridging to make what you want this next one is probably one of the hardest things to get used to when using a 3d pen heck I still make this mistake to this day what is it it's pushing out too much filament when trying to pend something this is also called overt extruding and it looks like blobs within or if the start and ends of what you're penning why is this so difficult well think about what you have for control and pay attention to as you use a 3d pen you have to press and release the extrude button at the right times you have to move your hand in the right path starting and stopping at the correct positions in addition you have to move your hand at the correct speed and often you have to do most of these things at the same time a 3d printer automatically controls all these factors I just talked about and has better motors than a tiny 3d pen does so yeah no shame in struggling with this one let's talk about tips to deal with this the first tip is to make sure you're using the correct motor speed for what you're trying to accomplish if you're trying to push out a lot of material for a pretty rough layer or feature prank that speed up or if you're trying to make a small delicate feature turn the speedway down I change speeds all the time when making something getting to know your pen and what the different speeds are can help a ton the next tip is something that is super important to 3d penning and that is hand speed if you move your hand too fast or too slow or into jerky a manner it can have a huge impact on your extrusion results finding the right hand speed and being able to move at that speed consistently can have a great payoff you can also plan out the path on your model to hide the start and end wear over a solution often shows up these blobs can also be smoothed away if you have a smoothing tool the last tip to deal with over extrusion is to know that it's coming for example when making this teeny tiny rafts I knew that the start and end of each line would suffer from over extrusion so I penned out extra of each line and then trimmed off the end points with my flush cutters voila a great-looking miniature raft with no blobs at the ends probably the most common mistake that I see people asking about is having filament stick either too much or too little in terms of sticking too much my main tip for this is to tape wax paper over the stencil that you're using the wax paper holds the filament in place really well and then once it's cooled allows it to peel off smoothly without bringing parts of the paper with it here's a direct comparison of the two methods you can see the difference is night and day another tip for adhesion issues is that having the temperature too high can lead to the filament sticking more than it needs to you can see how important it is to find the right temperature for a specific filament and remember that each brand and type of filament is different not all PLA will use the exact same temperature so don't be afraid to adjust up and down by a few degrees for not sticking enough it usually means that you're trying to pan onto something that is really smooth filament sticks best to services that are not smooth in fact the rougher the surface the better if you do need depend on something that is super smooth like clay porcelain or glass try using hairspray or petting on blue painters tape both of these things help film and stick by making the surface rougher another reason for not sticking as our old friend speak and roll if you're moving your hand do quickly it can make the filament less likely to stick try slowing your hands beat down the next mistake is more of an assumption I see a lot of people make they assume everything in the model has to be done with a 3d pen I've even seen people calling others out for mixing methods I really disagree with this and in the end I feel that people should use whatever they want to to make something they're happy with let's take a look at some examples lots of models involve adding small intricate details to a face many times I use a pencil to sketch out the detail and get it just right pencils also allow you to erase if you make a mistake then I'll use fine tip permanent markers which come in a variety of colors to complete the details I feel like the end product is way better than if I would try to add them using a 3d pen some other examples are using paint or fabric or any number of other supplements you can find at a craft store to your model I would really urge you to explore and find what works best for you for the creation you're trying to make that's a lot of what I do on my channel experiment and try to show you some of the methods that work best for me hoping to save you some time and effort this leads me to the final common mistake I see people making they make the insides of the creations completely out of filament in 3d printing the insides of a printed object is called the infill the insides of the object are not made solid because it would take way more time to make and it would use up a lot more filament which would end up costing additional money the same applies to 3d penning instead of wasting time and money filling the insides of large objects with plastic let's use some of these different infill methods I'm about to show you my favorite type of infill at this point is using some type of foil the reason I like this is that it's very easy to mold into complex shapes you can also use regular paper as infill but it doesn't hold its shape nearly as well which can be annoying to work with for both of these you need to cover the final shape with blue painters tape to pen over in order to start the foundation for a nice surface if you need a more regular surface like a sphere or a cube you can pen over a Styrofoam objects a bunch of different styrofoam shapes are available at your local craft store so go check those out for more ideas of what you can buy and once again I cover these with blue painters tape so the filament sticks well to it finally get creative with the different shapes you can use you can use pretty much anything that painters tape will stick to here I use some PVC pipe to make a nice-looking cylindrical object so what's the answer to the question in the video thumbnail in my opinion is that trying to 3d pen up into the air is a waste of time focusing on learning other better techniques is the way to go I hope these tips will save you from making the most common mistakes I see being made by 3d pen users and if you've already made most of these mistakes like I have hopefully you found some good ideas on how to prevent them in the future do you have another common 3d pen problem or mistake you want to see me do a video on leave me a comment down below and I'll see what I can do if you're interested in learning more on how to use a 3d pen check out this tutorials playlist which covers all skill levels finally don't forget to subscribe if you want more 3d been content thanks for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Potent Printables

Views: 203,428

Rating: 4.8663993 out of 5

Keywords: 3d pen, 3d pen mistakes, 3d pen common mistakes, 3d pen tips, 3D pen tutorial, 3d pen techniques, 3d printing pen, 3d printer pen

Id: PIuNVow6QNM

Length: 9min 15sec (555 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 26 2020