3D Printing: How to make anything

I've recently gotten into 3D printing, one of the newest fads. I'm not sure if it will catch on, or not. But I suspect it's here to stay. The process is pretty simple, you buy a box-type structure, or machine, with a fairly simple interface, and then it starts building things (literally anything you want). 

The way the machine works is by melting a spool of "filament", a.k.a. plastic and laying it out on a heated pad per specific guidelines you program into it. Those guidelines could be for a laundry machine part (so you don't have to buy it yourself), or a mini Romulan Warbird from the old Star Trek series. Recently, I built a little model of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul -just because I like it, and because I've never had the ability to see it in real-life. 

3D Printed Hagia Sophia

The process is not new. It's been around, and used to be called "additive manufacturing"; meaning that we're not taking a big chunk of material and sculpting it or molding it (leaving a lot of it to waist), we're only using exactly the amount of material needed to make the perfect object with nothing left-over -really cool idea! 

The specific printer I bought was a Creality brand printer. It cost fewer than $300 USD. It's an older model and has some minor issues, but generally it's f%#king great once you get used to it. I wouldn't recommend paying SO much if you're a first-time user. And, I'll stick with my current machine as long as it lasts. However, If I were to buy a new one in the future, I'd likely get THIS ONE. It's available on Amazon for (at this time) for roughly $600 USD. 

There are many pitfalls in 3D printing, all of which I won't get into -you often end up with a horrific cluster of molten plastic that looks like The Thing instead of what you wanted to make. But the basic rules are to make sure to level your build-plate, ensuring that it is perfectly, 100 percent upright before printing. AND, to ensure the temperature of both the build-plate and nozzle are set to the correct temperature for the type of material you're using: PLA (Polylactic acid), ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and Polylactic acid). 

Also, don't eat or drink from stuff made from PLA for some reason. Use a regular plate; I'd recommend buying it from TARGET!