Back in April of 2021 I had just got a 3D printer and was getting bored printing other people’s designs.

I decided to learn CAD myself, fusion 360, it was quite a steep learning curve at first!

The first thing I made was version 1 of this joint and lighter case for kayaking. The top of the case looked like a frog face so I called it the FrogCase 🐸. I posted about it on Reddit at the time just to show it off and a bunch of people wanted the model and wanted me to print it for them.

So a business was accidentally born 😂 I started writing down people’s info in a spreadsheet but then eventually gave in and made a Shopify store.

The beauty of 3D printing is that you are not stuck making one product forever. The sales slowed down after a couple years, but the phone cases I made started picking up!

Don’t get me wrong the most I ever made in a month was $1,000 (average is $300). I’m definitely not getting rich off this but it’s letting me save a tiny bit in this wild cost of living area. And it’s fun to make new products!

Some of my products were born from suggestions from people who do not have the time or know-how. I love being able to bring something from an idea to a thing you can hold and that functions well. It really builds a sense of self-efficacy that I needed.

If you are at all interested in creating your own designs from scratch I suggest you start today! Start small, just watch some videos and lurk in different CAD subs, eventually it will start making sense. Before long you will be able to go from idea to prototype in your hands in an hour. It feels like magic.

I have completely ditched Reddit so I will be here now solely! Please let me know if I post too much lol

If anyone wants the Frog Case files, or the king size version, just let me know and I’ll send you each a one-time link. I just don’t want to have it permanently hosted online just in case.

  • akilou@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    8·
    3 months ago

    I love it. I’m waiting for my bonus to come in at the end of the FY and I’m going to buy myself a 3d printer. In the mean time I’m shopping around for different CAD software to figure out the best balance between learning curve, features, and price. Nothing in the sweet spot yet.

    Keep posting!

    • 4lan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      Thanks!

      Well price is easy, Fusion 360 is free for personal use! Any idea what kind of printer you’re looking at?

      • akilou@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        3 months ago

        Yes but I’m finding that it makes me save my projects to their cloud which makes me feel like they’re trying to lock me in. And that I’d need internet access to work on a project.

        Anyway, I’m pretty set on getting the Bambu Labs A1 with the AMS. But I’m open to having my mind changed.

        • 4lan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          yeah that part is not ideal. you can save your projects as Step files as well so they are locally editable. I agree it isnt ideal though.

          until you switch computers and boom you have all your projects.

          That is an excellent choice for multicolor printing. Just keep in mind the hardware is proprietary so you can only get parts from Bambu. Nozzles, specifically. For tinkerers I’d suggest a creality K series, it gives you root access to change everything about how it works. Bambu if you want it to ‘just work’

        • IMALlama@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          I’m going to second fusion 360 here. Yes, it is cloud based but if you really want to you can save the .f3d files locally as well, in addition to the step files. I’ve tried a few open source alternatives and none have really come close :(

    • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Give onshape a look. If you’re using it personally it’s free, only all your save files are public. There’s a lot of free training courses that are really well done and easy to work through.

  • Ringmasterincestuous@aussie.zoneEnglish
    7·
    3 months ago

    One of my favourite communities on lemmy! Love the post, love the comments!

    I don’t think you will be and certainly hope, you’re never told you post too much!

    The more of this the better!! 👏

    • 4lan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      4·
      3 months ago

      I did worry about the back to back posts haha

      I’ll only share stuff I think y’all will like I promise 😊

      Also I love troubleshooting so you’ll see me in the comments more giving suggestions

  • 4lan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    7·
    3 months ago

    I just realized I gave no details about the actual design 😂

    The body of the one in the picture is co extruded red green blue silk filament, fuzzy skin enabled (0.1, 0.25) The cap leash is made from TPU and glued in place.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    First thing I ever designed from scratch was a stash box… Thing. Not really a box but it held vape carts, a stash jar, lighter and matchbook, my pipe and my battery along with dab accessories.

    Really need to make a new one though. Don’t have the same pipe or battery anymore. Not even sure I still have the original print packed away when I moved to share a pic. I will say, having some calipers to measure funky shaped things is handy, though.

    • IMALlama@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Calipers and a radius gauge will take you far with modeling around every day objects. If the thing you’re trying to model around happens to be flat, a flatbed scanner with a ruler on it (so you can scale the scan correctly in the CAD program of your choice) is also pretty powerful.

    • 4lan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      I put off getting calipers way too long, makes the prototyping process so much faster!

      That’s awesome I’ve tried some similar stuff! I made an insert for a wood box I have to hold my lighters ashtray pieces and weed jars.

    • 4lan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      I guess I just have to find a way to answer three questions with two answers 😂

      Creality K1 Max is my main printer the texture is a feature called “fuzzy skin” that is in most slicers (I use orca)

  • andylicious1337@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    looks really cool and I like the solution with the attachment of the lid to the box. is the white filament tpu?

    also thx for leaving reddit and it is amazing, how nice people are here compared to r/3dprinting, where you post stuff and all the comments are like “who needs this”…

  • IMALlama@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    Welcome! I remember this design popping up on reddit. It’s nice to hear that you were able to make some side money off it and pivot into other things to keep the income stream going.

    TBH, I wouldn’t hesitate to post. Lemmy in general is pretty quiet. I chalk that up to a combination of a fairly small user base and having a ton of communities out of the gate - probably too many for the size of the user base. As is usual, there are plenty of lurkers and if you post content they find interesting they’ll come out of the woodwork to comment and upvote. I’ve managed to find a few communities that match some of my interests and do my best to contribute content, although 3D printing is a bit harder because it takes more effort for me to make what I consider meaningful content. I have considered lowering my standards to see if generates some activity though.

    Overall, the vibe here feels a bit like the earlier days of reddit. Lots of techies with a handful of normies thrown in. Since Lemmy is FOSS, the user base does lean more toward the FOSS side of things than reddit, which is somewhat nice in that I’m thinking about FOSS a ton more than I was a year ago.

    • 4lan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Foss is a lifestyle to me :) slowly cutting out everything proprietary I love that side of the community

      I’m definitely going to make high effort posts here moving forward. I hope to spark more people to join in, snowball effect!

      • IMALlama@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        I’ll happily comment! Hopefully that will spark some others. If/when I make something interesting or mess around with my printer I’ll be sure to post it here. Meanwhile, !beebutts@lemmy.world and a few other gardening and photography related communities are right up my alley.

  • Boozilla@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    This is very cool.

    I have printed a few functional things with my resin printer. Like some pieces I designed in Blender that I needed in order to make some minor repairs to stuff around the house. Was really fun using calipers to measure, come up with a design, and puzzle it all out.

    It’s much easier than modeling for games or animation, because you can make objects out of multiple overlapping simple shapes, and don’t have to worry about mesh geometry. The slicer will just convert the layers into 2d slices.

    And I’ve made some custom gifts, too. Put people’s names on things, stuff like that.

    But 99% of my prints are miniatures for tabletop gaming.

      • Boozilla@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        It is messy. Requires careful handling and procedures. Stinky, too. Best to do it in a garage or shed. Some people build ventilation systems and tent it.

  • Today@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Thank you for sharing! I talked to a friend about 3d printing on Tuesday, saw the cardboard cutter here Wednesday, and then ordered my first printer that afternoon. My Ankermake M5c arrives Tuesday. I’m super excited but i know nothing, so these ‘how I got started’ posts are very encouraging. I see people talk about Tinkercad. How is it? As someone who is completely new and not a tech person, is that the easiest place to start? Once i get the hang of printing patterns i find online, i want to make scary face parts for a pumpkin (think Mr. Potato Head) and spiral notebook covers with funny sayings. It doesn’t matter how bad the pumpkin face parts are - they’re just going on my porch for a couple of weeks and meant to look weird. I think the only hard part on the notebook covers will be getting the spiral holes correct and getting 20 made by Christmas for my coworkers. Sorry for rambling - I’m just excited and clueless and found your share encouraging. If i make a post asking people to share pics of their first items/ideas, would that be annoying?

    • 4lan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Congrats!!

      I just started with fusion360 so I can’t speak to tinkercad’s ease of use. Take it slow and make some simple stuff to begin with, like 3d letters or a guitar picks. YouTube is a treasure trove of CAD info if you get stuck

      The spiral notebook cover will actually be easier than you might think. You just need to count the holes and the distance between the top and bottom hole, then make a ‘pattern’ of holes that goes between those points.

      This might be daunting right now, but Hueforge would be perfect for the designs on the front. You could do full color detailed pictures!

      If you have any trouble reach out to me and I can help!

      Here is a Hueforge I did, they are only 1-2mm thick which is perfect for a notebook front.