Ever since I moved to the new house, I’ve been getting a lot more use out of my 3D-printer; it’s easier to access and its noise disturbs me a lot less, now. I’ve also come to the conclusion that I find it more pleasing to practice my skills in Fusion 360 and print functional items instead of decorational items or toys – I am a complete noob, still, when it comes to Fusion, but perhaps I’ll master it one day.
These pictures are of my latest creation, a case for the Lora32u4 II - devboard. It didn’t quite come out as pretty as in the renders, but it works well, nevertheless. Oh, and yes, 3D-printed threads work perfectly and make for very pretty, custom screws and nuts
@John_Bump Yeah, PLA for stuff like this, which won’t be subjected to a lot of physical stress or such.
I do try to do everything in PLA because it’s biodegradable, but if something is going to be subjected to more punishment than PLA can take, I’ll switch to PETG instead – it’s a tad bit more stringy, leaving a kind of unclean look to it, but otherwise PETG works just as well for threads and everything.
You’ve really gotta ignore the “Biodegradable” portion of PLA. PLA can sit out in the heat, snow, rain, for years and years without seeing any kind of degradation. It’s highly overstated, and only happens in some very harsh circumstances.
Good job on the printed threads! I use Inventor mostly because that’s what I have at work. I’ve tried Fusion 360 a couple times but haven’t given it enough of a chance. Can’t seem to find things, and I know right where they are in Inventor. I’ll have to try harder.
@Nita_Vesa while it can take a long time to degrade, it’ll break down much faster if it’s in a landfill and even if it took 10 years to break down, at least it still breaks down and that’s better than not breaking down.
@Geoffrey_Forest Well, it’s not like I can take the credit for the threads, Fusion 360 makes it so ridiculously easy to make them: 1) make a hole or a cylinder 2) point the thread-tool at it 3) check the “Modeled” checkbox in the dialog that pops up 4) click OK – boom, you’ve got by-default ISO-compliant threads! Hard to make it much easier than that.
As for using Fusion…if you decide to give it one more go and you feel you could use some guidance, Lars Christensen’s videos on Youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo29kn3d9ziFUZGZ50VKvWA ) are a terrific source of knowledge.
@Kevin_Danger_Powers Order of magnitude higher than that. Hundreds of years. Instead of thousands. In fact, PLA largely is worse for the environment than ABS, because around the world we have recycling centers that are able to process ABS, whereas very few can process PLA. The environmental “greenness” of PLA is highly exaggerated.
