I was wondering if 3d printing is very difficult? I have no experience in engineering, or cad progaming. But this 3d printing is so fascinating, and would love to get in to it.
You might want to ask yourself what might you consider printing. Would it be the works of others, as found on Thingiverse or are you willing and able to create stuff. The printing can be as easy as sending a file to i.materialize, shapeways or some other printing service. Then, you need to ask yourself how much time and money are you willing to throw at a hobby, which could become somewhat lucrative, depending on your talents. As Matt states - there is a learning curve. You do need to get involved. But there are lots of folks willing to help. This is a somewhat new field of exploration with some veterans who have made tremendous progress and shared tons of their efforts. Those of us new to 3D printing owe them a debt of gratitude for their selfless efforts. It’s a great community to be a part of. It can be rewarding, but you get out of it what you are willing to put into it.
Thanks. I would love to design my own prints. I wonder if I could learn how to on my own, or would some type of schooling be a better choice. I am very handy, but the whole programming part, I never got into.
Programming not required. Helpful, yes. Checkout TinkerCAD. I tried several things last year and TinkerCAD gave me results I liked and gave me the ability to look for better software knowing what I was able to do and not able to do in their web based software. Design a small part and send it to a printer. See the results and say “I made it”, then look in to all the printers available and come back here and ask more questions.
It’s easier than you think it is…
Agree with @Matt_Kraemer1 , there is a learning curve. You can start using desktop 3D printers, some of them offer a pretty good out-of-the-box printing experience.
Some websites also offer basic 3D modeling features, might be fun to try your first prints that way.
Just to add on what @Rojer_Wisner said: CAD is NOT programming. OpenSCAD is an odd beast that for some reason got adopted en masse by the 3D printing community. CAD is usually done in a GUI where you see in real time what you are designing, no need to “compile”. For 99.999% of the products you will ever use in your life, you can safely bet none were designed in programmatic CAD. Parametric CAD, yes, programmatic, no. Those are not mutually exclusive, but they aren’t the same thing either.
Dont be hating on OpenSCAD…
@Evam_S
Listen I want to set things straight, anyone who doesn’t have a programmer’s mind (and you might be surprised how many there are) will look at OpenSCAD and say WTF!, I want to remind people OpenSCAD is not the end of everything, there are plenty of CAD tools for the rest of the human race which do not require typing lines of code (thank god). Add rolling eyes here.
+Normand Chamberland
I definitely hear you, but at the same time the OpenSCAD language is relatively easy (especially compared to most “legit” (i.e. software) programming languages)