So You’re New to 3D Printing and Want to Gear Up
You’ve just invested in a 3D printer and you are ready to start producing all your dream designs, so which accessories are going to help you on your journey? While the Grindmonkey team has been designing since before the start of the new millennium, we are still giddy about 3D printing. Our venture into the world of 3D started two years ago, and like most pioneers in this industry, we are learning and picking up new things as we go along. We’d like to share what’s in our 3D printing toolkit as we grow it. Let’s explore some common and not so common tools and accessories to get the job done.
- General Purpose
- Post Production Tools
- Organization
- Bed Cleaning
- Nozzle Maintenance
- Printer Replacement Parts
- Cool Tricks for Printing Success
General Purpose
We ordered our first Prusa kit in January 2020 (here’s the unboxing, and here’s how we built it), and the kit came with all the hardware necessary to build the machine. Even so, we like to keep extra essential tools on hand for daily use–printer maintenance, adjustments, and repairs.
Needle Nose Pliers
I use needle nose pliers daily for printing, whether it’s to hold the hotend while I change nozzles, or to remove excess filament from the nozzle, or to snap supports off a finished piece. Often, I need to use two sets of pliers simultaneously to hold and manipulate prints. This is why it’s good to have multiple sets of pliers on hand, and fortunately, pliers don’t break the bank. Don’t forget that pliers work for cutting filament!
Extra Hex Keys
Initially, we thought we would only need hex keys to build our printer. However, we quickly learned that we would need to regularly tighten the y-axis belt, or adjust the extruder tension (when printing with different materials like TPU). We run multiple prints on each of our printers, so it is helpful to have hex keys nearby at all times.
Anti-static Wrist Bands
You only need to short out your printer once to appreciate anti static wrist bands moving forward. Don’t touch that CPU unprotected!
Work Light with Magnetic Base
I use a work light so bright it will temporarily blind you! The reason I love this Nebo light is that it has a magnetic base, so I can work with it hands-free, whether I’m inspecting an in-process print, or repairing my machines.
Digital Calipers
Calipers are essential for designing in 3D. We build and test many pieces constantly, and we have to measure everything to ensure perfect fits and dimensions.
Post Production Tools
It would be great if 3D printers always produced a finished product, but at this point in the game, we still need to remove rafts and supports as well as “stray hairs” and micro blobs of filament from our prints. Many woodworking finishing techniques can be applied to 3D prints, but sometimes even a little extra heat will finish the job. Below are some tools we use in post production daily.
Butane Kitchen Torch
A kitchen torch can be very useful outside the kitchen. Before sanding my prints, I give them a quick torching to burn off small hairs and imperfections. I also use my torch to fuse printed parts together. Finally, I do use this tool to clean nozzles. The heat comes in handy when working with plastics!
Micro Cutters
Invest in good Micro Cutters! Even with near-perfect slicer settings, we still encounter the occasional blob or string that we need to snip-away during post processing. In my woodworking experience, I use Hakko brand cabinet scrapers, so this is a brand I trust. We had purchased cheaper micro cutters at my favorite discount hardware store, but they didn’t have the precision to trim fine hairs and imperfections from our prints.
Sanding Twigs
There’s so much overlap between woodworking and 3D printing, so when I needed to find ways to finish these wood PLA planters, I went to Rockler to find sanding/finishing products to do the trick. I’ve been using sanding twigs ever since. They are great for sanding curves and small openings, and they are sturdy enough to reach deep into printed parts, yet flexible enough to bend around curves.
Precision Tweezers
When you are printing very small items, or when you are using fiddly filaments like wood and bamboo, you will like having a variety of tweezer shapes and sizes to pick off small hairs and other imperfections in your prints.
Quality Sanding Sponges
My woodworking experience has introduced me to a variety of sanding implements, and these sanding sponges have turned out to be a luxury I can get used to. Yes, they are pricey! But you get what you pay for. These sanding sponges/pads are so fine that they leave little (if any) trace behind on your models. You can wash them between use, and you can cut them into smaller pads if you are working with small models.
Mini Rasps/Precision Files
As great as sanding twigs are, sometimes a more rigid sanding tool is needed. We picked up these inexpensive files and have benefited from the different dimensions and shapes as we work on cleaning up some of our more intricate prints.
Organization
I could write blog posts solely on organization, so I need to warn you that I’m holding back in this post by focusing solely on organizing one’s printing station. Many of our tools are stored within arm’s reach of our printers, and we have to be very careful with small parts that can easily be lost. Here are some essentials for keeping the workstation efficient with everything in its place:
Magnetic Tool Holders
We hanged a magnetic bar above each printer so we can have easy access to our pliers, hex wrenches, 7mm sockets, and other tools we use regularly for maintenance and repair.
Magnetic Parts Holder (Magnetic Dish)
When I used to work on my ’65 Mustang, I used a magnetic dish when disassembling anything, so small bolts and nuts wouldn’t fall and disappear forever. The same idea applies when working in printer maintenance and repair, especially when tiny springs or M3S nuts are concerned!
Nozzle Organizer
I love my nozzles, as you may learn when you check out the Nozzle Maintenance section of this post. I have a couple dozen nozzles on hand at all times, and I found this free organization and storage solution to download, and you can download it for free as well. Once printed, it fits nicely in an Altoids tin so it’s easy to store and transport your nozzles.
Bed Cleaning
I love reading subreddits on 3D printing, especially those where people post their prints to ask the community how to troubleshoot all sorts of issues. Perhaps the most common troubleshooting tip shared is “Clean the bed!” Fingerprints, small particles of extruded filament, and any dust will keep your prints from adhering to the print bed. It’s so simple to keep the bed clean by spritzing it with alcohol and wiping the plate clean.
Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA)
While I can clean my smooth sheets with soap and water, I prefer IPA to clean my textured sheets. We clean after each print, which means we are perpetually spritzing our printer sheets!
Microfiber Cleaning Cloths
We love microfiber cloths, and Harbor Freight seems to have the best deal for these invaluable cleaners. Not only do we use them with IPA to clean our print sheets, but we use dry cloths for the daily dusting and cleaning of our equipment.
Spray Bottle
We used to pour a capful of IPA on a rag to clean our sheets, but we felt this was still too wasteful. We opted to try a small spray bottle to lightly mist our sheets for cleaning, and this really does the trick without being wasteful.
Nozzle Maintenance
I’ve read many conflicting accounts of how often one should replace the nozzle on their printer. I even know people who haven’t changed a nozzle in over a year. I change nozzles a couple times each week, whether I’m changing sizes for print efficiency or just to pop in a pristine one for a design I’m making for a customer. With the right tools, replacing and cleaning nozzles is a snap that will greatly improve the quality of your printed items.
Different Sized Nozzles
Have you experimented yet with different sized nozzles? I love my .60mm nozzles for larger print jobs. These shave hours off many of my prints.
Drive Socket
A drive socket works great for changing the nozzles on my Prusa MK3S+ printers. I like to hold the driver so it’s vertically aligned with the nozzle. This allows me to avoid breaking the nozzle or damaging the heat block if I use too much torque.
Acupuncture Needles
I change nozzles daily, and I like to clean my nozzles thoroughly between use. Nothing works better than an acupuncture needle to clear nozzle openings. Earlier, I extolled the virtues of a kitchen torch for post production clean-up. Well, a kitchen torch works great in combination with an acupuncture needle to remove filament build-up in a nozzle.
Wire Brushes
Depending on the filament or the type of printing sheet, a variety of wire brushes may be necessary for cleaning your printer. This is a good assortment of brushes, as the steel one is quite firm and durable for cleaning nozzles and hotends, and the nylon is soft enough to clean the print bed without scratching.
Printer Replacement Parts
If you are a hobbyist, you may have the patience to wait a couple of days to order replacement parts when something goes wrong. If you have a print shop, you probably can’t have a printer down for more than a couple of hours at a time. I think it’s always best to be prepared, so I keep a couple of standard replacement parts on hand at all times so my printers are never down for more than a couple of hours. Here are the parts we like to keep on hand:
HotEnd Kit
This spare HotEnd is for catastrophic days, of which we’ve had three in the past 2 years. They are a pain to replace, taking us around 2 hours each time, but at least we have spare HotEnd kits on hand so we can replace them ASAP.
Heater Block
Heater blocks are easy to replace, and fortunately, they aren’t too expensive. When these blocks are fully heated, they can be damaged or broken easily when working on the nozzle or extruder parts. We keep a couple replacement heater blocks on hand at all times so we don’t lose much production time.
Heater Cartridge
The heater cartridge is the most fragile piece of our printers. It could just be us, but we seem accident-prone when working near these wires. Fortunately, they are inexpensive, and with practice, can be replaced rather swiftly. We keep a couple spare heater cartridges on hand at all times so we never lose production time. Let me know if in the Comments section below if you would like me to post a video on how to replace these cartridges.
Cool Tricks for Printing Success
As I mentioned earlier, I like 3D printing subreddits so I can crowdsource troubleshooting. I’ve found some ingenious solutions online, but Erika and I have come up with a few on our own. The ones I’m sharing here came about because we had particular needs for specific projects, so not all tools and accessories below are for everybody. If you have discovered your own trick, please share it in the Comments section at the end of this post!
Textured PEI Sheet
Almost all of our designs are accessories or intended for decor, so layer lines are particularly unsightly! We often use textured sheets to counter the layer line issue. The added perk of using this is that your finished design has an almost “sparkly” appearance because of the slight texture created by the sheet.
Wall Mount for MMU
If you are a brave soul, you will want to add a multi material unit to your printer so you can use multiple colors in a single print. MMU’s are fiddly little $%*!@!!’s, but you can tame them with the right accessories. We found a wall mount for our filaments, and it is free to download and print (thank you, Prusa!). If you have an MMU unit, consider using a gravity fed filament system like this one. You can thank us later! We found that most filament jamming issues were eliminated once we hanged our five rolls on our walls.
Octoprint
Octoprint is an open-source solution to monitor your prints remotely. For the Grindmonkey team, remotely means one room away, as we would never leave a print unsupervised for a long period of time. Erika added Octoprint to our MMU printer, and I know she did a lot of research and some procurement to set this up. All3DP has a great tutorial to help with setting up this device.
Blu Tack
Certain filaments like TPU don’t print well using supports. In such cases, we wad up a bit of Blu Tack and apply it to our model right before the bridging layer begins printing. The wad of Blu Tack provides support so the bridged part does not sag, and the tack is easily removed from the printed model.
Heat Set Screws
Heat set screws work great when printing multiple parts to assemble together. We use these in our Piranha Plant Ring Doorbell frame and our NuiMOs Mini Retro Trike. Heat set screws eliminate the need for superglue and other adhesives. Additionally, 3D prints can be disassembled and reassembled easily, which really helps with shipping and storage.
Conclusion
I have no doubts that I’ll do a follow-up post to this one after a few months, as we will have discovered more tools and accessories to help us on our 3D printing journey. In the meantime, I hope this short list is helpful and inspires you to think of other tools you can collect to help you print everything you can imagine. Don’t shy away from adapting existing tools and solutions from other crafts and fields to meet your 3D printing needs.
Share Your Thoughts
What’s your experience with tools and accessories for 3D printing? Please share your tips and suggestions below. Also, if you have a question about tools or need help troubleshooting, let us know! If we don’t have a solution, we’ll help you find someone who might!
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