What are your favorite resources to recommend for beginners?
I’m wanting to get interested for doing a cyberdeck case, and/or custom cluster racks for Raspberry Pi’s but any and all newbie resources would be appropriate for this question.
At some point you’re going to need to recalibrate your printer. The prints just won’t be as good as they should. And it can be very very frustrating trying to figure out what’s wrong. I highly recommend this website: https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html
Excellent! Not something I would’ve immediately thought of but sounds critical to good prints.
Teaching tech is good
I’d also add troubleshooting guides from all3dpI would suggest, however, at least checking calibration even if you’re not changing anything- and inspecting it out of the box. (Are the axis square to each other? Is the bed loose? Is the frame? Belts tight but not too tight?) if it’s a lower end… yeah? There’s probably something that needs tightening.
If it’s a higher end printer, well it’ll give you an idea of how it’s supposed to be.
Other resources…
As well as Prusa, this guide in particular, but the community is very helpful.
Also, I’d suggest staying away from thingiverse. A lot of the models are ripped from non-free sourced (like cults3d or my mini factory.); and many of the stls there suck anyhow. Printables my go to.
For more esoteric content… I’d recommend CNC Kitchen there’s always good stuff in their videos, even if it might not be “basic”
Finally… don’t freak out. There’s going to be a learning curve. It’s okay. Take it one print at a time, accept that spaghetti monsters will happen. (Just tell people it’s abstract art,)
For calibrating printers, I would recommend Ellis’ guide: https://ellis3dp.com/Print-Tuning-Guide/ It covers how to calibrate your printer with popular firmware options (Marlin, Klipper and Reprapfirmware)
For CAD, a free and open source option I have used is OpenSCAD, it’s CAD with code! If this isn’t your sort of thing, you could try OnShape - it’s free with some limitations
Are you looking for CAD tutorials or printing/troubleshooting ? A good place to start when your prints don’t look like they should is the simplify3d troubleshooting guide. As for the design aspect, what software do you want to use?
I’ve used Blender, Fusion360, and Google Sketch. So I’m somewhat familiar with 3d modelling. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of Hardware but Software compatibility is a good topic to cover as well.
If you are familiar with Blender and F360 you will have no issues producing models to print. Maybe some mesh fixes but most slicers will manage to produce something printable if there is nothing too egregious. Dealing with overhangs, print tolerances and fine tuning will all come when you start printing, there are some pretty good links posted here already. Prusa even has some ebooks (some free, some you can buy or be active on printables to get) that may be useful (they look to be but I haven’t checked them out myself). What excactly do you mean by hardware recommendations/tips? Are you looking for printer recommendations, setup suggestiong (enclosures for ABS printing, Rpi and octoprint to control/monitor etc) or tools/materials? In any case most of these will vary depending on what is available to you in your area but again when you start using your printer the needs/areas to improve will become aparent. I really would recommend you dive in and ave fun. Any trouble you encounter along the way there will probably be resources to help and, if not, asking here will more than likely get you most of the way there.
If you want to try using Blender I recommend this video to check out if that’s the road you want to go:
Learn Blender for 3D Printing - Complete Quick and Easy Guide (Beginner)
Depending on your experience you might check out existing models on sites like printables.com or thingiverse.com
While not for 3D printing specifically, Andrew Price’s donut tutorial on YouTube is a great primer for learning to use Blender and all is basic functions.