#3DThursday: If it's broken, print it!

#3DThursday: If it's broken, print it!

Tyler McNaney, CEO & Inventor of Filabot, on what he prints and what he thinks about 3D printing.

When someone says "it's broken" I say "we can print that." Most of the time the parts I want to print would require a lot of design time. I mostly print things that fix something that is broken. For example, one of my truck cap hinges broke and I was able to redesign it and print a new one. I printed it out of PLA which wasn't the best decision because PLA has a low melt temperature and does not do well in automotive applications, so it warped a little.

I've printed a few Filabot models to see how parts would work. When we made our larger format printer I was printing parts for a use on a farm. It was a huge part and it worked well for our large format printer.

I get all my cool and neat 3D prints from the failed prints that customers send in to Filabot, all the random prints that I would never have time to print.

Tyler reminds us all: 

When I first started 3D printing I was printing a lot of gifts for birthdays or holidays but 3D print gift giving loses is luster after a year or so. 

Happy printing! 

Best,
The Filabot Team

1 comment

Brian McAllister

Brian McAllister

EXACTLY!!! Yes, printing trinkets and toys is fun, however, to me the real fun is in designing a fix, and making that prototype. Oh, and I’ve done the make the car/motorcycle part out of PLA thing myself, then I discovered PETG…lol. But, it’s always fun to learn, design and make.

EXACTLY!!! Yes, printing trinkets and toys is fun, however, to me the real fun is in designing a fix, and making that prototype. Oh, and I’ve done the make the car/motorcycle part out of PLA thing myself, then I discovered PETG…lol. But, it’s always fun to learn, design and make.

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