Introducing 3DPPGH

Location: HackPGH

3DPPGH is officially a go! At our kickoff meeting, we talked about the goals of our new group and looked for content guidance from our new members. So, what exactly is 3D printing? For a very detailed article, head on over to 3D Hubs. Otherwise, check out our brief overview below.

The following topics were proposed (in order of priority) to cover in future meetings:

  1. 3D printing tips and tricks of the trade
  2. Building your first printer (i3 style)
  3. How to design objects for 3D printing
  4. What to look for in a printer (key features and benefits)
  5. To kit or not to kit?
  6. 3D scanning
  7. Which plastics or resins are best for which jobs?
  8. How to build the lowest cost printer
  9. Pittsburgh 3D Printer Night (Boxzy, Polygon, etc.)
  10. Delta printers
  11. Hotends
  12. Dialing in your printer
  13. Resin printers
  14. 3D printer issues
  15. Slicer software showdown (Repetier vs. Cura vs. MatterControl vs. Simplify3d)
  16. RAMPS (or any) controller boards
  17. Popular printer add-ons
  18. Paste extruders (food printing)
  19. Reprap printers (the family tree) and the open source culture
  20. 3D printing for high precision metal casting
  21. Exotic filaments

One benefit of hosting the meeting at HackPGH is to experience the projects at HackPGH. Gino entertained the crowd with his Tesla coil playing the theme from Back to the Future: