How to use 3D Printer at Home | Where to use 3D Printer

Have Fun and Save Money with Home 3D Printing

3D printing is a great way to make thousands of different objects. Early 3D printers were expensive and complicated. Now, they are affordable and easy to use. Today 3D printing is fun and will save you money. So, have you ever wondered how to use a 3D printer at home? Read on to find out how.

What to use a 3D Printer for

Companies started using 3D printing for design and rapid prototyping. That’ still going on. What’s new is making finished objects at home. Here are just some of the objects people make with home 3D printers:

Planters

There are scores of 3D printer models for planters. Just go online and download one. Even better, design one yourself – you might even sell them and make some money. You will make attractive objects.

Vases

Make your own flower holders at a fraction of the cost of buying them. Gift them to friends or family – or sell them for cash. You will make beautiful objects.

Candleholders and Candlesticks

Candlesticks and candle holders are another popular use of 3D printers. Grab an online template and go. You will make decorative objects.

Game Pieces and Miniatures

Produce your own pieces for Chess, Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer, Civil War tabletop battlefields, etc. Check out our in-depth review of 3D printers for miniatures here.

Some miniatures are really seriously expensive. Therefore, this is a great way to make some spare cash by selling online, or to friends. You will make potentially profitable objects.

Smartphone and Tablet cases and stands

A big money saver when you realize how often these get lost or broken. They’re expensive to replace, therefore you can save big for yourself and make some cash selling. You will make handy objects.

Cups and beakers

Make your own stylish cups and beakers. You can personalize these too. That’s fantastic for gifts. You will make desirable objects.

Measuring Jugs

Accurate – and decorative – measuring jugs are easy to make when you invest in a home 3D printer. You will make versatile objects.

Coasters and placemats

Protect your furniture and make your household beautiful with your own 3D customized printed designs for coasters and placements. You will make unique objects.

Household Ornaments

Create your household ornaments own or choose from thousands of pre-made designs and templates. You will make imaginative designs.

Aquarium and Vivarium Accessories

Keep the children (and the goldfish or the guppies) happy with fantastic and imaginative underwater ornaments. Tropical Fish tank accessories are easy to manufacture. Make your lizard into a lounge lizard, with 3D printed miniature “furniture” for their vivarium. You will have a lot of fun.

Dollhouse Furniture

Another great 3D printing benefit, that children and adults will love. You will please friends and family.

Ice Scrapers

Practical tools like ice scrapers are easy to manufacture. It’s convenient and safer to keep plenty of spares, rather than risking battling with a defrosting a windshield. You will save yourself the hassle.

Doorstops and Wedges

Keeping that pesky swinging door in position is simple. Why not make them unique too? Use your imagination and you will make functional objects decorative too.

Spare Parts

All kinds of things get broken or lost in your house, garden, caravan, car, boat etc. Ordering and buying spare parts is a hassle. Some unusual, obsolete or rarely-needed parts are difficult or even impossible to purchase. Therefore a 3D printer can save you hassle and money. You will make affordable spare parts, exactly as what you need and exactly when you will be needing them.

These are just a few possibilities when you invest in a home 3D printer. You can already see how versatile 3D printing at home is. You will make ornate, decorative, but also sensible, practical and affordable objects. You will make your home beautiful, you’ll be keeping your children happy and you’ll be saving money too.

What’s more, home 3D printing is a financial opportunity. Where to use a 3D printer is in customized and personalized objects. Customized and personalized objects are appealing, desirable and potentially highly lucrative. If they are spare parts, they will be valuable to someone who really needs them too. Therefore, you can easily set up a profitable home business, servicing this demand.

How to use a 3D Printer at Home

We already mentioned our review of 3D printers for miniatures. That already answers one question of “where can I use a 3D printer?”. It also has plenty of useful detail on “how to use a 3D printer at home?”

We can summarise some of the most important points below:

1. If you are a beginner, consider a beginners 3D printer first
3D home printers range from affordable to expensive. They also range from simple to significantly challenging and complex to master. There are skill and practice involved. So, it follows that you are wiser to follow our recommendation: Beginners will wisely choose one of the more affordable and more straightforward models in our reviews and ratings.

2. Resin vs. Filament
There are two choices of 3D printing raw materials and each has its own ranges of printers. One utilizes resinous raw material. It’s called simply resin or the more impressive-sounding (and correct terminology) of Stereolithography (SLA)

Stereolithography generally produces superior results for finer details. The downsides of the resin compound itself, are important though. 3D printing with resin is toxic, smelly and messy. You’ll need to be wearing protective gloves. You’ll also need an understanding and sympathetic partner or family members.

The alternative to Stereolithography using resin is called Filament 3D printing. This method is also known as FDM (fused deposition modeling) or FFF (Fused filament fabrication).

Filament 3D printing uses spools or cartridges of material for the fabrication process. Although filament 3D printing isn’t as accurate and precise as Stereolithography, it has important upsides. First and foremost the raw material is not toxic. That means you don’t need protective gloves and there are fewer worries if there are smaller children or pet animals in the household. Secondly, it’s neither smelly nor messy. Therefore you are less likely to be banished to the garage or an outbuilding by your partner!.

3. Templates or custom designs
There are thousands of pre-existing templates for 3D printing. You simply download them into your 3D printer and you are off and running with some amazing designs. However, you can choose to go further and modify those designs (say by adding a name) or create totally new designs yourself. There are plenty of 3D modeling software packages to choose from.

4. Size of your ‘creation volume’
3D Printers have an imaginary cube in space, which is the cubic size or volume they can print in. This is the limiting factor to the size f the object you can manufacture. A bigger creation volume means you can make bigger objects.