ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

6 Great Tools for your 3D Printer

Updated on April 30, 2014

Gas Powered Soldering Iron

I was surprised when I spotted one of these at the market the other day as I had never heard of them before. They work like a normal wall powered soldering iron but have a few characteristics which make them far superior in my opinion when working on your printer. Firstly because they fill with butane, they're portable, meaning not only can you get to hard to reach soldering points but you are also no longer restricted to working at your workbench. There's always a big to-do list with things I need to do to my printer, such as wiring up connection clips, switches etc. Now I can happily sit in the living room and watch some t.v. while soldering away on my lap (caution - make sure you have some sort of a work table on your lap, I use one of those boxes that poker chips come in). Another awesome feature with a gas powered soldering iron is that they heat up a lot faster than the wall powered ones, which can be exceptionally handy when you are adhoc-ly requiring to so a little soldering, then something else, then back to soldering. They are real cheap- I picked mine up for less than $20.

Fire Putty/Cement

This...stuff...is...golden. You can find it in most hardware stores for around $10 and it lasts forever. This stuff can be extremely helpful for when working on your hotend. Because the hotend can heat up to around 230 degrees (C), it can be tricky to find materials to work with that can handle these sort of temperatures. This can be handing for doing things such as securing the thermistor in place, or to perform repairs to an otherwise unfix-able problem with the hotend. Think of it like a bicycle puncture repair kit for your printer.

Heat Shrink Tubing

Wicked for that professional finished look for once you are 100% happy with your wiring. I spent far too long covering up wire connections with electrical tape which, although is a good short term solution while you are trouble shooting, is far from a permanent solution. You just cut of an inch or so of tubing, cover your exposed connection, and apply a hair dryer to it for a few seconds. The heat shrink will shrink around the connection and create a neat and reliable connection. However remember to make sure you put the heat shrink on BEFORE you solder your two connections. I have made a great, clean solder connection so many times only to realize I forget to thread on the tubing first.

IDE Computer Hard Drive Cables

I have so many of these lying around in my bottom drawer of computer graveyard components. Since most computers have now moved to SATA, they just sit there with no real purpose..until now. So it you have a look at the 3d printer circuit board (usually an arduino based board), they will have a series of male header pins which do a variety of things such as control the stepper motors, connect reset switches, thermistors etc. If you don’t happen to have female header pins handy these can be a pain to connect however these IDE cables fir perfectly on them.

Infra-red Temperature Gun

These things are cool. They work like a regular thermometer but instead of having to have the thermometer close to or ideally touching what you are trying to measure, you can aim the temperature gun at the object which you can line if with its inbuilt laser pointer. This is really handy when calibrating your 3d printer, both for the hotend and the heated print-bead. For the hotend, there's not really any other way to know if your printer’s thermistor is reading correctly. It can be very useful for the print-bed also because you can scan different points on the bed's surface to see if there are any hot-spots which could be affecting your print.

Allen Keys (all of them)

A full set of allen keys, in their container and kept there. Can't believe how much time I've spent looking for the damn m3 allen key. Keep them in their box so they are always close at hand. It's always a good idea to have a backup m3 and m4 allen key so that you don’t pull your hair out trying to find where you left it.

Some other life savers

Wire Strippers - you're probably going to need to strip a lot of wire when wiring up your printer..a lot. Save your teeth and invest in a good quality pair of wire strippers. You won't appreciate them until you try working without them.

Vice - Good for drilling, good for an extra arm when soldering. For the price of less than $30 it's silly not to have a vice. Of course you're going to need a bench you don't mind drilling through to secure it.

Digital Calipers - You may not thing you need them when building your printer, but you will save yourself a lot of time during calibration if you just grab a pair of these online. I got mind for around $10.

Volt and Amp Meter - Although not essential, you will most likely find yourself getting your hands dirty a lot more than you think when building your 3d printer. Might as well bite the bullet and start learning electronics. It helps.


working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)