The BBQ Crew has been talking about the joys of 3d printing for some time now. But J.J. really wanted to know more about the process and what it takes to make an idea go from CAD design to cake design. That is why he sat down with Matthew Suggs, Founder of 3D Wolf Paw Printing, to learn more about how one goes about printing materials on mass. Matthew has more than 10 3d printers of various size and type. He gives J.J. a crash course on the materials used, the time it can take to print something and how he enjoys the experience of holding the fully realized project. To commission a product, email Matthew at blind.grey.wolf@gmail.com.
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Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
Direct from Orlando, Florida; St. Louis; Las Vegas; Dallas; Sparks, Nevada – everywhere – it’s Blindbargains.com virtual Exhibit Hall coverage brought to you by AFB AccessWorld.
For the latest news and accessibility information on mainstream and access technology; Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offerings; access technology; book reviews; and mobile apps and how they can enhance entertainment, education, and employment, log onto AccessWorld, the American Foundation for the Blind's free monthly online technology magazine. www.AFB.org/AW.
Now, here’s J.J. Meddaugh
J.J. MEDDAUGH: Welcome to Blind Bargains virtual Exhibit Hall audio, as we kind of cruise around the country virtually. For many people, 3D printing is a hobby. You might have one printer sitting around printing a few things. Matthew Suggs now has ten, as of the time of this recording. It might even be higher by the time this gets released -- and has gotten into 3D printing fulltime, if you will, with Wolf Paw LLC, doing all sorts of really cool 3D printed stuff.
Matthew, welcome to the podcast.
MATTHEW SUGGS: Thank you.
JM: So why don’t you tell me a little bit about how you got into 3D printing.
MS: Well, I just wanted get into something to do on the spare time we had in the last two years. And I decided to get the cheapest printer, 3D printer. I was seeing a bunch of YouTube videos, and I figured I would give it a shot to see if it was possible for a total blind person to even remotely set up a machine and get printing. And I purchased a printer which was a Voxelab Aquila.
JM: Uh-huh.
MS: And got the software and found out the software was pretty accessible as far as, you know, slicing the models and getting it to the printer and figuring out where the – to print on the print menu and stuff. But that’s – the easy part – the hardest part is learning how to level the machine, setting it up, learning all your settings, because the first two months, I got a 40 gallon bag full of failures.
So it can be an expensive project to get into. And once I learned to dial it in and everything, it’s fairly easy to do. And it’s accessible to a point. You just can’t create your own models and stuff if you ain’t got no vision, it’s hard to do the CAD work.
JM: Yeah. That’s a pretty challenging thing. There’s a few different tools out there for simple stuff, but it’s certainly – not the easiest part, but you have definitely figured out how to get into the printing of things. When you bought that first 3D printer, did you imagine that you were going to be where you’re at now, as far as just printing all sorts of stuff and having ten of these things?
MS: I kind of had an idea brewing in my head of starting the business up. I kind of wish I’d done it earlier because prior to the Covid, there was a lot of requests for like, mask shield and stuff like that. And kind of wish I’d gotten my foot in before it exploded like it did, but it’s kind of calmed down. And I noticed it ain’t a lot of blind products out there that’s being 3D printed, and that’s what I’m mainly aiming for is to find stuff that we, as visually impaired and stuff can use and bring it to the market and stuff.
JM: So let’s talk about some of the products. What are some of the things that you have printed, or what are some of your most popular items?
MS: I’ve printed off, like, dragon skulls and -- there’s a measuring device called a measuring click wheel that comes in five different types of measuring wheels from quarter-inch to a half-inch to 1-inch, 4-inch, and I think there’s one more. And then I got signature guides. I’m making those now into a harder plastic, which will endure being in a wallet so you don’t have to worry about it being all bent up and everything. And also signature guides for checks.
JM: So let’s talk about some of the materials that can be used, because 3D printing has come a long way over the past few years. And you’re now able to print with quite a few different materials.
MS: Currently, I’m – I’ve been playing with PLA, which is the basic material that most prints are done, as far as prototypes and so forth. And then, you go up from there from ABS, which is basically like your milk cartons. And then, you’ve got PETG, and then there’s wood-filled, carbon-filled, there’s nylon-carbon-filled. I mean, there’s a whole variety of stuff. They even got – I’ve heard of 3D printers that will print you a cake, a real one. Edible.
JM: Ha. You don’t have that one working yet, do you?
MS: No.
JM: I’m hungry.
MS: I was tempted to get one that printed chocolate bars and then Braille – you know --
JM: That would be fun.
MS: -- Pretty Much -- Yes.
JM: For sure. So you do printing jobs for products that you have found. Where do you – to find these – the products? Do you go online or – for the various free resources that are out there?
MS: Yeah. There’s various websites that are out there. There – you have to really search for it, and a lot of them are not worth printing, and some of them are very reliable. And then, I’ve had commissioned a CAD designer to make a product for me, and it was like $125 an hour. So it’s not a cheap thing, and – but most of my items I find are online, and I just either make them larger, smaller, or, you know, print them, whatever else, in different materials, depending on what the customer wants. And then, if there’s a company out there that wants certain products and they got their own model or file for me to print, I can do that as well.
JM: Absolutely. And that can be a really interesting and affordable way for a company to kind of produce – I think even APH has done some 3D printed replacement parts for some of their stuff now. So it’s definitely a thing that’s come more into the mainstream, especially for more niche parts that you’re not going to need thousands of.
MS: Right.
JM: So when you get a file off one of these sites, do you use, like a visual interpreter to figure out what you’re getting, or do you just print it and see what you get?
MS: Well, if I don’t know what it is, you know, it’s basically just to print it off in PLA, which is the cheapest material you can get and see what you get. Because even with – even if you print it off, you’re going to have to find out whether it’s going to need a support to hold a particular part of the product, or it might be multiple parts on that one part and you need a support on that as well and – there’s hundreds of settings so, you know – some prints can take anywhere between 30 minutes. I’ve had prints that went for seven days straight.
JM: Wow. What was that?
MS: I’m currently printing a starship, the SpaceX starship. I think it’s Starship 10. It’s a 40 – 1-by-42 scale.
JM: Wow.
MS: And it comes in different layers. It’s, I think, about 5 foot tall. And you have to put in all sorts of magnets and stuff inside it when you get done printing each part, and you can take it apart see how it’s actually built. I mean, everything is 2-scale, and you can see how – what it took to make this – the starship go up and then come back landing.
JM: That’s pretty amazing. Also amazing is you were actually able to print an actual musical instrument that works.
MS: Oh, yeah. What is it? I can’t pronounce the name sometimes. The Zelda Ocarina flute.
JM: Yeah.
MS: Yeah. It’s one print. You print it all at one go, and you have to take off a bunch of stuff, but, yes. It’s an actual working flute. I don’t have one on hand –
JM: Oh. I was going to ask.
MS: -- because I gave it to somebody that’s a Zelda nut, and, you know, they ran off with it, tootin’.
JM: That’s amazing. You have ten 3D printers now, like I said, as of the time of this recording at this -- you might even have more by the time this gets released. What would you recommend as a good starter 3D printer? Do you have one that’s really jumped out at you out of those ten that you think is a really good one for someone getting into this?
MS: If you got the money, it’s worth getting a CR-6 SE or CR-10 Smart. They have Auto Bed Leveling.
JM: Explain what that is for people, the Auto Bed Leveling.
MS: Well, there’s different styles of 3D printers. The ones I’m – we’re talking about are what they call filament feed layering fusion printing, which – it does it in layers and lays – takes, like, a filament which is basically -- looks like string, and feeds it into a mechanism that pushes it into a heated head and lays the layers one layer out at a time. It starts on a build plate that -- the ones I currently got, they are moving build plates. They are – can be anywhere between 220-by-220 millimeters on up. There’s one I would love to get that’s 15 inches-by-15 inches, which is insane.
But the hardest part is the auto leveling, which are – or just leveling in general. Most cheap 3D printers, you have to learn to take the hot head, or the head of the print, and put it right to the build plate, and it’s got to be no more than paper thin. Basically, you got to take a piece of paper and put it between the head of the printer on the bed, and you barely can touch it. And you got to be able to set that on all four corners. And it can take a while to do it. That’s what the biggest thing that I had to learn.
But with a higher end printer such as the CR-6 and the CR-10, they have what they call Auto Bed Leveling which will actually auto-level itself. It will measure every part of the bed about – I think there are 16 measurements it makes. And it will save that and, generally, if everything is set right, you can send a print to it, and it will just start printing what you want. And you don’t have to sit there and fiddle around with adjusting knobs and stuff like that. But the real high-end printers, they ain’t going to have the auto leveling, per se on them like some of these other ones do.
JM: Sure. Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot – when it goes into 3D printing, it’s kind of hitting that cross roads between hobbyist technology and also becoming a lot more efficient to use. In fact, you’ve had 3D printers that have come as kits; right? Where you have to put them in together? What’s that been like?
MS: Yes. I got one that’s almost done. It’s like two hundred and something pieces. And this is a small printer. I mean, it’s – it’s small enough, I almost actually put it in my backpack. But it’s a high-end printer. But it just – you have to put it piece by piece. And it’s been interesting. Luckily, there’s instructions, step by step on how to tell where everything goes. You just got to figure out what bolt and nut and screw they’re talking about and what part. And luckily, they have all the parts in separate bags and stuff, so you can generally figure out what they’re asking for.
JM: Which printer is that?
MS: It’s a Prusa MINI Plus. And then, I’m hoping to get the Prusa – I want to say it’s an ID-3? And – but it’s a more – it’s a bigger printer, and it’s –
JM: Right.
MS: -- got more parts.
JM: Well, and I guess that’s the tradeoff you have to make; right? Because you can buy some of these as kits, or you can pay a little more and then have them built for you. So it’s kind of like, are you looking for the experience of building a printer, especially if you’re new to the hobby and you kind of want to do all that? Or if you want to just have one that’s prebuilt for you. It’s one of those things that you have to decide.
MS: They come in, almost like three different varieties. You get the one like the Prusa MINI, which is – you can get it either all in pieces or partially built. Then you get the ones that are most common these days. They’re basically all built. Only thing you have to put on is four bolts. Some of them got zip ties. You clip them off and then they either snap on or you might have to screw in the spool holder. And all you have to do is just plug in anywhere between three to five wires, and you’re ready to go.
CR-10 Max and the CR-6 SE, they are already put together, and all you got to do is put four bolts, assemble the gantry, and then plug in some wires, and you’re ready to go. And then, you got the ones that are already fully built and –
JM: Right.
MS: I know Voxelab just came out with one. It’s completely built. All you got to do is pull it out of the box, sit it on your table, and run the filament in it, and it’s ready to go.
JM: So just to briefly move over from hardware to software, are you using the same software for all of these different printers, or do you have to use different software for different printers?
MS: I’m generally using the same software on most of all of the printers. It’s IdeaMaker. It’s made for the high-end printers, mainly the Raise models. But their software works with pretty much all of the printers except for the Resin printers. And that’s if one – a different type, or form, of 3D printing – which, I just got one of those yesterday. And it just got done printing off my first model. I have yet to go over there and take it out. You got to wear gloves and mask and you can’t touch the stuff and all. It’s a little bit more complex. But it’s a higher end detailed stuff.
JM: For sure. Is IdeaMaker free? That’s not software I’ve heard of previously. And how did you end up choosing that one?
MS: It’s free. Most of your printers come with software, but most of them use – I forgot what the name --
JM: I’ve seen Cura a lot.
MS: -- of the software is. Yeah. That’s the one. It’s not accessible. But I use Voxelab Print and Maker and IdeaMaker, which is free software. There’s some other ones out there that are just not fully accessible to a screen reader. And mostly, I use NVDA and JAWS, but NVDA works better if you want more detailed information when dealing with settings and stuff for IdeaMaker.
JM: Awesome. I appreciate you going into a little bit of the technical, and for some of our listeners, that might be interesting. But I’m guessing many people just want to order stuff and have things that are already done and won’t have to worry about all this technical stuff. So that being said, if people want to learn more about what you’re doing, maybe get some 3D printed stuff, what’s the best way to contact you?
MS: You can Email me at blind.grey.wolf@gmail.com. I’m also on Blind Adds group where I post a lot of my products I make on a whim, just whenever. And I do have an online store coming soon.
JM: And I think that’s going to be out by the time this is released. And we’ll put any additional information in the show notes. And, by the way, that grey is G-r-e-y. So B-l-i-n-d, dot, G-r-e-y, dot, wolf at gmail.com.
Thank you so much, Matt, for coming on. Really appreciate learning more about what you do and about 3D printing.
MS: You’re welcome. Thank you, J.J.
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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
