I toyed with purchasing a 3D printer for a number of years until January 2018 when I finally had a specific project in mind. I had purchased a DM48 Digital Chromatic Harmonica which has a matt finish anodised aluminium mouthpiece. After many decades of playing an Hohner chromatic harmonica which has a much more slippery chrome plated mouthpiece, I wanted to print a new base for my DM48 Digital Chromatic Harmonica to which I could attach a SWAN 1248 chrome plated mouthpiece (see my Music Diary for full details). I purchased a Creality CR10S 3D Desktop Printer from China for US $526 (see YouTube 20 minute review). The specifications of my Creality 3D printer are as follows: Printing size: 300*300*400mm Layer height: 0.05~0.4mm Nozzle size: 0.4mm Printing precision: ±0.1mm Print speed: <200mm/s suggest 50mm/s Printing material: 1.75mm PLA, ABS, Wood and so on Support format: STL, obj, gcode. System: Linux, Windows, and OSX
I used FreeCAD (open source) to create my DM48 base and Ultimaker Cura (open-source) to create a gcode file which instructs my 3D printer how to print using PLA filament (see photographs of my DM48 base below). Subsequent to printing my new DM48 base, I used my 3D printer to print four larger Creality levelling knobs and several 3D puzzles using project files developed by members of the 3D printing community. My 3D printer has remained dormant for a number of years while I have been distracted by other projects. I am now keen to develop more of my own projects rather than just print other people’s projects, though there are some very interesting projects developed by others to print. I enjoyed developing my own DM48 base using FreeCAD and I am now aware that Blender (open-source) provides a more sophisticated option for creating 3D objects. It remains to be seen what progress with 3D printing, if any, that I will make in the future. For example, I am keen on art, but my progress in art so far has been limited due to being distracted by other projects. I would rather have too many projects on the go than none at all.
DM48 Digital Chromatic Harmonica with Swan Mouthpiece
3D Cube Puzzle
This is the first 3D puzzle I have created using Blender 5.0 and possibly my last. I am now more keen on developing 3D sculptures after seeing what Blender is capable of creating.
I first placed 5 cubes in a row using Blender, duplicated the row five times, and then duplicated the resulting array of 5 x 5 cubes into a 5 x 5 x5 large cube. I next joined a number of selected cubes and moved each group of these cubes to the side finishing up with 15 pieces. I separately saved each group as an stl file and rotatated each group within Ultimaker Cura 5.10.0 where necessary to ensure each group had a base with no overhang.
Download the stl file of all pieces of the puzzle here Download a zip file of separate stl files here
