Shaun C. Bryant

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-14-2021

Tinkercad is a superb cloud-based 3D design platform, which enables you to design 3D prototypes and those 3D “wow” projects that you want to show off to your friends and colleagues (and your mum and dad). Tinkercad For Dummies gives you a great grounding in how to use Tinkercad, but what about all those little shortcuts and tips and tricks that will take you from being a Tinkercad Jedi padawan to a Tinkercad Jedi master? Well, you will find them all in this Cheat Sheet; everything from keyboard shortcuts to how to find what you want in the online Tinkercad libraries. It’s all here!

Article / Updated 06-04-2018

It is often really tough to decide on what materials to use when 3D printing. A lot of this information, including a number of figures, actually comes from the Tinkercad blog page. It is a useful guide when you consider 3D printing your Tinkercad designs. You should consider numerous factors, including the Type of material Minimum thickness of the printed material Texture of the printed material Cost of the material (probably the most important) The cost also depends on whether the 3D print will be a prototype for a design, a gift, or even a product to sell. You need to consider all of the preceding factors, regardless of whether you are a business expecting to create multiple 3D prints as products, or a hobbyist just 3D printing because you can. Choosing a material all comes down to the bottom line, and that is cost. In manufacturing, the cost of raw materials has always been the make-or-break factor as to whether a particular product could be designed, manufactured, and then sold to cover those material costs and overhead. As you progress into 3D printing, you will see this factor’s impact. Create a simple spreadsheet that lists materials, volumes of those materials, costs of the materials purchased, and the amount of material used per 3D design. You can then calculate how much each 3D print costs. Then factor in your time to design the 3D printed object, and 3D print the object and then add a nominal hourly rate for your time. Sure, you may be a hobbyist, but this experience will stand you in good stead if you ever decide to start selling your 3D prints. You never know. The Internet is an amazing place where starting small often ends up big, so never stop designing! Here are the ten great materials that the guys at Tinkercad recommend. Nylon (polyamide) ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) Resin Paintable resin Stainless steel Gold Silver Titanium Ceramic Gypsum

Article / Updated 06-04-2018

Nylon (polyamide) comes in a raw powder format that is normally white, but it can be dyed, sprayed, or smoothed to pretty much any 3D print of any 3D design. It is also known as white plastic, durable plastic, or strong plastic. When 3D printing, the laser in the 3D printer melts the nylon powder in layers that are microns thick at exactly 170°C (338°F), thus giving you incredible flexibility in your 3D printing of your design due to this incredible accuracy. This is known as laser sintering. Laser sintering can sometimes take up to one and a half days on a complex 3D print, and the cooldown period can take up to two days. After that time, you can touch the print, which will often be a large block of the white nylon powder that you have to dig into, to find your 3D print. According to the Tinkercad materials guide, nylon polyamide has a 1 mm minimum wall thickness and is naturally white, but can be colored, if required. It normally 3D prints about 10 layers per 1mm in a 3D printer. As it is made from a powder, it can be used to 3D print alumide, which is polyamide plus aluminum, thus creating a metallic polymer that is strong but flexible. It can be used for interlocking, movable parts, such as a chain, and regular nylon polyamide can be used for simple plastic components, such as phone cases. The guys at Tinkercad created Tinkercad-branded phone cases for promotional purposes, and you can see them in the Tinkercad materials guide, shown here.

Article / Updated 06-04-2018

ABS stands for Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene and is often used in home-based 3D printing. ABS is classified as a thermoplastic, which means the ABS softens to be molded when heated and hardens when cooled. ABS has been widely used in many industries because of its ability to take on many forms and maintain high quality in those forms. ABS can endure extreme weather and is also chemical resistant. Due to those qualities, ABS forms many of the products you use or encounter on a daily basis. ABS plastics are a core ingredient to 3D printing. Companies, hobbyists, and 3D printing enthusiasts will always continue their search for the holy grail of 3D printing materials, but ABS will come pretty close. The overall quality of ABS prints are hardness, toughness, electrical insulation properties, and gloss, which give it incredible durability in the real world. ABS can also be printed to have a certain level of resistance and toughness to meet specific standards needed for a specific product or design to be considered usable. Many other 3D printing materials can be used to create the aesthetics wanted by 3D designers, but ABS is still preferred by engineers and makers who want to accomplish the mechanical use of the 3D print they create. The Tinkercad materials guide states that ABS is a very strong, durable plastic, similar to the plastic that Lego bricks are made from. It is formed of a spaghetti-like filament with many color options, and it normally 3D prints to about 3 layers per 1mm and has a 1mm minimum wall thickness. The figure shows 3D prints made from ABS, as shown in the Tinkercad materials guide.

Article / Updated 06-04-2018

Instead of using powder or filament, STL files use a liquid resin to produce 3D prints. It is a liquid material, so more often than not, you will need to provide a support structure for overhanging parts and cavities. A resin 3D print is created in a tank filled with liquid resin. The 3D printing process starts with a layer of UV-sensitive liquid polymer being spread over a platform. A UV laser is then used to harden selected parts of the liquid, hardening where the laser beam strikes. The remaining material remains a liquid. Then, the platform is lowered, making room for the next layer of polymer to be drawn (hardened) on top of the previous one. This process is repeated until the 3D model is complete. The supports, for overhanging parts and cavities, are automatically generated, and once the process is finished, the 3D model can be raised out of the tank and the supports removed. Resin comes in five forms: Standard resin Gray resin Mammoth resin Transparent resin High detail resin The names of each type of resin are self-explanatory: Standard resin is translucent, gray resin gives a gray metallic finish, mammoth resin allows for larger 3D prints, transparent resin has a glass-like quality, and high detail resin allows for a high level of detail in the 3D model. The Tinkercad materials guide states that resin comes in many options. You can have white, black, or transparent resin. There is white detail resin, high detail resin, and transparent, paintable resin. It can be rigid and sometimes delicate. It is a liquid photopolymer cured with ultraviolet (UV) light. It comes in white and black and most typical colors. It 3D prints to about 10 layers per 1mm and has a 1mm minimum wall thickness. The figure shows some resin prints from the Tinkercad materials guide.

Article / Updated 06-04-2018

Paintable resin provides all of the qualities of resin, but it has a rougher surface that provides a key for paint and color. To paint on a 3D model effectively, you need a key, which is a slightly rougher surface that allows the paint to adhere to that surface. The maker and hobbyist communities love paintable resin because they can 3D print a design and then apply colored paints to give the 3d print realism and make it look real world. Numerous fantasy modeling communities around the world have jumped into the world of 3D printing so that they can model, 3D print, and paint fantasy characters from the likes of Marvel Comics and DC Comics and use them for ornaments, board gaming figures, and mascots for their desks. Refer to the preceding section to see what the Tinkercad guys have to say about resin as a 3D printing material. The figure shows an action figure made from paintable resin to give you an idea of what it would look like before and after painting.

Article / Updated 06-04-2018

3D printing in stainless steel (type 316L) combines excellent surface quality 3D prints with great resolution and a significant level of detail. Stainless steel is not as strong as titanium, but it does allow for better detail and thinner walls at a much lower price. As with nylon (polyamide), the 3D printing technology prints a stainless steel model by binding together layers of ultra-fine grains of stainless steel powder in an inkjet-like printer. A layer of stainless steel powder is spread across the base of what is called a build box, and then a special print head moves back and forth over that layer, depositing a binding agent at specific points, as directed by a computer and your design file, such as a Tinkercad design. Once that layer is finished and has been dried with heaters, a new layer of powder is spread, and the process begins again. Layer by layer, your part is created. Once the 3D printing is complete, the 3D model is carefully taken out, and any extra powder that was not bound is removed. The printed part is still fragile, and this green state is then followed by being sintered in an oven at 1300°C, in either sand or on a ceramic plate. Sand is used for designs that are irregular and don’t have a flat base, and the ceramic plate is used more often for technical pieces with a flat base. After cooling, the 3D model is put into a mechanical polishing machine for finishing. The Tinkercad materials guide states that stainless steel is a very strong 3D printing material. It is normally 3D printed in multiple steps or directly from a powder medium. It has various coloring options, including gold and bronze plating, and normally 3D prints to about six layers per 1mm and has a 3mm minimum wall thickness. This figure shows you some 3D stainless steels prints from the Tinkercad materials guide.

Article / Updated 06-04-2018

Gold is rarely 3D printed directly. Most often, gold is printed using a wax 3D print with lost wax casting process. This process uses STL files with a wax-like resin. Support structures are printed along with the model (which is often quite delicate) to ensure that the model does not fall apart during the process. These support structures are normally automatically generated and manually removed once the printing process is complete. The 3D wax cast (which is normally the original 3D design) is covered in a fine plaster, which, once solidified, is put in an oven until the wax has completely burned away (the lost wax casting). Gold is poured into the empty plaster cast, creating a 3D printed gold model. The model is then normally polished and finished manually. Gold is often used to create 3D printed jewelry and is of high cost as a raw material, hence it is rarely, if ever, 3D printed for that reason. The Tinkercad materials guide classes gold as an incredibly strong 3D printed material, using a highly expensive 3D printing process, due to the amount of material that is wasted to form the end result. The wax used for the lost wax casting normally prints at about 10 layers per 1mm and has a 0.5mm minimum wall thickness. Figure 20-6 shows you some 3D gold prints from the Tinkercad materials guide.

Article / Updated 06-04-2018

As with gold, wax 3D printing and lost-wax casting are used to build your design when using silver. The wax printing process uses STL files with the same wax-like resin with support structures that are printed along with the model to make sure the 3D model doesn’t fall apart. These support structures are automatically generated and manually removed after the printing process. After the support structures are removed and the model is cleaned, the model can be prepared for casting. One or more wax sprues will be attached to your model. Then, the sprue(s) and model will be attached to a wax tree, together with a bunch of other models. The tree is then placed in a flask and covered in fine plaster. The solidified plaster forms the mold for silver casting. It is then put in an oven where the wax is completely burned out. Molten silver is poured to fill the cavities left behind by the wax. Once the silver has cooled and solidified, the plaster mold is broken (carefully!) to get at the silver models, which are removed manually. The model is then filed and sanded to lose the sprues and then sanded, polished, or sandblasted to achieve the appropriate finish. Silver, 3D printed in this way, is often used for jewelry, such as rings, cufflinks, bracelets, pendants, and earrings. Here are some interesting things you may not know about silver: Pure silver is too soft for durable jewelry, so an alloy is added to harden it for longer wear. Due to lost-wax casting and printing being used in the production of silver, interlocking or enclosed parts are not possible. Sterling silver is a standard alloy used for jewelry purposes and, for this reason, is safe to wear on your skin. The fine quality of a 3D printed silver model is comparable to the kind of jewelry you can find in jewelry stores. Silver is made up of 93 percent silver, 4 percent copper, and 3 percent zinc. The Tinkercad materials guide classes silver, like gold, as another incredibly strong 3D printed material. The process used to create 3D prints made from silver is the same as gold. It is actually possible to 3D print directly with silver and gold, but it costs tens of thousands of dollars, which is why the processes described are more cost-effective. It also allows for wax prototypes to be made before the casting is done in order to ensure that the design has full integrity before any silver or gold is used. The company ZMorph has a superb article on Medium about a jeweler who 3D prints her designs to create a unique jewelry range. You can find ZMorph on Medium online. Simply search for the article on 3D printed jewelry. The figure shows you some of the ZMorph 3D printed jewelry designs that can be made.

Article / Updated 06-04-2018

Titanium is a metal used for 3D printing because it has numerous advantages over many other 3D printed metals. It is lightweight and, mechanically, very strong. More importantly, though, it is biocompatible and resists corrosion very well, hence its extensive use in high-tech fields, such as aeronautics and space exploration, and in the medical field. 3D printing with titanium has many advantages over traditional manufacturing methods. When it comes to complexity of titanium 3D printed parts, titanium can produce complex shapes that otherwise may not be possible. This creates many design possibilities and parts optimization. Titanium parts that are 3D printed always retain their mechanical properties when batch produced, reducing the need for welding, which can sometimes create impurities and areas of weakness in a design. It also reduces production time and gives increased flexibility because 3D printing takes away several of the traditional manufacturing steps, allowing parts to be produced (sometimes) in hours, not days. Titanium is an expensive metal, and traditional methods can produce titanium waste, which can quickly increase raw material costs. 3D printing keeps waste to a minimum, which keeps raw material costs down. However, titanium 3D printing is still expensive. The 3D printing industry needs more innovation and invention to overcome these challenges and improve the 3D printing technology — for example, reducing the cost of titanium powder, which is used for 3D printing. The Tinkercad materials guide classes titanium as the strongest material used for 3D printing. It is 3D printed using a process called Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS), where an STL file is used by the DMLS operator to orientate the model geometry and add support structures where needed. Once this build file is complete, it is then sliced into the appropriate layer thicknesses for the 3D printing process to begin. DMLS uses titanium powder that is fused in to the 3D print by the laser. It can print up to 30 layers per 1mm and has an incredible 0.2mm minimum wall thickness. This figure shows you some 3D printed titanium designs from the Tinkercad materials guide.