GregValiant 393
I do believe you are correct sir.
Their first attempts will be the dog, cat, and pig included with the printer. The STL files for those three were exceptionally fine and sliced by professionals using Simplify3D. They print flawlessly. Then those new printer owners start downloading poor STL files from Thingiverse or someplace. They don't know how to slice, the prints are a mess, so they ask for help on Reddit or Facebook and change everything on their printer. The predictable result is that the printer doesn't work right either. All of that will be somebody else's fault - including some random slicer (ahem!) that they downloaded for free.
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kmanstudios 1,115
Fundamentals of modeling....seems to be a continuing issue. Not modeling pertaining to programs, but the fundamental issues that arise no matter what program. Non-water tight, too thin holes, useless voids, tolerances for tab-and-slot type of engineering, ball and socket...things like that?
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GregValiant 393
Starting about noon on Christmas day, there will be a huge influx of people (mostly young people) who will be getting into 3D printing with absolutely no idea of what is involved. The same questions will be asked numerous times and will require the same answers over and over. A sticky thread of how to get started might be a good idea. This would be more for the non-Ultimaker crowd that is looking to Cura as their slicer. They will be knocking on the door here. The Cura Reddit crew is going to have their hands full.
So my suggestion for right now is to start on 3d Printing 101 covering:
Much of it could be just posting links to sites containing the information and/or videos to get them pointed in the right direction. They aren't going to look at "Cura Settings Explained", they are just going to post a question that could have been searched for and the answer found. There might be value in having a thread "New to 3D Printing - Start Here" that always stays at the top of the list. At the end it could have the etiquette rules and such for the site.
When they move on from "Mini's" they can learn about tolerances, supports, the effect of infill on structural integrity and strength, FEA, and the rest of the arcane and boring that makes up the vast realm of engineering.
It's already on your calendar...Christmas day...about 4 hours after they open that big box with the Chinese writing on it. And some of them will be potential Ultimaker customers down the road a bit.
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kmanstudios 1,115
Gotta tell ya, most people will do that because they do not know where to begin. I remember when I first started here, I was using Cura before I got the printer to get familiar with the base process (even tried Simplify 3D, slicer, etc and just stayed with Cura. But even though I had spent that time preparing, it is so easy to miss many things. Basically, I agree and just roll with it because I had to ask questions (stupid ones just because I did not make a connection to certain things) and was nice to get an answer from someone to shortcut the confusion.
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Yep and with provided samples to slice so that a comparison to what should be expected to what they get in their first attempts?
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