Maker Spotlight: Downunder Maker
By MakerViking
Published
Updated
8 min read
Category: Maker Spotlight
From a birthday Ender 5 to a workshop running Vorons, a Core One, and a "Daddy Fix It Drawer," this Aussie educator brings making into the classroom and the living room. With a beagle that pulls power cables and students who keep him learning, every day is an adventure in personal fabrication.
<h2 class="font bold" How did you first discover 3D printing, and what was your "aha" moment that made you realize this was more than just a small hobby?</h2 <p class="mb 2" I’d been eyeing off buying a 3D printer for about 6 months and a friend had just bought his Ender5. My birthday was coming up so my wife said “get one for your birthday, so we drove 50km to the only store in the state that had one and as it turned out it was on sale, so we grabbed it and it was all downhill from there.</p <h2 class="font bold" Walk us through your current workspace setup what machines, tools, and software form the backbone of your making process?</h2 <p class="mb 2" Where do I start? Ah yes, the room is in theory the formal lounge for the house, originally designed with a 1600L /400Gal marine aquarium thru the wall into the family room. This means I have 16 240v outlets over 3 phases on 1 wall and this is where my printer cabinets are, think a Kitchen bench with cupboards underneath and thats what I have wall to wall, bolted to the wall and floor for rigidity. In the left corner 2 Voron V0’s which my kids have claimed for printing toys and trinkets. Then is an Ender3 I use as a test bed, followed by my Core One then the Ender 5 (you can never get rid of ur first printer) and then the Voron 2,4 in the other corner. Above the printers is a 3m reprack sorted sort of by the rainbow in PLA then in ABS/ASA. In the middle of room are my 2 sit/stand desks for building and streaming. Opposite wall to the printers is the off camera dump everything spot, dont judge we all have that spot in our workshops 😛</p <img src="https://api.tinkeratlas.com/storage/v1/object/public/project images/articles/70aec187 0e8f 4711 b925 a50e749f3deb/1774489414998 oknzbe.jpg" alt="" height="auto" <p class="mb 2" <strong Software:</strong I use all 3 major slicers but I lean more heavily on SuperSlicer as I’ve been on the Alpha test team for a while, Prusa Slicer for the CoreOne and Orca for those times where I need to paint something for multicolour and the other 2 cant do it</p <h2 class="font bold" What's the project you're most proud of, and why does it stand out among everything you've created?</h2 <p class="mb 2" My favourite build was my 2nd 3D Sets Roady Dump Truck, i built one for my daughter to be radio controlled on a stream series, but it just suffered from niggly issues, but I still had to do one for my son who is a bit younger so I modded it to be no motors and more like a Tonka Truck, it came out soooo much better than the original and he loves racing that thing up and down the house.<br </p <img src="https://api.tinkeratlas.com/storage/v1/object/public/project images/articles/70aec187 0e8f 4711 b925 a50e749f3deb/1774489442195 hj85hv.jpg" alt="" height="auto" <h2 class="font bold" Describe a spectacular failure or challenge you've faced in your making journey and what it taught you.</h2 <p class="mb 2" I’ve been lucky in my journey and not really had anything particularly spectacular happen to me beyond a scraped PEI sheet, but I have helped local makers and schools fix some pretty spectacular screw ups. A school I was teaching at had a printer in the library and the staff had no understanding of anything beyond stuff the filament in the hole and click print. </p <p class="mb 2" They bought PETG by accident and printed it with ABS settings, and went home for the night, coming in to work the next day to the 120 cube print volume half full of a blob of doom. My students were away on exam leave so I spent 2 full days with a hot knife cutting the filament away a chunk at a time. By the 3rd day it was exhumed and it took a couple of hours to re wired the thermistor and heater cartridge using spares from my Engineering lab. </p <h2 class="font bold" What misconception about 3D printing or making do you find yourself constantly correcting when talking to newcomers?</h2 <p class="mb 2" That you can just buy a printer and print with no mechanical knowledge, the barrier to entry has come down, but I do still get people who bought that Chinese brand that the fanbois love coming to me to fit new hotends because they just don't have the practical skills to do it</p <h2 class="font bold" What's your go to troubleshooting process when a print goes wrong, and what's the most unusual fix you've discovered?</h2 <p class="mb 2" When a print goes wrong for me here, its almost always that the filament has deteriorated from the wild temperature and humidity swings from living in a narrow corridor between the desert and the ocean. I’ve moved to printing direct from filament dryers and all of my filament is vac sealed. The rest of it is bed adhesion, remember folks a few cents/pence worth of bed adhesive is way cheaper than losing ½ a spool of filament.</p <h2 class="font bold" How do you approach the design to print workflow? Do you design everything yourself, remix existing models, or combine approaches?</h2 <p class="mb 2" I'm very much a “don’t re invent the wheel” kind of guy, I will skim the usual websites looking for the closest solution to what I need then modify it from there, I encourage my students to do the same. </p <p class="mb 2" I'm going to be honest, Fusion’s workflow doesn't work well with how my brain is wired and I see some of my students who take to it easily and some have the same issues as me, so I know this is an issue more broadly. What works for me is TinkerCad, for the form and then exporting that to Fusion for the fillets and chamfers.</p <h2 class="font bold" How has being part of the maker community shaped your approach to creating and sharing your work?</h2 <p class="mb 2" I’m always looking for ways to improve my skillset and often drop in on random creators from other disciplines to see if they have something different for me to learn from. Cosplay for instance isn't really my thing, but the art and skills involved gave me ideas for ways to hinge model aircraft flight surfaces<br </p <img src="https://api.tinkeratlas.com/storage/v1/object/public/project images/articles/70aec187 0e8f 4711 b925 a50e749f3deb/1774489637331 205yu0.jpg" alt="" height="auto" <h2 class="font bold" What advice would you give to someone who's interested in making but feels overwhelmed by the technical learning curve?</h2 <p class="mb 2" Start small and work up, no one knows everything, and the chances are you have something to bring to the community that others haven't thought of.</p <h2 class="font bold" Where do you see personal fabrication and 3D printing heading in the next 5 years, and how are you preparing for those changes?</h2 <p class="mb 2" Multi colour and true multi material will be the norm, SLS will start to become mainstream and affordable for hobbiests.</p <h2 class="font bold" What's currently on your workbench or in your print queue that has you excited?</h2 <p class="mb 2" After 8 months I’ve almost got my BoxTurtle actually working, my kit wasn’t the best and I’ve had a number of struggles to overcome to make it usable. This week I finally got it to reliably swap and print, only failing when my beagle walked thru the workshop and pulled the power a few layers from the end.</p <h2 class="font bold" Outside of making, what influences or inspires your creative process? </h2 <p class="mb 2" My students and my kids are always coming to me with something they want help with or printed. A while back some students needed custom screws so we sat down and learned together how to use Fusion to make custom screws and printed them for their project.</p <h2 class="font bold" If you could only keep three tools/machines in your workshop, what would they be and why?</h2 <p class="mb 2" Voron 2.4 350mm space and my first DIY build</p <p class="mb 2" Core One now I’ve solved an issue from the factory it just works</p <p class="mb 2" Daddy Fix It Drawer, the spot my kids put things they break for me to fix/reprint for them.</p <img src="https://api.tinkeratlas.com/storage/v1/object/public/project images/articles/70aec187 0e8f 4711 b925 a50e749f3deb/1774489651942 88wr38.jpg" alt="" height="auto" <h2 class="font bold" LIGHTNING ROUND</h2 <p class="mb 2" <strong Favorite filament brand and why in 10 words or less</strong </p <p class="mb 2" Siddament, Sidd is a small Aussie operation with a huge range and extremely competitive pricing:</p <p class="mb 2" <strong Most underrated tool under $50 every maker should own</strong </p <p class="mb 2" Deburring tool to remove elephants foot:</p <p class="mb 2" <strong STL/model website you visit most frequently: </strong <br Printables</p <p class="mb 2" <strong Dream tool or machine you'd buy with unlimited budget:</strong </p <p class="mb 2" SLS printer for making gas turbine parts</p <p class="mb 2" <strong Most played podcast/YouTube channel while working in the shop:</strong </p <p class="mb 2" <a target=" blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="text blue 600 hover:text blue 800 dark:text blue 400 dark:hover:text blue 200 underline cursor pointer transition colors" href="https://www.youtube.com/@marcgallagher32" https://www.youtube.com/@marcgallagher32</a his Aussie Explains series is a great way to unwind</p <p class="mb 2" <strong First thing you ever 3D printed vs. most recent print: </strong <br 1st was some random animal print that came on the SD card with my Ender 5, most recent a simplified CAD version of INDX for working through some design considerations for putting it on my V2.4</p <p class="mb 2" <strong Slicer of choice and one setting everyone should tweak: </strong <br SuperSlicer Set a custom plate image, it brings a little joy each time you open the slicer</p <p class="mb 2" <strong Biggest "maker sin" you're guilty of (messy workspace, never finishing projects, hoarding filament, etc.): </strong <br Not throwing out obsolete parts for printers like old skirts or toolheads I will never use again, although this week I did try to break this and ½ filled a 40Gal bin.</p <p class="mb 2" <strong One maker/creator everyone should be following right now: </strong <br Modbot, he builds things his way without the huge audiences of some other creator, but his earnest humble approach is great.</p <p class="mb 2" <strong Your maker superpower in 3 words: </strong <br I drop stuff</p
