ZL Industries - 3D Printing

I have been involved in 3D printing for the best part of 9 years now. I am currently leading a printing service for the Mech Eng undergraduates at Imperial, where I am going to start a mini lecture series to share my experience with any keen students. My current personal printer at home is a Prusa MK3S+, which is an absolute workhorse of a machine!

My passion for the technology started in primary school with an amazing Design and Technology (and Magic) teacher, and a lecture I gave in Year 6 about the subject. I started saving there and then for my very own 3D printer, a Geeetech A10M, which I was lucky enough to buy 4 years later in 2020. It was perfect for keeping my 'innovative juices' flowing during the otherwise boring lockdown, and it was then that I first came to understand and love the iterative design process.

My experience came in useful at school, where I helped to build and run a small fleet of Creality CR10s for student projects. I also learned how to use SLA printers, namely the Formlabs Form 2 and 3, which were amazing for high-quality display prints. Some of my largest prints (40+ hours) were CFRP layup moulds printed on the CR10s at school for my exoskeleton project.

I enjoy using 3D printing for small around-the-house improvements and repairs. Using Fusion 360 for all my 3D CAD is very quick and has allowed me to complete many 1-day or few-hour projects including wall planters, storage hooks for an IKEA modular system and small toys and gimmicks as gifts for friends. 3D printing is a brilliant method for iterative design too, as it allows for the creation of multiple iterations within a day; this was very useful for my EDITH project where I needed to design a hinge to go around an existing glasses frame, and a Nerf SCAR rifling barrel for which I needed to precisely adjust tolerances to balance the drag and spin on foam darts.

As well as a tool for idea creation, 3D printing has itself become a hobby for me. With printer upgrades and repairs, filament tuning and testing the strength of different print-orientations, there are so many aspects to explore within the 3D printing hobby. I often use Thingiverse and Printables to find test-prints and fun things to make without having to design them myself; and you can check out my own collections here.

(Note: Most of these images are quite old, I will upload some recent pictures soon)