I designed our wedding rings and had them 3D printed by Shapeways (they use a lost wax casting process for precious metal objects). It's pretty cool having a one-of-a-kind piece, plus knowing that if anything ever does happen to the ring, it can be easily replaced.
Same. I was inspired by https://christian.gen.co/ring, and in fact worked with the same designer. I got to iterate over four or five designs and ended with a very nice design, and choose the stones separately.
(I didn't go with cubic zirconia, but that's a whole 'nother topic)
I used AutoCAD, but that's mainly because I was already moderately familiar with it, and thanks to my university affiliation it was free. Gotta respect the "hook 'em while they're young" business model.
I don't know squat about 3D printing. Is the plastic biodegradeable, otherwise you end up replace things (like the bouquet) with things that aren't recyclable / don't biodegrade ?
PLA Filament (The most common type in personal 3d printing) is technically compostable, but realistically will likely end up in a landfill due to inadequate disposal practices in most waste management systems.
Thanks for the info. When 3D printing started to blow up I brushed it off due to the plastic waste I would produce. I need to look into it again it seems.
Another popular plastic (in addition to PLA) is ABS and that is definitely recyclable but not biodegradable-- it's the same kind of plastic Lego are made out of
I love the idea. I know it's a bit far out for desktop printers, but there have been articles about people 3D printing dresses even. That would have been cool to print your own wedding dress.
That is a cool idea. That way you can save your flowers more easily. We had a nice floral bouquet, but I'll tell you 6 years later that the ones we saved show the effects of age!
I highly recommend others to do this if you have the time. Printers are dirt cheap nowadays (relatively). I designed and printed our cake topper. We painted each other's topper which was super fun. My wife crocheted all the boutineers and crosages. It was great since they were soft enough to be handled but sturdy enough to last probably our lifetime.
Cool story, but I'm still not totally sold on 3d printers. Could you not achieve the exact same effect with traditional arts and crafts like origami? I'm sure if you want to spend 75+hours building a bouquet, an origami one would probably be way more impressive and even biodegradable, no?
Presumably that 75 hours is mostly just setting things to print and leaving it. Fdm 3d printing is rather slow. But you just need to check on it periodically to make sure things haven't gone haywire.
Also, the most common 3d printing material, PLA, is biodegradable, at least with the right conditions, as it is made from bio materials like cornstarch.
I'm getting married next month and my fiancée and I have prepared all the decorations ourselves. I designed and 3D printed table number stands and the cake topper while she added the finishing touches with spray paint. Highly economical and a lot of fun!
It probably is, if the alternative is trying to get something suitable without having sellers/providers realize you're shopping your wedding, to avoid immediate quadrupling of prices.
That matters only if you pay someone else for machine time. If you own a decent 3D printer, you just leave it on and occasionally fix whatever issue is messing up the ongoing print.
Except that requires you to babysit the printer. There isn't a "good" way of monitoring longer prints. Either you spend time just sitting next to the printer constantly, or you walk away and pray it works.
True, but that reduces the problem to "not possible for everyone". If you work remotely, and have a printer next to your computer, it's entirely doable. My coworker set up his printer at his parents' house, and built a system for remote control & monitoring, including a camera pointed at the print bed. He does remote prints this way.
once the first layer is done clean, you can leave (and most people who have long running prints have video cameras watching). I do overnights all the time and rarely have problems other than running out of filament
F*&! impression management. Buy used clothing, shoes, and furniture. It takes "2,700 liters to produce the cotton needed to make a single t-shirt".
I support my local cobbler, new soles on my shoes, look great, function great.
I support my local tailer by buying used clothing and getting tailored to fit me properly.
These are real makers, sure they don't use fancy 3D printers, but they are masters at their craft.
I feel like you're ascribing a lot of sci-fi dreams to a technology that lets you work with (mostly) plastic without molds. Like these things aren't replicators.
To be fair, usb connectors don't change very often and the changes are genuine improvements. Even apple is moving towards usb-c on mobiles devices (see latest ipad)
I think my favorite feature of usb-c is the symmetric design. Not needing to check if I have the usb plug oriented correctly takes me from about a 50% success rate to 100% success rate on plugging things in correctly.
