Customized-Designed, 3D Printed Instruments For Stitching and Quilting

Our October 2019 Hacker of the Month is a northern California resident who has taken her want to create cookie cutters and turned it right into a full-time product design and 3D printing manufacturing enterprise for {custom} stitching and quilting equipment.

Heather Snow, of purplehobbies.com, first caught the 3D printing bug again in 2014, “I first discovered about 3D printing from Make journal. I learn their 3D printer evaluation articles that inspired me to buy my first 3D printer.”

However Heather’s preliminary urge to pursue 3D printing got here from the necessity to create {custom} cookie cutters. “You’re going to chortle—I needed to make cookie cutters and pasta extruder discs. I used to be utilizing free 3D software program on-line to make what I believed had been easy daisy-shaped flower cookie cutters. The software program saved crashing and it was driving me loopy. A good friend at work really helpful SolidWorks, so I purchased a replica (I used to be working at a excessive tech firm on the time and this was my approach of stress-free—at the very least that’s how I justified the acquisition on the time.) A number of years of attempting to be taught SolidWorks alone left me pissed off however nonetheless decided.”

“However a number of years in the past I used to be lucky sufficient to have the ability to stop my day job and enrolled full time in SolidWorks lessons at DeAnza Neighborhood Faculty.  The professor began the category saying “We construct issues that don’t fall out of the sky”, referring to designs for airplanes and helicopters. I sat there considering, “I simply need to make cookie cutters!”  I took a number of SolidWorks lessons at De Anza Neighborhood Faculty and this made an incredible distinction within the high quality of my designs and my understanding of 3D modeling. I nonetheless have tons to be taught after all, however De Anza Neighborhood Faculty continues to be a wonderful supply of the most recent in business information for 3D printing and lessons for all of the preferred CAD software program.”

With all her design expertise and schooling, Heather creates her prints with an overriding precept that we will all get behind: No Helps. “I spend an incredible period of time designing my objects so there are not any helps wanted.  I do should do some little bit of sanding tough edges on a number of the components, however my aim is to be as near zero post-processing as attainable! Essentially the most intensive post-processing I do is with the Dinosaur TacoBuddy—I bake them to anneal them which additionally makes them dishwasher secure!”

Heather at the moment has a small print-farm consisting of a number of Ultimaker 3s, a Raise3D Pro2, a Dremel 3D40 (her favourite for printing TPU) and a Dremel Digilab 3D45. She sticks with the native slicers for every of the printers; Cura for the Ultimakers, Dremel’s Cloud software program, and IdeaMaker for the Raise3D. She nonetheless makes use of SolidWorks to create all her designs, though it was not simple to be taught, she says the time she invested into SolidWorks was nicely value it.

Heather and her household are all the time prepared for one thing to interrupt in the home and use 3D printing to give you a fast, cost-effective answer, in addition to going via the iterative course of to create the proper print. “We use 3D printing for EVERYTHING at my home. If one thing is damaged, we create a substitute half. If we want a device, we create and print one. 3D printing is superior, however the true magic comes while you mix it with the power to create your personal designs. Now, no matter we will think about we will maintain in our palms in a matter of hours (OK, typically days) and that’s nonetheless completely superb to me. I really like fixing issues, and the extra I discovered about 3D modeling, the extra issues I noticed that I may “repair” with 3D printing. From dinosaur-shaped taco holders to custom-designed quilt instruments I’ve been having a blast with 3D printing.”

“My son’s cat likes to drink water from anyplace however his water bowl. At any time when I set down a glass of water the cat would instantly seem and stick his head within the glass to begin consuming.  YUK! I created lids with straw holes for mason jars to maintain the cat out. The primary ones I made had been out of PLA and they might leak if I tilted the jar so I began to print them utilizing TPU and so they work nice! They’re additionally dishwasher secure which is an additional advantage.”

“I’m additionally a fan of big espresso mugs and mine was leaving rings on our new wooden desk. There aren’t coasters available on the market massive sufficient for my espresso mug so I designed my very own and now it’s a spot for us to brighten for the vacations: flowers within the spring, snowflakes within the winter, and so forth.”

Heather has taken all of her schooling, expertise, and design-savvy to create a enterprise producing instruments for an additional business; stitching and quilting. “I’ve created a number of quilting instruments which have helped preserve folks safer and extra environment friendly. I used to be taking a quilt class sooner or later and the lady subsequent to me saved stabbing herself with pins each time she tried to select one up. I believed that there needed to be a greater solution to maintain the pins so she wouldn’t preserve getting harm and the Magnetic Pin Cup was born. It’s a cup that holds the pins sharp aspect down with magnets, however it additionally has a telescoping carrying case and lid that twist shut to securely transport the pins. There are a number of different quilting instruments I created to make issues both safer or simpler. My BladeSaver Thread Cutter permits folks to reuse a 45mm rotary blade that they might have in any other case thrown away. The design safely holds the blade and permits threads to be minimize however doesn’t enable fingers anyplace close to the blade. There are a number of different instruments that assist quilters when a 3rd hand would come in useful.”

Heather primarily makes use of PLA in her 3D prints, “ I’m involved in regards to the particles emitted from printing with different filaments. I exploit quite a lot of Matterhackers MHBuild and PRO Sequence filament as a result of it’s so constant (no, I wasn’t informed to say this!). I additionally use TPU for mason jar lids and some different devices I’m at the moment designing.”

Heather can also be a fan of how 3D printing permits her to be versatile in her enterprise mannequin when the necessity arises, “3D printing permits me to supply many colours and scale manufacturing to create no matter is in demand in the meanwhile. A good friend blogged about my merchandise and I had a run on a particular shade that she talked about. It was nice to have the ability to instantly ramp up manufacturing of that shade for a number of days after which return to the common set of colours afterward.”

“I used to be additionally fortunate sufficient to get a distributor interested by promoting my merchandise. This meant extra quantity was wanted shortly.  It was nice to have the ability to order a number of extra Ultimakers from MatterHackers and have them busy producing merchandise simply two days later, and at a fraction of the price of injection mildew tooling!”

Most of Heather’s ardour for creating these merchandise comes from her love of baking, stitching, and quilting – one other stage of Making that pairs extraordinarily nicely with 3D printing and vacuum forming. “Quilting and cooking are my two favourite hobbies. Each time I wrestle and want there was an easier solution to do one thing I take into consideration how I may clear up the issue with 3D printing.

“My grandmother used to chop a gap within the high of her Morton salt containers so she may stick a measuring spoon inside. I took that concept one step additional and created a swiveling lid for the salt container. I like to make cookies however I’m horrible at adorning them so I create mixture cookie cutters and stamps. The cutters clearly minimize out the shapes and the stamps present the strains for the designs. Straightforward!”

“Candies are one in every of our favourite issues to make. I exploit a mixture of 3D printing and the Mayku vacuum forming machine to make {custom} chocolate designs. We created particular eightieth birthday chocolate discs for my father’s birthday.”

“Somebody stole one of many spherical tow covers from the bumper of my automotive. This left an unsightly gap within the bumper so my son designed and 3D printed a set of flowers to fill the opening (and changed the remaining tow cowl so it’s symmetrical). Sure, 3D printing is contagious. Each of my sons create and 3D print issues repeatedly.”

Heather hopes to see lots of the issues that the neighborhood is in search of sooner or later for 3D printing; accessibility, and sustainability. “I need to see 3D printers in each dwelling so folks can buy and obtain designs to print in no matter shade and materials they need. I might like to see 3D modeling supplied to all college students as a primary talent. It took me some time to rewire my mind to consider the right way to design issues in 3D, however now that I can create no matter I can dream up I’m having a blast! I might additionally prefer to see recycling for filaments and printed components. PLA is labeled as biodegradable, but when we may get it recycled that will be superior for customers and for the earth.”

Lastly, pulling from private expertise, Heather is aware of that schooling surrounding digital fabrication strategies like 3D printing is paramount. “I’m an enormous believer in hands-on studying.  I might like to see extra applications like DeAnza Neighborhood Faculty has the place they train 3D modeling in addition to the right way to use 3D printers, how to decide on the right 3D printing course of, and so forth. The problem is that applications like this concentrate on skilled 3D printing—I want to see extra coaching for dwelling use. I benefit from the YouTube movies that MatterHackers publishes in addition to these printed by many 3D printing fans, however nothing beats actual, hands-on expertise.  It might be nice if there have been multi-day boot camps to show folks the right way to use 3D printers and the right way to keep and troubleshoot them. We additionally want 3D printing superstores the place you’ll be able to go in and get assist from a 3D printing professional with both troubleshooting a printing downside or assist with making a design for 3D printing.”

We are able to’t wait to see how Purple Hobbies continues to achieve success with Heather’s artistic drive and spirit! If you want to be taught extra about Heather and Purple Hobbies, you’ll be able to go to her web site right here:

https://www.purplehobbies.com/

Are you a 3D printing Hacker or know somebody that’s? We might like to share their tales with the 3D printing neighborhood! Please e mail chris.morgan@matterhackers.com with info, and also you or your good friend may very well be our featured Hacker of the Month.