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 realized about 3D printing from Make journal. I learn their 3D printer evaluate 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 snort—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 stored crashing and it was driving me loopy. A good friend at work really useful SolidWorks, so I purchased a duplicate (I used to be working at a excessive tech firm on the time and this was my means of stress-free—at the least that’s how I justified the acquisition on the time.) A number of years of attempting to be taught SolidWorks alone left me annoyed however nonetheless decided.”

“However a couple of years in the past I used to be lucky sufficient to have the ability to give up my day job and enrolled full time in SolidWorks courses at DeAnza Group 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 courses at De Anza Group 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 in fact, however De Anza Group Faculty continues to be a wonderful supply of the newest in business information for 3D printing and courses for all of the most well-liked CAD software program.”

With all her design expertise and training, Heather creates her prints with an overriding precept that we are able to all get behind: No Helps. “I spend an incredible period of time designing my objects so there aren’t any helps wanted.  I do need to perform a little little bit of sanding tough edges on a number of the elements, however my objective is to be as near zero post-processing as attainable! Probably the most in depth post-processing I do is with the Dinosaur TacoBuddy—I bake them to anneal them which additionally makes them dishwasher protected!”

Heather at present 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, despite the fact that it was not simple to be taught, she says the time she invested into SolidWorks was properly value it.

Heather and her household are at all times prepared for one thing to interrupt in the home and use 3D printing to provide you with a fast, cost-effective answer, in addition to going via the iterative course of to create the right print. “We use 3D printing for EVERYTHING at my home. If one thing is damaged, we create a alternative half. If we want a software, we create and print one. 3D printing is superior, however the actual magic comes if you mix it with the power to create your individual designs. Now, no matter we are able to think about we are able to maintain in our arms in a matter of hours (OK, generally days) and that’s nonetheless completely wonderful to me. I really like fixing issues, and the extra I realized about 3D modeling, the extra issues I noticed that I might “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 start out ingesting.  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 they usually work nice! They’re additionally dishwasher protected 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 embellish for the vacations: flowers within the spring, snowflakes within the winter, and so on.”

Heather has taken all of her training, expertise, and design-savvy to create a enterprise producing instruments for an additional business; stitching and quilting. “I’ve created numerous quilting instruments which have helped hold individuals safer and extra environment friendly. I used to be taking a quilt class in the future and the lady subsequent to me stored stabbing herself with pins each time she tried to choose one up. I believed that there needed to be a greater strategy to maintain the pins so she wouldn’t hold getting harm and the Magnetic Pin Cup was born. It’s a cup that holds the pins sharp aspect down with magnets, nevertheless 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 individuals to reuse a 45mm rotary blade that they’d have in any other case thrown away. The design safely holds the blade and permits threads to be reduce 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 take advantage of loads of Matterhackers MHBuild and PRO Sequence filament as a result of it’s so constant (no, I wasn’t advised to say this!). I additionally use TPU for mason jar lids and some different devices I’m at present designing.”

Heather can 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 for the time being. 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 couple of days after which return to the common set of colours afterward.”

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

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

“My grandmother used to chop a gap within the high of her Morton salt containers so she might 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 reduce out the shapes and the stamps present the strains for the designs. Straightforward!”

“Candies are considered one of our favourite issues to make. I take advantage of a mix 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 automobile. This left an unsightly gap within the bumper so my son designed and 3D printed a set of flowers to fill the outlet (and changed the remaining tow cowl so it’s symmetrical). Sure, 3D printing is contagious. Each of my sons create and 3D print issues often.”

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

Lastly, pulling from private expertise, Heather is aware of that training surrounding digital fabrication strategies like 3D printing is paramount. “I’m an enormous believer in hands-on studying.  I’d like to see extra packages like DeAnza Group Faculty has the place they train 3D modeling in addition to how one can use 3D printers, how to decide on the proper 3D printing course of, and so on. The problem is that packages like this give attention to skilled 3D printing—I wish 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 fanatics, however nothing beats actual, hands-on expertise.  It will be nice if there have been multi-day boot camps to show individuals how one can use 3D printers and how one can 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 will’t wait to see how Purple Hobbies continues to achieve success with Heather’s inventive 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’d 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 could possibly be our featured Hacker of the Month.