MagPi 69: affordable 3D printing with a Raspberry Pi
Hi folks, Rob from The MagPi here with the good news that The MagPi 69 is out now! Nice. Our latest issue is all about 3D printing and how you can get yourself a very affordable 3D printer that you can control with a Raspberry Pi.
Get 3D printing from just £99!
Pi-powered 3D printing
Affordability is always a big factor when it comes to 3D printers. Like any new cosumer tech, their prices are often in the thousands of pounds. Over the last decade, however, these prices have been dropping steadily. Now you can get budget 3D printers for hundreds rather than thousands – and even for £99, like the iMakr. Pairing an iMakr with a Raspberry Pi makes for a reasonably priced 3D printing solution. In issue 69, we show you how to do just that!
Portable Raspberry Pis
Looking for a way to make your Raspberry Pi portable? One of our themes this issue is portable Pis, with a feature on how to build your very own Raspberry Pi TV stick, coincidentally with a 3D-printed case. We also review the Noodle Pi kit and the RasPad, two products that can help you take your Pi out and about away from a power socket.
And of course we have a selection of other great guides, project showcases, reviews, and community news.
Get The MagPi 69
Issue 69 is available today from WHSmith, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda. If you live in the US, head over to your local Barnes & Noble or Micro Center in the next few days for a print copy. You can also get the new issue online from our store, or digitally via our Android and iOS apps. And don’t forget, there’s always the free PDF as well.
New subscription offer!
Want to support the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the magazine? We’ve launched a new way to subscribe to the print version of The MagPi: you can now take out a monthly £4 subscription to the magazine, effectively creating a rolling pre-order system that saves you money on each issue.
You can also take out a twelve-month print subscription and get a Pi Zero W, Pi Zero case, and adapter cables absolutely free! This offer does not currently have an end date.
We hope you enjoy this issue! See you next month.
7 comments
Mike Cook
Magnetic Bounce Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bqg_NlfEyM
Alan Mc (Irish Framboise)
Looking forward to finding the new issue in my mailbox! Excellent stuff.
spock
about the rocket modelling in blender…
it’s not true that blender doesn’t run on the pi. it runs surprisingly well with the enabled opengl driver and after changing some blender opengl settings (if i remember correctly something with object picking and triple buffering has to be changed but i would have to check).
Neil
The article implies that the Wanhao i3 Mini/Coccon Create Modelmaker is USB controllable. This is not the case, at least with the current firmware. The USB can only be used for firmware upgrades.
Elfen
I’ve been doing 3D Printing for over a year, and the one thing that concerns me is the recommending the A-Net printer. It is a printer kit that needs to be built, but that is not an issue. It being a dangerous printer is.
Let me explain, in recent history there has been several home/house fires that were blamed on 3D Printers. But in 90% of the cases when a disaster strikes and it is found to be “New Technology” in area of the disaster, it is often blamed. So in those 90% of those cases, though there was a 3D Printer in the home/house that burned down, it was not the cause of the fire. Thank god!
But there was 1 known case and another case under review where a 3D Printer was the cause. In both cases, it was an A-Net printer. It has been surmised that something happened to the heating element and it went into thermal-runaway, cause the 3D printed object to catch fire and spread to the rest of the house.
“Throwing petrol to the fire,” there is a fix for this, but one has to “burn” a new configuration system to the Marlin board the A-Net uses. There are several safety configuration values turned off, and they need to be switched on and burned onto the Marlin board, a process similar to uploading a sketch to an Arduino board. The files are up there and there are several Youtube Videos on how to do this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu5WD6ymEJE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckQ9UWlmdVA
When buying a “Cheap 3D Printer” it is Buyer Beware.
Buy the way, I own 2 Tronxy 3D Printers, a P802MA and an X1. They are great and cheap, and the P802 is similar to the A-Net. And yes, they also suffer from this config safety problem. Its that when I 3D print something, I do not walk away from them in case something happens. I am always near by and can immediately deal with any problems that they may get into.
Adam
Where did you find the £99 price tag for the Startt?
https://www.imakr.com/en/startt-affordable-3d-printer/1146-startt-3d-printer.html
lists it a £199!
adam Bryant
huh?
i typed £119, why did it get changed to 199?