If you are intrigued with new technologies and have an eye for precision and detail, then the expanding world of 3D printing could become your field of expertise. To work in this field, you will need to be familiar with 3D CAD (computer-aided design) in order to plan and design projects.
You’ll also need to attain working knowledge of the mechanical operation and manufacturing applications of 3D printers. This involves understanding all the advantages and drawbacks to implementing 3D printers into any process. If you commit to pursuing a career in 3D printing, you’ll have to stay abreast of the latest technical breakthroughs and market demands for 3D printing, whether it’s custom prosthetics or high-tech fashions.
The most important factor is the readiness to commit to a career that blends innovative design with the mathematical precision of advanced mechanical engineering. If you’re interested and willing to learn, you’re urged to take advantage of online tutorials or attend a course on 3D design and printing.
Top Degrees for a Career in 3D Printing
There are as yet few accreditations in 3D printing, so academic credentials aren’t as much value to your career as proven skills and experiences in using 3D software. However, there are several degree programs which are a perfect fit as a background for careers in 3D printing.
ENGINEERING
3D printers are a rapidly-advancing technology that calls for engineers who can understand, maintain, and operate the equipment. Mechanical, industrial, or software engineers will have a better grasp of what’s involved in producing accurate working models and components for manufacturing and architectural designs.
ANIMATION AND DESIGN
A related field that uses many of the same tools is 3D animation, used in many venues from web graphics to feature-length films. The 3D design software is used in translating visual concepts into tangible objects. A background in 3D animation ensures you already have an understanding of the software and the modeling concepts involved.
BIOMEDICAL TECHNOLOGY
The constant demand for better healthcare treatments has also become part of the expanding market for 3D printers. Medical researchers can create working organic models and even functional arterial implants from 3D materials. Biomedical experts can lead the way in developing new medical solutions through this new 3D technology.
SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS
The current state of 3D printing software is much less user-friendly than mainstream applications, but as the technology progresses there will be opportunities for programmers who can develop cross-platform software, better interfaces, and more features and functions that make using 3D printers easier and more productive.
Job Opportunities
3D printing is a specialized area of knowledge, but the applications are so varied that anyone with knowledge of how they can be best adapted and utilized could find excellent employment opportunities. Here are several profitable positions available in this revolutionary field.
3D DESIGN
As a 3D designer your job is to materialize concepts by exploring ideas, addressing flaws, and refining models into market-ready products. Designing for 3D printers allows your ideas to evolve logically into digital versions that can be printed anywhere.
3D PRINTING SPECIALIST
As a specialist you can prepare files for 3D printing. You must have the ability to make designs meet customer specifications, such as debugging, adjusting, and formatting them to various printers for the best output.
3D CUSTOMIZATION & PROTOTYPING
As manufacturers provide larger and more complex 3D printers, customization of a variety of objects such as furniture or medical prosthetics becomes more commonplace. As a 3D prototyper, you’ll have to be able to deliver these altered versions in a timely and cost-effective manner.
SALES
When marketing these customized products and prototypes you’ll have to have an understanding of 3D printing techniques, software and printer capabilities, and materials, as well as manage client info, technical advice, pricing, scheduling, and more.
EDUCATION
The growth of 3D printing has opened up opportunities in many areas of education. Many schools are including 3D printing as a means of hands-on instruction in subjects such as science or business development. The growing use of 3D printers requires qualified instructors to provide training at many levels, such as company crash courses, or more involved curriculum at universities and technical schools.
PARTS FABRICATION
As 3D printers appear that utilize metallic as well as plastic materials, there’s a demand for companies that can provide replacement parts for out-of-stock or unique products such as antique cars, artwork, home décor, and more that can’t be repaired or replaced except through new parts. This was formerly an expensive mold casting process that’s much faster, cheaper, and easier with the advent of 3D printers.
Partial article copied from IT-ology website written by Lisa Michaels , a freelance writer, editor and a striving content marketing consultant from Portland
What is ABS?
ABS or Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene is a common thermoplastic. It’s a popular plastic for injection molding and it’s used to make legos, instruments, sports equipment and more.
If you’re used to printing with PLA, you’ll probably find ABS a little trickier to print with. There are a couple more steps required for each print, and it has a different set of printing settings. However, you need not despair. ABS is a strong and heat resistant filament, with awesome post processing options. With this article under your belt, things will be printing your way.
Getting that first layer right
As we discussed in our PLA article, getting the first layer down is the most important part of the print. Here are the key points: 
- You need the print bed (or print surface) to be level
- You need the extruder to be homed to the correct height from the bed.
- You need a good adhesive to assist your ABS in sticking to the bed.
- And of course, making sure that your extruder is heated to the right temperature.
If your first layer is not sticking:
- Make sure the bed is level.
- Make sure the bed is hot enough.
- Make sure that the ambient temperature of the print environment isn’t too hot or cold (or else adjust accordingly).
- Make sure you put the adhesive on the bed.
- Make sure the print head is close enough to make a nice squished first layer.
- Make sure you run the extruder enough before your print starts so there is filament going onto the bed during the entire first layer.
- Kapton/PET tape is a great way to print ABS. It makes a great shiny bottom layer and the heated bed ensures that your parts stay nice and flat.
Getting the temperature right
When working with a new roll of filament for the first time, we generally like to start out printing at about 230c and then adjusting the temperature up or down by 5-degree increments until we get the quality of the print and the strength of the part to be in good balance with each other.
What to look for
If the temperature is too high:
You will see more strings between the separate parts of your print and you may notice that the extruder leaks out a lot of plastic while moving between separate areas of the print. If this happens you should try to incrementally lower the temperature by 5 degrees until the extruder is not leaking so much material.
Sometimes you will have a material that is simply less viscous than ABS and will leak more even at lower temperatures. We recommend you increase the retraction a few millimeters (3-4 seems like a good number for most every ABS we have tried).
If the temperature is too cold:
You will either see that the filament is not sticking to the previous layer and you are getting a rough surface, or you will get a part that is not strong and can be pulled apart easily. In either case, you should increase the temperature by 5 degrees and try again until you get good line segments on every layer and have a strong part when done printing.
The success of our PrintDry accessories is helped by our dedicated circle of authorized distributors across the world. We would like to say thank you 谢谢 Xièxiè, dank je, and grazie to all of them, who work hard to get our PrintDry products out to people all over the world.
Here is a list of our authorized distributors. In North America our PrintDry products can easily be found on our PrintDry website.
In CANADA https://filaments.ca/
In USA:
https://www.matterhackers.com https://taulman3d.com
IN EUROPE IN ITALY
https://www.makerpoint.nl/en/ https://www.roboze.com/en/
If your company is interested in becoming one of authorized distributors, please contact info@printdry.com for more information.
Just in case some of you have misplaced or lost your original owners manual for the PrintDry filament dryer, we have taken one and scanned each page. To assemble or read, please pay attention to the page numbers. The original copy was printed in a booklet form.
Recently we received a complaint from one of our customers who wanted to know if we would replace his cover due to the warping that had occurred.on our PrintDry filament dryer. 
He initially sent me this photo showing major warping to the strongest part of our filament dryer, the cover. (notice the warping of the center around the handle, and to the top edge of the middle circle on the lid). We had never seen such warping and determined that the damage was done from some sort of external heating, or possibly adjusting the heat thermostat.
Before we sent our filament dryers to the retail market they have been tested and re-tested with the worst possible scenarios we could think of to see how the survived the conditions of the testing. The damage that was noticed after we ran our dryer in an enclosed space with just the 1.25 inch clearance on all sides, as instructed in our manual did not result in anything that looked like the photo below.
It was our determination that the heat needed to melt and deform both the strong top cover, and the internal lip on one of the chambers had to have reached at least 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees F.
The temperature settings on our filament dryer is set at 35-70 degrees C or 95-160 degrees F.
It is an impossibility for the filament dryer to reach the high temperature needed to melt and warp the plastic used on our filament dryer, without some other form of heating applied, or temperature control adjustment.
Needless to say, this particular customer was very upset that we did not honor our one-year manufacturer warranty, but it was very obvious that the heat needed to deform the plastic as shown in these photos, far surpassed by the capability of heat settings from our manufacturer.
So please be careful in using our filament dryer and pay notice to the range of temperatures that are set by our manufacturer. If any damage is done by heating outside the range that the filament dryer can reach, then the manufacturer warranty does not cover products damaged by the following guidelines:
- Misuse, accident, abuse or alterations
- Serviced by unauthorized persons
One of our official distributors wrote a great article about what to do with things go wrong with your 3D prints, and it was such great information that we would like to include it on our blog. Many thanks go out to MatterHackers for their knowledge and experience in the 3D printing field.
There are a few key things to check when your prints aren’t working. These are just suggestion and hopefully they will help solve your issues.
My Printer is leaving stings on my printing project or is spitting out filament and leaving holes in the print project.
- Your filament most likely has absorbed moisture and you will need to dry out the filament. We suggest our PrintDry filament dryer that can be purchased on this website: printdry.com
“I can’t get the first layer to stick.”
- Make sure the extruder is at the right height. Adjust the limit switch or extruder 0 height
- Make sure the print bed is level. Level the bed
“The part has bad internal layers and top surfaces.”
- Check the extrusion temperature (you may need to increase it by 5 degree bumps)
- Check the filament tension.
- Clean the filament drive gear
“The outside edges of my parts have lots of little bumps on them.”
- Make sure your printer is getting enough data. If printing from a computer, ensure that the computer is not too busy to feed the printer commands. If the printer is pausing it is usually due to the printer being too busy.
- Print from SD card. On some printers you can try and print from SD card. This often helps the printer have enough data to run more smoothly.
- Source better PLA. We have found that the quality of your print material can have a big impact on the quality of your part. Getting better PLA can help you get better parts. However, don’t be too quick to assume the problem is in your PLA. With the right settings and patience hobbyists have succeeded in printing all sorts of materials many of which have very low viscosity and inconsistency. You should be able to get at least usable parts even with some lower quality filament.
“Tall sections of my prints look melted or squished together.”
- Turn on “Cooling”. If your printer has a fan you should enable “cooling” in the print settings.
- Get a small fan. If your printer does not have an integrated fan you should look into getting a small desk fan. This can help dramatically with tall sections of your print or when “bridging” (printing top layers that span gaps).
“My printer will not put out any material.”
- Make sure your hot end is getting hot. Check that the hot end is heating at all. If it is not you need to have your printer serviced. It is likely that you have a loose connection, or your electronics have been fried (assuming the printer is still connected and responding to your host software :).
- Clean the drive gear and adjust tension. The first thing we are going to do is clean the filament touching drive gear and ensure that we have proper tension against the filament. Usually improper tension or a clogged drive gear will make the print look more like the picture we have for low temperature filament, but it sometimes does prevent extrusion all together. Clean the pinch wheel with a wire brush, and make sure your tension is good and solid (too much can also prevent extrusion and is more common with direct drives [the motor is directly connected to the drive gear] but less common with geared drives).
- Remove the current filament. It may be that you have a small particle in your extruder tip jamming the plastic. Follow your usual way of removing your filament or use the settings on your printer
- Check for and remove jams between the extruder and hot end. This is the most extreme type of problem because now it is time to take things apart. Sometimes heat can creep up the filament in the extruder and cause a bulge that then cools and prevents any further extrusion. This is usually at the junction between the extruder and hot end. Take off the extruder and remove all the PLA you can (you may need the hot end hot (80c-100c) to get all the material out. If you can’t get out all the filament by pulling it out, you may need to try and drive it down through the hot end. We usually use a small Allen wrench. If this fails, you can try and drill out the extruder or hot end but you may need to replace parts. Be sure to take precautions against being shocked or burned. If you are not qualified to do this work find someone who is, rather than risk injury.
Congratulations on your purchase of our PrintDry filament dryer. We are confident that you will experience a definite change in your printing jobs. Our dryer is ready to go out of the box. Simply remove the packing material, lift out the dryer, remove plastic bag, and take out the owners manual and any other packing material that may be inside the dryer chambers.
Please make sure to read, understand and keep the manual for future reference. It is important to place the filament dryer in an area that will allow for proper air flow around all sides of the unit.
Our dryers are small but work hard. It does not require much maintenance. Keep in mind that we suggest that that you can run your filament dryer for up to 40 consecutive hours, but you must shut it off and give the unit a chance to cool down before using it again.
Below is a short video on how to use our filament dryer should you need more assistance.
Thank you for your purchase, and we wish you many happy hours of printing with our PrintDry filament dryer.
With the purchase of every PrintDry filament dryer you will receive two FREE gifts inside. First it an additional top feeder for the top chamber, so that you filament will easily turn and help with feeding the filament directly to your printer.
Second is two (2) FREE D-Spools. These D-spools feature a open top and bottom and allows the filament dryer to reach more of the filament on the roll. This is important especially in longer prints. You can un-spool the filament from the manufacturers spool and wind it onto one of your FREE D-spools. We have created a Re-spooling station and have this offered on our website for purchase.
Below is a detailed description on how to assemble the D-Spools. Please refer to the D_spool_assembly highlighted below.
Contains: 2 large spools
3 center posts with large center hole
3 center posts with small center hole
6 screws
Look at the large spools. One side with have an indentation where a screw will go, this is considered the outside of the spool.
The inside of the spool will have three short raised posts which will accept the center posts with the large center holes.
TO ASSEMBLE
Place a screw though the outside opening and attach the center posts with the small holes. Do this on one spool only. Total of 3 posts and 3 screws
.
Lay the spool on a flat surface with the center posts pointing up. Slide on the center posts with the larger center hole on the raised post. There should now be 6 center posts sticking upwards.
Align the second large spool so that the center posts with the large posts line up with the raised posts on the inside of the second large spool.
Align the remaining three center posts with the holes that will accept screws. Tighten all three posts with the remaining 3 screws.
Your D- spool is now completed and the center posts should be parallel with the other side
Repeat steps above to assemble the second D-spool that is included with your filament dryer.
