First "practical" 3D print - counterweight shaft spacer
Recently invested in an Ender 3 printer, and have been tinkering learning the software and practising/experimenting slicing and print settings. I have a ton of ideas for little projects. Thought I'd start with simplest. I have a barbell weight for when I need additional counterweights with my 10" OTA on the mount. The internal diameter is about 1", so thought I'd print a spacer to make a more snug fit between the 18mm shaft and the 1" hole. Test print is in PLA (blue), but I'll do final print in PETG (red).
Modelling done in Tinkercad, slicing done in Cura. For more advanced prints I'll probably use Fusion360, but this simple print was fine with Tinkercad.
Nice one! The Ender 3 is a handy little machine and Fusion 360 is the way to go especially if you're wanting to do threaded parts. Once you've got the hang of things I'd suggest upgrading to an all metal hotend which will improve print quality and allow the use of various speciality filaments.
Yes PETG is a good choice. I've tried many types of filament and had many failures, especially ABS with it's propensity to warp, so these days I only ever use PETG.
Good idea to do counterweight spacers; I've numerous scopes and invariably forget the counterweight spacing I've used, so have to do the re-balance thing. With labelled spacers I could just load an go.