You Need to Try Again – A Lesson Learned After 5 3D Printing Failures
Failures are hard and we always try to avoid them. After all, they are the opposite of success, which is what we all desire.
However, sometimes we fail even if we do not want to. We have tried our best but the results are not what we wanted.
What is important is that you learn from those failures and try again.
The story I want to share with you is about learning from failures and trying again and again until you achieve your desired success.
Why You Need to Try Again
It was the year 2022. Ah ha, this is not your stereotypical failure-to-success story so stick around.
I am trying to print a 3D model as a cardholder. It is supposed to be a barbell with a small slot for holding business cards.
The problem arose with printing the weight plates. For some reason, the machine kept messing up.
It could not print properly. It jammed at one sample. It moved the model off the center at another. It went bazooka halfway through with one other test.
It was a mess. I wasted so many hours trying to fix the problem.
After all, every other component was printed successfully with no problem. What gave to this particular part that I could not print?
It is important for the business card holder. There would be no barbell if there were no weight plates attached to a bar.
Instead of giving up 10 hours in, I kept trying again and again. Eventually, I produced a good model for the weight plates.
Talk about good efforts being paid off! And you can too, you need to try again and see what happens.
The Main Problem to the 3D Printing Failures
If you are even somewhat familiar with 3D printing, you will find this extremely elementary.
The problem was that there was not enough support for the 3D model to be stuck to the printing bed; therefore, as the nozzle moved to build the filament layers, the instability built up.
You read it right. I did not set up the print carefully so it moved throughout the printing process, and ended up being a mess.
Once the problem was identified, it was very easy to fix.
I sliced the 3D model file to include a raft and huge support at the bottom of the print.
The realization solved all the 3D printing failures. I was able to print normally and finished the business card holder.
It was a relief to know that more than 10 hours waiting for the 3D printer to do its work did not result in vain. That is why you need to try again until you find what you need!
Related post: Fitness for Women of Color
How to Try Again
The main point is:
Keep trying. Never do the same thing again.
As you can see from my story, I did not give up on printing my 3D model. What I did was change the setting from one test to the other.
For the first model, I did not use any support. The print went crazy very quickly.
For the second trial, there was a brim, a small support, for the 3D print. The print was a little more stable and able to model more, but it would eventually go sideways.
For the success model, I used the raft, the biggest support for 3D printing. It took longer than the other trials (hence why I did not want to try it in the first place.)
Everything went smoothly. No problem reported.
I learned from my mistakes and keep trying again. You need to try again, but do not repeat the same process over again.
Have you ever felt the same?
