Our October 2019 Hacker of the Month is a northern California resident who has taken her need 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 overview 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 snicker—I wished to make cookie cutters and pasta extruder discs. I used to be utilizing free 3D software program on-line to make what I believed have been easy daisy-shaped flower cookie cutters. The software program saved crashing and it was driving me loopy. A pal at work beneficial SolidWorks, so I purchased a replica (I used to be working at a excessive tech firm on the time and this was my means of stress-free—not less than that’s how I justified the acquisition on the time.) A number of years of making an attempt to be taught SolidWorks by myself left me pissed off however nonetheless decided.”

“However a couple of years in the past I used to be lucky sufficient to have the ability to stop my day job and enrolled full time in SolidWorks lessons at DeAnza Neighborhood School.  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 pondering, “I simply need to make cookie cutters!”  I took a number of SolidWorks lessons at De Anza Neighborhood School and this made an amazing distinction within the high quality of my designs and my understanding of 3D modeling. I nonetheless have heaps to be taught after all, however De Anza Neighborhood School continues to be a wonderful supply of the newest in trade information for 3D printing and lessons for all of the preferred 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 amazing period of time designing my objects so there aren’t any helps wanted.  I do must do some little bit of sanding tough edges on among the elements, however my aim is to be as near zero post-processing as attainable! Probably the most intensive 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 effectively value it.

Heather and her household are at all times prepared for one thing to interrupt in the home and use 3D printing to give you a fast, cost-effective resolution, in addition to going by means of 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’d like a software, we create and print one. 3D printing is superior, however the actual magic comes while you mix it with the flexibility to create your personal designs. Now, no matter we are able to think about we are able to maintain in our palms 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. Every time I set down a glass of water the cat would instantly seem and stick his head within the glass to begin consuming.  YUK! I created lids with straw holes for mason jars to maintain the cat out. The primary ones I made have 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 large 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 brighten for the vacations: flowers within the spring, snowflakes within the winter, and so forth.”

Heather has taken all of her training, expertise, and design-savvy to create a enterprise producing instruments for one more trade; stitching and quilting. “I’ve created numerous quilting instruments which have helped preserve individuals safer and extra environment friendly. I used to be taking a quilt class at some point and the lady subsequent to me saved stabbing herself with pins each time she tried to select one up. I believed that there needed to be a greater approach to maintain the pins so she wouldn’t preserve getting damage and the Magnetic Pin Cup was born. It’s a cup that holds the pins sharp facet down with magnets, but it surely 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 turn out to be useful.”

Heather primarily makes use of PLA in her 3D prints, “ I’m involved concerning the particles emitted from printing with different filaments. I take advantage of a whole lot of Matterhackers MHBuild and PRO Collection filament as a result of it’s so constant (no, I wasn’t informed to say this!). I additionally use TPU for mason jar lids and some different devices I’m at present designing.”

Heather can also 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 in the mean time. A pal blogged about my merchandise and I had a run on a particular colour that she talked about. It was nice to have the ability to instantly ramp up manufacturing of that colour 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 keen on 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 effectively with 3D printing and vacuum forming. “Quilting and cooking are my two favourite hobbies. Each time I wrestle and want there was a less complicated approach to do one thing I take into consideration how I might remedy 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 traces for the designs. Simple!”

“Goodies 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 automotive. This left an unpleasant 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 repeatedly.”

Heather hopes to see most of the issues that the neighborhood is in search of sooner or later for 3D printing; accessibility, and sustainability. “I need to see 3D printers in each residence so individuals can buy and obtain designs to print in no matter colour and materials they need. I’d like to see 3D modeling provided to all college students as a fundamental ability. It took me some time to rewire my mind to consider the way to design issues in 3D, however now that I can create no matter I can dream up I’m having a blast! I’d additionally wish to see recycling for filaments and printed elements. PLA is labeled as biodegradable, but when we might get it recycled that might 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 Neighborhood School has the place they educate 3D modeling in addition to the way to use 3D printers, how to decide on the right 3D printing course of, and so forth. The problem is that packages like this give attention to skilled 3D printing—I want to see extra coaching for residence use. I benefit from the YouTube movies that MatterHackers publishes in addition to these revealed by many 3D printing fans, however nothing beats actual, hands-on expertise.  It could be nice if there have been multi-day boot camps to show individuals the way to use 3D printers and the way to keep and troubleshoot them. We additionally want 3D printing superstores the place you may 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 are able to’t wait to see how Purple Hobbies continues to achieve success with Heather’s artistic drive and spirit! If you want to be taught extra about Heather and Purple Hobbies, you may go to her web site right here:

https://www.purplehobbies.com/

Are you a 3D printing Hacker or know somebody that’s? We might like to share their tales with the 3D printing neighborhood! Please e mail chris.morgan@matterhackers.com with data, and also you or your pal may very well be our featured Hacker of the Month.