5 Reasons you need a Hot Air Gun in your 3D Printing Toolkit - 2015 Video Lecture | What is 3D Printing: Basic Knowledge - IT & Software

hello and welcome back to makers Muse my
name is Angus in this video are we
telling you five good reasons why a hot
air gun is your 3d printers new best
friend that's coming up so recently I
started the 3d printing on YouTube
hashtag in which I asked a question
what's your favorite 3d printing gadget
and in my response I said a hot-air gun
which a lot of people thought was quite
surprising so what I'm going to do in
this video is tell you five awesome
reasons why you need to get hold of a
hot-air gun because because it's going
to make your 3d printing experience a
whole lot better
alright so reason number one this one's
pretty obvious in winter it gets pretty
cold 3d printers really don't like the
cold very much it causes warping and all
sorts of print failures heat gun to the
rescue you can blast a chamber of your
3d printer or blast the bed to make it
heat up way faster and this ambient
temperature increase I mean your prints
not going to warp as much as far likely
to stick to the bed and you get much
better results in winter I've resorted
in the past to putting printers in
cardboard boxes blasting them with the
heat gun and closing the box to keep the
ambient temperature high and it makes
the prints far more successful I'm not
kidding you so yeah that's reason number
one number two you can use a hot-air gun
to remove unsightly marks from your 3d
prints when you remove the support or
raft from your 3d print particularly abs
in dark colors like black you're going
to leave marks due to what's called
crazing where the plastic forms micro
cracks where it causes the light to
reflect differently so that black
plastic no longer looks black it
actually starts to look white but a
quick blast with your hot-air gun can
remove those micro cracks and restore
the color back to your 3d printed part
be warned though you are using a very
hot air flow onto your 3d printed part
too much heat will damage the part you
will start to have a change shape
possibly warp and start melting so the
secret here is to have a really high
temperature and a very quick movement
controlled not too fast but definitely
not too slow number three pretty much
where I just said you can actually use a
hot-air gun to tweak your 3d printed
parts if you need them to be a slightly
different shape you can soften the
plastic with your hot-air gun again be
very careful with this because 3d
printed parts are usually printed hollow
and they're likely to contract as they
heat it up and made pliable so
this technique with a grain of salt but
I have used it in the past to tweak
things slightly for a better fit for
example bracelets or mounting points
which are quite not in the right place
also you can use it to undo warping sort
of as like a last-ditch attempt if you
don't have time to reprint the part and
number four if you print with PLA you
may know this pain if you do not have
satisfactory retraction settings your
part may have little wisps joining all
the little points together on the 3d
printer part as it builds up these tiny
cobwebs are a real pain to remove but
you can use your trusty hot-air gun to
blast them away because they're so thin
the hot-air gun literally melts them
almost instantaneously now melt away
back to the part because the part has
more thermal mass it's not going to melt
again like I said for all the previous
tips do not blast it for too long
particularly PLA it softens at a very
low temperature so this is literally
ever so really quick hot air blast
removed the cobweb wisps but yet don't
do it for too long or you'll soften the
part that's that's what you want to do
and finally this is a really good pro
tip from something I've discovered
purely by accident when you're vapor
smoothing AVS plastics that are quite
unusual for example the color-changing
abs you can buy it often tends to dry
after the smoothing with a really
horrible whitish color and I think this
is due to the plastics not being pure
ABS because they're adding something
else to get that thermo chromatic effect
but this whiting effect pretty much
ruins the print after it's being asked
tone smooth which is no good you can
actually use heat to get rid of the
white I've found in most of these
plastics and restore them back to their
former glory except they look better
because I've been vapor smooth so you
need to use quite a lot of heat to do
this I've found so I tend to make that
sure the hot air guns heated up heaps
then go Ram and get about one or two
shots again not going to sink too much
heat into the part but the effect can be
dramatic and it makes it look as awesome
as the original except it's all smooth
and looking funky so there you have it
guys five awesome reasons to use a hot a
gun on your 3d printing escapades if you
enjoyed this video please feel free to
give me a like and subscribe it helps me
out a lot and for those guys interested
in the fallout bill bump run bum I'm
well on the process of assembling the
thing and I'm just in the stages of the
puting
sanding putty sanding smoothing sanding
before I start to paint into the final
assembly so thanks for watching guys
gonna see you again later here on makers
views bye