...getting started with my BA2 Blog

Hi my name is Tobias and I'm a Mobile Computing student at the University of Upper Austria. This semester i got the possibility to work and write about my Departments new 3D Printer, the Wanhao Duplicator 4 Dual Extruder.

I'm totally new in the field of 3D printing but everybody starts small and expirtise rises with explorating and trying until perfection ;) Therfore i'm looking forward to explore the possiblities that 3-dimensional priniting offers. 

After some meetings with my adivsor we came to the conclusion, that I should put my focus on the Dual Extrusion Technique (the possibilty to print with 2 Colors)  and the Calibration Arrangements you need to set to get the best printing results.

I plan to blog weekly or atleast every two weeks about the things i did with printer: which objects i planned to print, which calibration settings i set to get the best result, which problems occured, how i fixed those, etc

I maybe will also do some small excursions with writing about topics, that are related to 3D Printing, but we will see how it goes ;) 

...finaly getting started with presenting the Equipment I'm able to use:

The 3D Printing Software I'm going to use is Simplify3D. (Currently Version 2.2.1 but I will update soon to Version 2.2.2).

Hardware: The Labotories PC which is connected to the 3D printer has an Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.80 GHz, 4 GB RAM and runs on Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit.

And the most important thing is, suprise - surprise, is for sure the 3D Printer. As I mentioned before, I'm using the Wanhao Duplicatior 4 3D Printer Dual Extruder. The Printers Firmware is at the moment at Version 1.0.

Some of the awesome Technical specifications the printer has are:

• Single und Duplex Druck - You can print models in one and even in two colors!
• High Printing Resolution - The printer has a Resolution up to 100 micron!
• Price - It only costs around 850-900€ !
• Filament Materials - Supports a lot of different materials e.g. ABS, PLA, Nylon, etc
• and many, many more features!

(Concering the factor that my universities labotory of 3D-Printing is still in progress and keep on growing (hopefully with a lot of remarks and help from my side) I'll most probably need to update the list from time to time) 

You can look at the results of my prints here:
-- To be added --

Some ideas and topics i would like and will mention and blog about in the future are:

• Overview of the Printing Software Simplify3D
• Single and Dual Extrution
• How to calibrate the Wanhao Duplicator 4 3D Printer Dual Extuder – Best Settings
• The purpose and usage of the "Raft"
• Comparising and Information of the Printing Materials ABS and PLA
• Other possible printing materials
• etc

Feel free to comment or sending me messages with further ideas and topics you would like to know and might be interesting to explore in the world of 3D Printing.

- Tobias