Adam Savage Tests This 3D Printing Pen! 

This 3D printing pen just looks exactly like most generic 3D printing pens you can find online, you can get them from loads of places, I don’t think anything about this one is special. So this is likely just one of those generic pens but with their brand on it. I got mine from sunlu and it has been fine too. Edit: I have no idea who actually originally made these pens but I couldn’t find it.

Adam should really disclose if this is a sponsored segment.

I've been using similar pens for years. Another thing they're really good for is stitching together parts into a larger piece. It takes a bit of practice, but it is every bit as strong as the rest of the print when you're done. I've made very large structures, put holes in walls to fill with ballast for weight (BBs) and filled in the holes again, and even repaired broken components with the appropriate filament (ABS, PETG, etc). Also recommend getting some large blade/shape ends for a soldering iron to use for smoothing and shaping to help reduce the amount of clean up necessary after filling/joining pieces. One last thing, there are other 3D pens on the market you can find that are much smaller and easier to use for this purpose, some being a little bigger than a sharpie. I found them much easier to use and see what I'm doing than the bigger, bulky ones.

Try tough PLA or PLA plus. Durability of ABS and the more tougher filaments but pretty much the same parameters and handling as regular PLA, so not nearly as fidgety. Been using it for my tools and fixtures as I've been inspired by Tested to organize my shop.

@@giantweevil2737 Only drawback is the still relatively lower heat tolerance. For that I use PETG/PETG+ or ASA if I need UV stability and higher heat tolerances.

Soldering iron gets to hot for most plastics, but get one of those adjustable heat ones that are meant for wax and can heat up enough for solder would be the best. That's been the best tool I got for 3d printing by far for me

​​@@gruntes11istttYou can buy temperature adjustable soldering irons, but that might also be a good idea. Or a set of tools used for wood burning could also provide several options.

Second this and add - get a dedicated temp controlled soldering iron, needs to have a range that goes down to 190C I got a cheap one $20 80W 180 to 520C its been perfect for print touch up and welding, I don't have a pen as I can 'weld in' new material as needed

I pair my TS100 soldering iron with is TS-KU tip at around 180°c and it works perfectly for smoothing

​@@vizionthingHadn't considered just "welding" in the new material, but that makes sense. Thanks for the added input.

This just makes me think about getting some wider tips for my TS101, and adjusting it to a lower temperature to function in this role. =) Been resin printing for a while, but looking to get a filament one soon.

@@jubuttib It sticks. Silicone doesn't. I have done it. 100% you can do it. I just prefer not to heat the plastic over and over. One and done.

@@ajosepi1976 Ah right, good point. Thanks for the heads up. I'm sure I'll learn the hard way later too, hehe.

I don't use sculpting tools. I use a butane operated soldering iron with specialized hot ends for sculpting. That way you can finish your print or rather drawing in this case and clean it up afterwards.

I saw someone use a silicone spatula that they made a little rig for it follows the persons pen strokes and smooths the filamebt out for them. Was frankly kinda genious

You beat me to it! I use a hot knife and my 3D pen. The hot knife can be turned on its side to act like an iron or you can use an old soldering iron to help iron parts to smooth the plastic. The 3D pen is great for filling cracks or gaps. It can weld parts together too. I've made butterflies and flowers with it too.

theres a whole bunch of artists on youtube making things with 3dpens and they use pyrography tools designed for wood burning to get beautiful smooth results.

Yep, soldering iron with custom endings and you can basically do anything, and smoothie anything out of a fdm 3d printer

i was gonna say the same thing

Adam, I have been developing an “industrial 3D pen” for the past year and will be showing it publicly for the first time at the maker faire next weekend…. 4x faster, hotter and spool fed. More like a plastic mig welder than a “3d pen”. Come try it out!

Yeah and they were awful. They mostly still are - you saw what quality came out of that thing - but as a method of getting extra molten plastic into a space for later cutting and sanding? Possibly useful. Just as a sense of scale, the depth you’d have to cut/sand those pillars he made would remove most or all structural support. These pens really struggle with making anything load-bearing or solid.

The first one was 11 years ago and plastic 3D printers as we think of them now are from 1998.

@@Merennulli 3D printers may have been invented then but they didn’t become widely available for a lot longer.

@@Phlosioneer this is a manual tool, it does what it is supposed to do, which is to squeeze molten plastic out of a nozzle, in that regard the quality is near perfect. As a manual tool however, the skill of the user largely determines the quality of the end result. There are ways you can hold it to get thin vertically but wide horizontally lines, more similar to the lines made by a 3D printer than you can build up better and stronger. You absolutely can make load bearing or solid things with them, it is just about the skill of the user.

The pens came out a little bit after era of 1.75mm home printers started. There were already home printers with firmware that had acceleration then but it wasn't terribly popular of course compared to todays numbers i guess, most everyone was a noob back then anyway, we'd share stuff online like what hairspray works for adhesion(commercial glues and special print surfaces werent yet out), some people were starting to tinker with corexy, most printers were still lasercut plywood etc..

Seems to me that the layer lines would be in the wrong direction and it would have made a very weak part. Might be fine for cosmetic parts though, I mostly print structural engineering parts.

I would also consider slicing it into two or three pieces using Tinker cad, and super gluing it together after the face.

@@SimplyDudeFace Even better, PrusaSlicer these days can create splits with easy creation of slots and pegs for alignment as well.

And try organic supports if bridging distance is to large, they seem to come off more as a whole piece and the small dots are easy to clean. Maybe try to manually place them

And also lose a ton of fidelity and turn any curved surfaces into PS1 models with tinkercads terrible resolution. Just use a slicer with a built in cut function. ​@@SimplyDudeFace

Wow, didn't know about this. Great suggestion, thank you!

I recommend this bust one with adjustable heat setting because plastics are kinda of sensive to heat. heat it up to much it becomes brittle or burns.

I was going to suggest the same thing - especially since he said he'd like a longer tip on the pen. Variable extension is also great for time when you need a longer tip to reach into an area for some kind of repair. With a little practice you also get really good bonding with the underlying layer because it's more of a "stir" weld. Even outside of 3D print touch ups, having an assortment of filaments (you can buy mixed kits) for this kind of plastic repair is just generally handy in our world built of plastic. I've fixed things like a broken ABS watch case and coffee machine mechanisms with little friction weld touch-ups.

I use isopropyl alcohol for the same thing. The evaporation helps keeping things cool. But, i don't sand that much anymore, not since i got miniature card scrapers. PLA behaves very, very well with scraping techniques. No dust, no heat and often creates perfect finish. It is tons faster too, 1 hour sanding jobs are now 10 minute scraping jobs.

@@squidcaps4308 Cool, thanks, I have to try that as well :)

I've also seen isopropyl alcohol used to make "transparent" filements more transparent and it works, to a degree if you align all the layers so all lines alig but still not fully transparent. Great tip I learned the other day. A blow touch. Sounds crazy but if you hit an FDM print for a second or under, any stringing or tiny filement that sticks anywhere "like a white spot. It also brings out more detail and instantly smoothes out any rough spots.. Super quick post processing if just super minor issues. Printed a dragon the other day and hitting the face for a second really brought out the detail in the eyes and ears/horns. Obviously have to be careful though. I already ruined one print but user error. The guy in the video said it had to be a blow torch, not a butane lighter, like for creme brulee or obviously a real one. Luckily I already had one. Not sure if that's true or not but taking his word for it. Best thing is if you have to sand, because everyone loves it,which always makes the color look more matte or "washed out", hitting it very quickly will bring the color back like it was just printed.

I came to mention the 3Doodler! I got the original model through KS. Really a neat item, but I had to pass it on because it hurt my hand to use. That's cool that you were able to use it to make the decorations you needed

I have one as well, but probably not the same model. It also has some attachments like a foot pedal and nozzle swaps that include a small metal attachment for smoothing surfaces. Sadly, I never got into using it much. Might get some actual use if I actually start working on 3D prints though

@@gaerekxenosI never saw the foot pedal so I went and looked just now out of curiosity. I'm glad I did. They've changed a lot since I last looked. I kinda want to get the Pro+ that handles nylon, a wood fiber polymer, and a metal infused polymer.

I bought the same pen recently and I've been using it to weld parts together. Love it.

This is a good thought and I have done it, but where it fails is most prints are not solid and it is super easy to over melt the part. BUT it does work!