Also good for composting and making room in your recycling bin
STL files available on Thangs
I found this one online from last year
https://www.printables.com/model/356486-cat-scratcher-cardboard-cutter-v2
Awesome! Is that a real device that’s available for sale? Those would be good school or scout projects to donate to animal shelters.
I have the STL files on Thangs for 3D printing.
I’ve been thinking about getting a 3D printer. Well, yesterday I decided I need a 3D printer. I know nothing at all. What should I get?
I have an AnkerMake M5 and it’s gloriously painless. There are intrinsic unavoidable challenges to 3D printing, but this thing has been incredible for casual creation.
Do I need the M5 or can I get away with the m5c? I really know nothing about it or how much material things need. I just want to make cool things. How much filament did your cardboard cutter require?
I’m not the OP but I went ahead and bought his file and sliced* it and with 20% infill, it will require about 77g of filament. So with one normal spool, you could print 12 of them.
I can only vouch directly for the M5, but looking into the differences, it looks like the M5C would be a solid option. I would miss the onboard camera and the ability to check my prints and get notifications of suspicious issues, but the printer itself is more or less the same otherwise.
Edit: and with the current sale, $200 is a STEAL
- Slicing is the process where a program takes the 3D model and turns it into layer by layer instructions for the printer and where you configure lots of settings such as infill, which is how much of the interior of the model is printed with a lattice for structural support. Prints are rarely 100% solid material but rather a hull with infill.
I ordered the m5c. I got the printer, 13 lb of material, and some accessories for $339. Can’t wait to make some Braille Play-Doh presses.
Nice! Congrats and I hope you enjoy it!
I have a 3D printer buyer’s guide on my website that lists a few. I mostly use and would recommend any Bambu printer, there’s a few that can suit any price range. Elegoo also make good printers too which won’t break the bank
I don’t recommend bambu because they’re locked in and against right to repair. I have an Elegoo Neptune 4 pro that works great. If you have more money, Prusas are great too.
Ender 3 is pretty good introductory model and does nice prints with little effort.
If you’re a buy once, cry once sort of person, Prusa makes good stuff that has a lot of community support.
I own an Ender 3, 5, and a Prusa Mini. The mini is by far my most reliable printer, but both enders have had a lot of work done to them to get them where they are… and not quite click to print yet.
At one of my jobs I maintained some 35 Prusa Mk3s, about a dozen Elegoo’s, and witnessed their graveyard of Anycubics and some other brands. The Prusa’s generally only needed to be unclogged or have their nozzle changed less than once a month, with only a couple failures per week max, the room also was not temperature controlled and they had some… questionable engineering practices.
The elego’s were like pulling teeth, needing glue to keep it adhered, frequent clogs and skips, thermistors needing replacement after under 100 print hours, blobbing would get into the part coolig fans. Small leveling knobs. Prusa’s IMO were designed to be serviceable, but seem to need it way less.
Especially at a business, the premium on Prusa printers over say bambu labs is well worth their customer support. Ive never used a Bambu so I cant necessarily recommended or not, and I do wish I had an MMU on the cheap as you’d get with their mini, but Im most pleased with my Prusa mini
I looked at prusa and pretty quickly realized that I couldn’t afford them.
Check local sales, as much as I hate Facebook, marketplace around me sometimes has some nice steals, like my OG ender 5 for 100$, and that job was selling off their Prusa MK3s to afford MK4s about half off. You never know -_o_-
Oh that’s a good idea. I should have checked there. Bought the ankermake m5c for 339 including 15# of material and accessories.
A lot of libraries offer 3D printing for about the cost of materials.
It’s worth trying out before dropping huge cash if it’s possible near you.
Bambu Labs A1 Mini
Cheap, high quality device, high quality prints, out of the box and printing in 25 minutes with no fiddling required.
My cat will still go to the couch 🫠
I love this! Free cat scratchers might not seem like they have much value, but has anyone seen the price of those ready-made things?! They’re pushing $20 for a large-ish flat scratcher at lower volume places like TSC, but Target isn’t much better, still $10 for a 10" x 18" flat cheapy.
Down with bougie cat cardboard!!!
This is cool but my cat won’t touch cardboard scratchers.
👍
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Is the hot glue pretty good for standing up to kitty abuse? I was thinking PVA glue, but a glue gun would make things quicker.
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Looks like the specific design in this video is being sold here, but if you’d prefer something that isn’t behind a pay wall there’s a few options (like this one).
Side rant: I’m all for people getting compensation for creative work but I feel like it’s wrong to put the source file behind a waywall instead of simply selling the actual print directly to people that don’t have access to a printer, that seems much more fair imo
Selling the actual print is more work than selling the STL.
Oh definitely, I just think it’s easier to justify paying for a physical product than it is paying for a single file if you still need to manufacture it yourself. Still a valid business practice, I’m just biased toward “information should be free” and all that.
But it’s not just information, someone sat in front of their computer and put the work in to design it, then print it and iterate.
You’re paying for that process, and for the time and effort the person took to acquire the necessary skills.
However, there should be a noticeable price difference due to the easy scaling / replicatibility when distributing digital goods.
I’m with you insofar as the final product feels like it should be 3 bucks, not the file.
I replied to another response similar to yours so I won’t bore you unless you want to read more, but I mostly agree with what you said and I totally agree that the work itself to create the file is worth compensation. I’m just a penny-pinching bastard who would rather find out if the print is actually good before paying lmao.
Pay-what-you-want, donations, and subsidizing with a higher price for the final product makes more sense to me in terms of these kinds of digital goods, but that’s besides the point, and I’m no expert on this kind of thing.
Honestly I’d be willing to pay 5-8 bucks for the final product since it looks more polished than any of the free designs I’ve seen. But yes, fair points.
It’s $3 which is well worth the time saved by not having to design it from scratch.
Someone had to use their skills to create it, do you think they should work for free?
I don’t disagree, never said people should work for free. I recognize there’s a disjoint in believing good information should be free[ly accessible] and also that people deserve compensation for work, though. It’s just one of those contradictions I haven’t solved as far as my own beliefs.
More than anything I was complaining, like I said it’s a totally valid business choice, I’m just a penny-pincher lol.
I mean, buying things like clothes patterns and carpentry plans is definitely a thing. An stl is really no different.
That’s a fair point, I guess I think of digital goods in a different context.
They definitely deserve compensation for their work, and how they chose to do it is absolutely valid. I think I’m biased toward open source hardware where the labor of creating their digital files is subsidized by selling the physical product instead. I realize that’s a risk and takes more effort though, so I totally understand why they didn’t do that.
Reminder to avoid using Amazon boxes for this: Their boxes contain a rodenticide to keep rats/mice away from their products.
Reminder to check snopes before believing random internet factoids:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/amazon-spray-boxes-chemicals/
Thank you, I’m educated and savvy and I almost fell for that. Why oh WHY are there sooooo many trolls about?
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This sounds like a Facebook fact.
Oh yep it is.
Is there a source on this? My initial fact check search suggests this was debunked.
You’ve designed a niche solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Use a box knife. Or, for a more versatile tool, get a Morakniv Companion.
Good luck getting consistent cuts while you’re freehanding. The idea is to make the nice flat cat scratching pad, and also being able to make the tool with the tool printer you have at home
I mean, you could make a jig to use a box cutter to make consistent width strips very easily with three pieces of scrap wood. But this commenter coming in here for the express purpose of trying to shit on 3D printer hobbyists was a stupid move on his part.
make a jig
You mean like the handheld jig seen in the demo?
I meant without printing anything, for anyone without access to a 3D printer. This was in response to the above comment about freehanding it.
To use an ordinary box cutter for this purpose all you need is something to use as an endstop and something to use as a fence, and they have to be parallel to each other.
Or a ruler. And make the strips the width of the ruler. The only “extra” needed is a cutting surface. This plastic gizmo simply eliminates the need for a work surface, nothing else.
I hope you only drink room temperature tap water. Any flavor makes you a hypocrite.
Your reasoning is so obscure very few will follow. CONSUME!
This looks a lot like trolling. The community here certainly doesn’t seem to care for it.
I don’t like what you’ve said so you’re a troll. We don’t serve your kind around here.
SMRT.
I mean that’s kinda the whole deal with 3d printing, it’s useful for really niche applications where you can just add a small amount of convenience to your life.
Someone else commented about this being good for school kids so they can safely make cat scratchers to donate to animal shelters, and as a cat owner with a constant pile of recycling I can see this being actually useful if I wanna avoid spending $20-$40 on one of those fancier cardboard cat scratchers from Target or whatever.
I mean that’s kinda the whole deal with 3d printing, it’s useful for really niche applications where you can just add a small amount of convenience to your life.
Is it? All I ever request to be printed is the proprietary part that prematurely broke as it was designed to do.
Someone else commented about this being good for school kids
Instead of teaching them to use scissors? We’re raising a generation that can’t think or do for themselves. They’re reliant upon consumption.
as a cat owner with a constant pile of recycling I can see this being actually useful
As an adult you think it’s more useful than a box knife? It’s not even going to be faster than a box knife with straight edge. And, why do you need a product to pet your cat?
Cutting carboard with scissors? It can be done, but it’s a chore amd the results are poor. I wouldn’t wish it on school children.
Cutting carboard with scissors? It can be done, but it’s a chore amd the results are poor. I wouldn’t wish it on school children.
Your tools probably suck.
Any knife and straight edge is faster and easier. Any warehouse worker knows this. Any compost bin is better than cat scratchers. Any environmentalist knows this.
For scissors I recommend Fiskars titanium nitride. Just yesterday they gave me a nice curve in 1/16th aluminum. Cardboard cuts like a hot knife through butter. And, I bet they cost less than the materials used in the tool in the OP.
Box knife reco: any metal housing without an auto-retract safety feature but with a retractable blade
Knife reco: Morakniv Companion: cheap, sharp, extremely versatile.
Aviation snips reco: Klein J1102S will take 12" cheater bars and be fine
Fence: use a metal level instead of a metal ruler to prevent mistakes
Learn how to make a jig for speed and accuracy in any repetive cutting task.
Well, I don’t think we’re on the same page. I’m not really into OP’s design, but I also don’t think that school children use Fiskars scissors. Don’t know what’s wrong with cat scratchers. Cats love them, and if you use an environmentally friendly glue you can still compost them later. I do have good tools at home, but I trully appreciate your recomendations - that’s rather wholesome of you, thanks.
For adults: box knife with a jig consisting of a fence and stop block
For children: auto-retract safety knife and add a second fence to keep the blade enclosed
A child learns nothing but dependance on stupid gadgets from the device in the OP.
