Introduction: 3D Printing From Phones Without Using Computer
In the name of ALLAH
God willing, we will learn in this lesson how to use smart phones to 3d printing, from design to printing, without having to use a computer ,whatever printer possibilities
Why print using the phone?
1. In the case of light prints the and not wanting to use a computer
After learning the way you will be able to upload a design that you like and connect the printer to the phone and enjoy printing without access to a computer and a lot of complications
2. If you use cloud printing
It is a service enable you to connect the printer to the Internet and then control the printer from anywhere in the world and from any device
The method
We all know that the printing steps are design - formation G code - the actual printing process
We will use some free applications and services to perform these steps and then connect the printer to the phone via usb cable and start printing
Step 1: Get the Design and Prepare for Printing
Of course, you can download the design that you want from the Internet, provided that the format stl
Among the most famous sites to download those files thingiverse site
and also you can download application from here
After downloading the design , download Graphite application to view the file and do some adjustments to the size and rotation then save
You can also use our online stl files viewer tool from here
Step 2: Formation of G Code
Currently there is no effective applications to convert the file to the G code so will we use a cloud service that lets you form the G code from a web browser which is a very efficient service where you can upload the file you want to convert and choose print settings and wait for a few seconds until the conversion then download G code directly
Among the most famous sites that offer this service Astroprint, Makeprintable
We will use Astroprint because it is the most comprehensive, but Makeprintable specialized in fixing files and formatted it for printing
Log in to the site and register and then a comprehensive and very beautiful control panle will appear
From the control panel, press the Add Printer to adjust printer settings such as hot surface and surface size and temperature
Then press upload file and wait until the load
You will see the file ,then select the printer ,material and then choose Print Settings from the bottom
Settings menu will appear adjust as you like by design and the required quality and speed
This service is used slic3r or cura program to form the G code and you can choose between them
The beauty of this service is that there is z offset option to control the printing surface level
Click on the slice to begin in the formation of the G code and then download
There are a lot of programs viewing of G code files which is useful to know how the printing process and possible errors
The most famous of these programs and graphite , gcodesimulator
Step 3: The Actual Printing Process
There are two applications wonderful to connect the phone directly to the printer in several ways and are fox3d , gcodesimulatorprinter
We will use this lesson fox3d program because it is also free and excellent
Open the program and press settings to choose the method of connection The program supports connection via usb cable or Bluetooth or wifi
We choose usb because it is available in all printers, but phone must support otg cable ,connect otg to phone and connect the printer and then press connect and wait until the connection is made
press prepare to configure the printer , program is similar to pronterface in computer where you can control nozzle heat and moving the axes and inject some plastic to ensure the nozzle works welll and show strength of the raw material
So that the program recognizes the G code file must be in the path of 3dfox in the phone's memory
To speed up the process and make sure to upload G code properly, we take the memory card from the printer and install it into the phone and copy the G code file and installed it back in the printer
go to the print screen and then choose to print ,then print from the sd , chose desired file and then press print
Step 4: Enjoy Watching the First 3d Printing From the Phone Only
Video shows printing a simple file by phone, without the use of computer
Lesson source from ar3dprinter