LIFE OFF THE ROAD: MAKING 3D PRINTING CHILD’S PLAY Leave a comment

Leonora Ward has been Business Development Manager at dental products supplier Eurodontic for 9 years. We caught up with Leonora to see what she’s been up to during lockdown and what a typical day looks like for her.

`Most of our regular customers, especially across the South, will know me as the ‘Eurodontic lady’ and I can usually be found carrying a Biostar® or Ministar® either on the road or chatting to dental laboratories and practices about pressure forming machines and all our fabulous products!
You can imagine my frustration as recent events have prevented me from doing what I do best. Like so many of us, the lockdown has meant that I’ve had to rethink how I do my job, for the time being at least.
I’m still in touch with my lovely customers, via Zoom and on the phone, but I’ve still found myself with some downtime.
One of Eurodontic’s key products for 2020 is the Ultimaker S3, an amazing, compact desktop 3D printer. I decided to bring one home to trial. What better use of my downtime than learning all the ins and outs of something new?
My son was so excited when the printer arrived. Eager to start printing something (anything!), we unboxed it together and set it up within minutes, but when we pressed the button on our first test print – nothing happened! We’d failed at the first hurdle. Sheepishly we had to go back to the beginning – and actually read the instructions! Believe it or not it worked – once we followed the step-by-step setup guide and downloaded the Cura software we were ready to print. We headed over to the My Mini Factory website, which has a huge range of free files.
Lego Heads were the first thing we tried – surely it didn’t have to be dental related whilst I was practicing.
The software is really easy to use. I was able to move the image to the perfect position, so it was flat on the glass plate, and after just 30 minutes we’d made our very own Darth Vader head! All I needed to do was remove the support material, which peeled off easily. No mess, no fuss and no need for post-processing!
By then I’d definitely caught the 3D printing bug and decided to move the Ultimaker to a more permanent home in my office. Unfortunately, when we went to do a print it wouldn’t work, a printer head error. Oh no, here we are in lockdown and I’ve broken it already!
I called the Ultimaker helpline who were brilliant. During the move I had knocked the printer head out of alignment, it was an easy fix. I just had to manually realign the printer head which took a couple of minutes and I was back printing – that week I think we managed several horseshoe models, an iPhone holder, 3D puzzles and a Batman plane!
I’m not hugely confident when it comes to new technology, but I have to say the Ultimaker S3 and the Cura Software are so easy to use and they’re suitable for anyone who is new to 3D printing.
I’ve learned a lot over the past few months, I’ve taught myself to use a 3D printer, I’ve put together demonstration and training videos for customers – but I am looking forward to getting back on the road, only this time I’ll have a pressure formed machine in one hand and an Ultimaker S3 in the other.
If you’d like to have a chat about any of our products, just give me a buzz and I’d be happy to give you an online demo – Darth Vader head anyone?’