Anet A2 Actually Working....

[RichardM]

Well, after turning the hot bed upside down (ie the warnings, led & shiny surface facing the floor, covering the other side with blue masking tape (as recommended by someone somewhere on t'internet I downloaded Cura 14.07 loaded up some filament (that took some doing as it isn't easy to get the stuff a) through the feed mechanism and b) fully into the extruder. Thought the extruder was buggered at first but after burning my finger thus ensuring it was hot removed the feed tube (white tube thingy) and forced the filament down the hole. Oh what fun.
Anyway after loading a demo file from the provided USB stick into Cura, pressed the print and off it went.

Result a useless piece of plastic, but it looks good (parental pride), picture attached. Must admit I was rather surprised at how long it takes to print....
Now to start practicing my CAD skills, duhr.

 

[The Hat]

@RichardM, Congratulation on making your first print a huge success, now you have attained the knowledge and the experience to go make a proper balls of everything after this.

Seriously dough, your well on your way to making and printing something that you can really boast about, take some time with which ever CAD App you decide to use, because that’s a bigger learning curve than 3D printing but just an enjoyable.

I started off on SCAD and watched demo videos of how things get made, then I screen shot some of their work, of things I taught would help me get to grips with line code and I’m still using line code that I borrowed 12 months ago..
I didn’t need Larry the leprechauns’ help to get started, and if I can make useful things then anyone can...

 

[Nifty]

Brilliant progress!

 

[Redbrickman]

Looking good, next step is Slicer fun. After printing the demo Cat on the Cr-10 I got all smug and then discovered Slicer software. About 2 hrs later actually got it tweaked enough to print a file from Thingiverse that turned out OK, that is, after about 10 attempts setting the retraction etc.