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Ep 04: 3D Printing for the Reptile Community
3D printing has provided us with unprecedented opportunity to create advanced husbandry items for reptiles at a species level. Whereas injection molding has a significant upfront cost and must find a customer base numbering, at least, in the tens of thousands, 3D printing allows you to make one at a time. This allows you to get started making unique husbandry tools for less than $1000 – and a respectable learning curve.
David Brahms is a breeder of Green Tree Pythons and he was faced with that exact situation. He turned to the relatively new technology of 3D printing to produce a design of his that would allow for easier installation of perches for his Green Tree Pythons. Do branch extensions and perch holders sound like earth shattering products? Well, to a keeper of Green Tree Pythons they are gold.
And here is the opportunity that is presenting itself to us. Through 3D printing we have the ability to make for our specialized community what we will not soon find in any national chain pet store.
David has graciously agreed to join me on the show today and share how he leveraged 3D printing technology to create valuable specialty husbandry products for his community. He now has enough demand that he is working on expansion of his business. So, take note if what is holding you back is that you don’t think that there is a big enough market if you develop a species level product.
Listen in and see if there is anything you can think of that could make husbandry better for your niche community.
Episode Links, Reference, and Further Study
David’s Specialty Enclosure Designs website contains a catalog of the products he creates with his 3D printers. If you are a breeder or keeper of Green Tree pythons or Emerald Tree Boas you’ll find valuable tools available here and made by someone who knows exactly what these incredible snakes need.
If you are from another reptile community browse through and see what David has been able to create and consider how you could use 3D printing to better your community.
You can connect with David on
One of the best video resources for the Green Tree Python/ Emerald Tree Boa community is the YouTube channel that Gary Schiavino produces at GS Reptiles. I highly recommend subscribing to this channel if you have an interest in these arboreal snakes. The video is set to start when Gary is about to talk about David’s products, but it is well worth your time to go to the beginning after you see David’s products and to check out the other videos Gary provides.
There are many manufacturers of 3D printers and it can be an intimidating amount of information to wade through. David uses Flashforge 3D printers. And this is a great place to start! Three Flashforge printers to consider are
Adventurer 3 for a 150mm x 150mm x 150mm build volume
Creator Max for a 230x150x150mm build volume
Guider II for a 280*250*300mm build volume
You’ll select the 3D printer based on how large of a product you need to build. Make sure it will fit in the printer build volume. There are ways of splitting your design so pieces can be printed and put together afterwards if there is no way to fit your design in the print volume you have available to you. This, of course, increases the complexity of the design.
You can reference the three models listed above at the links below.
YouTube is an incredible reference for starting in 3D printing. A channel I enjoy is Nils at The 3D Printing Zone. He has an active channel and I am linking a video of interest below. Here he talks about using the FlashForge Creator Max (the mid range 2300x150x150mm model listed above) as a tutorial example.