About | The Retro Frog Story

So it was late summer 2016. 

 

I bought my first 3D printer. A Robo 3D R1+ from my local Micro Center. I think I paid $500 or $600 for it. I

I was intoxicated by the idea of printing out designs in plastic. However it didn't receive a lot of usage as I had frequent issues with it. Usually jamming or clogging related. Seemed like every time I wanted to use it there was a hoop to jump through just to get a print out of it. Late 2018 I got rid of it (and by got rid of, I meant tossed in the trash).

 

Fast forward about 2 years later. Fall of 2020 I decided to pick up another printer. This time a Creality Ender 3 Pro. Also purchased from my local Micro Center for a much more reasonable $189. Picked up several spools of PLA and started printing like a madman. I installed several upgrades to the printer like a autobed leveling sensor and spring steel build sheets from TH3D Studio , silent Noctua fans and a SKR mini e3 board and printed off other parts like modified cooling ducts and replacement LCD housing. The Ender 3 truly is the Honda Civic of 3D printers!

Shortly after buying it, I decided to start learning CAD (computer aided design). Not content with printing out other peoples designs from Thingiverse, I wanted to design my own projects. 

 

I piddled around in Tinkercad and came up with a few things. However I quickly moved over to Fusion 360 and my mind was blown with how much more design freedom and precision it allows for. 

 

One of the first things I released was the Gamecube 40mm Fan adapter plate. I honestly didn't think many people would be interested in it. I received a bunch of retweets and some comments on Twitter, and that was about it. Fast forward about 2 weeks later and I found someone selling them on eBay UK! And they even left a comment on my Thingiverse listing saying they were selling them. And not just a couple of them. They had sold nearly 60 in that time. I was appalled and frankly mad. I gave this away freely and someone else was profiting off of it. 

 

A day later the realization set in: People that don't own 3d printers are either going to send the STL file to some online printing service to get it printed or buy from some random eBayer. So Retro Frog was born. 

 

My goal with Retro Frog is to provide the community with 3d printed parts and components that I designed at reasonable costs. 

 

- Todd