Blue Bear Wood

Crafts, Stationery & Creative Living — discover ideas, tools and products for creative projects

How To Use The 3Doodler Start Essentials Pen Set

The 3Doodler Start Essentials Pen Set is a child-friendly 3D printing pen designed with safety and creativity in mind. It uses low-heat, BPA-free, non-toxic, and biodegradable eco-plastic, so kids can explore hands-on making without any worries.

Best of all, the 3Doodler Start encourages creativity, design thinking, planning, building, and spatial awareness, making it a fun and educational gift that’s just as exciting for parents as it is for kids.

advert: product gifted

3Doodler Essentials Pen Set Review

This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a penny more)! As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases

What Comes In The 3Doodler Start Essentials Pen Set

The 3Doodler Start Essentials Pen Set contains

  • 3Doodler Start Pen
  • USB Charger
  • 48 biodegradeable Eco Plastic packs (eight colours)
  • A template booklet and instructions booklet
3Doodler Start Box Contents

If you like this review then you may also like my review on Meccano Max, Design & Style Steampunk Jewellery and Geomag Mechanics Gravity.

How To Use The 3Doodler Pen

The pen doesn’t come pre-charged, so you will need to charge it (for about an hour) before you can use it. When you do switch it on, the indicator light will be red to start with, until it heats up enough to melt the plastic, at which point it will turn green. Then you press the large orange start button and you’re ready to create.

3Doodler Start Pen With Charging Lead

Drawing With The 3Doodler Start Essentials Pen Set

The booklet starts by showing a few simple techniques to help you learn how to draw with the pen. Making 3D shapes can be a bit tricky at first because you need to get used to how the plastic flows out of the pen and hardens. It takes a bit of practice, so it’s best to begin with the easier flat templates.

How To Draw With 3doodler Pen Templates

The plastic flows out of the pen evenly and fairly quickly, so you need to keep the pen moving smoothly and steadily. At first, we found it tricky to draw straight lines and ended up with wobbly ones instead. But with a bit of practice, we soon got the hang of it and were able to make clean, smooth lines with a sharp finish.

Drawing With The 3Doodler Start Essential Pen Set

When you want to change the colour of your plastic rod, there may still be some of the previous colour left in the pen. If there’s enough left, you can double-click the orange button to reverse the rod out and insert a new one. However, if the leftover piece is too short, you’ll need to push it through using the new rod.

Tip: Keep in mind that a few centimetres of the old colour will always remain inside the pen. This can create interesting colour blends and the colours fuse together. But if that isn’t what you want, to avoid wasting plastic, we kept a second multicoloured project going to use up any leftover colours.

Using up remnant colour rods making multicoloured glasses

Once you’ve got the hang of the pen you can create your own templates to use or draw freehand. The plastic only sticks to itself so you can easily use other 3d objects as moulds to make shapes as well.

Watch the video further up in this post, to see the 3Doodler Essentials Pen Set in action!

Flower And Butterfly Made With 3Doodler Start

Top Tips For Using The 3Doodler Start

  • Start with flat traceable template projects
  • Have a multicoloured project on the go at the same time to use unwanted rod colour.
  • Remember that the plastic has approx 30 seconds before it goes hard so you can make some adjustments by hand.
  • Hold the pen upright to get a steady flow of plastic.
  • You only have enough charge to make one large project
  • If your project falls apart it’s easy to glue back together with some more heated plastic using the pen
  • Keep an eye on the nib of the pen and clean off any plastic that gets attached as it can attach itself to the plastic you’re creating with.
  • Remember that when you change the rod colour there is always a little of the old colour left inside the pen that needs to come out first.
  • Make sure you buy the 3Doodler Start plastic rods as other plastic rods won’t work including plastic for different 3Doodler products!
Halloween 3Doodler Craft

One thing to bear in mind is that the refill rods can be quite pricey and are hard to find in the UK. The best value I found and bought for the UK were on Amazon UK. Readers from other Countries try this Amazon link.

For more information, videos, Q&As and lots more fantastic design ideas, please visit the website: 3doodlerstart.com

Reader Interactions

Comments

  13. Stacie Copp

    I would have a go at making some Christmas decorations for the tree and possible try and make a personal gift for my gran for Christmas! She loves effort based gifts!

    Reply

  16. holly harmsworth

    This would be perfect for my daughter who is super creative. I am sure she would make lots of christmas decorations for the new mini tree she is having in her room this year

    Reply

  42. Wendy Clarke

    My daughter would want to make guinea pig decorations. She wants pet ones for her birthday in a couple of weeks. We will see…………

    Reply

  46. Jane Willis

    I’d make some dimensional embellishments to add depth and interest to the cards I make. And once i’d mastered it, I’d make some baubles for the Christmas tree

    Reply

  75. Hayley Colburn

    I think my daughter would love to use it to make jewellery,she has a kit with all the bits and bobs that could be clipped on, I bet she would love it

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *