3D Printing

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Zarathud
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3D Printing

Post by Zarathud »

I'm thinking about making the plunge into 3D Printing. My daughters would be able to print their latest anime and cosplay obsessions, while I could print up scatter terrain and game organizers.

Any recommendations on getting started? Or where to start investigating the hobby? My goal is to get something under the Christmas tree for this year, then build from there.
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Tao
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Tao »

There is a four page thread over in General Computing dedicated to 3D printing. Henztau is the person that comes to mind when I think of 3D printing and OO. I know a few other folks are active makers as well.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Hit me up, dude. I’m your huckleberry.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Blackhawk »

It's been a while since I dug into it, and I'm wondering - is there any viable commercial option for printing these days? It seems like more and more products are being released exclusively in .stl format, and I have no way to use them. There are not (surprise surprise) any local places that provide such a service.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by stimpy »

Blackhawk wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 4:45 pm It's been a while since I dug into it, and I'm wondering - is there any viable commercial option for printing these days? It seems like more and more products are being released exclusively in .stl format, and I have no way to use them. There are not (surprise surprise) any local places that provide such a service.
Our local library actually does 3D printing.
May want to check yours.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Blackhawk »

Our library barely does books.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Blackhawk »

The more I look into it, the more I realize that printing at home won't be possible. Not in a house with no dedicated room/garage for it in which I have birds. I'll have to keep looking for retail options, and hope that no more companies start releasing most of their good stuff as digital files only.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Skinypupy »

We got one as the kids' big Christmas present. Had fun printing out a few really cool things for a couple weeks (an articulated dragon, a boat, Little B 13.10's school mascot, etc.), but now it just keeps borking up everything we try. Ffilament just bunches up at the end of the nozzle.

Need to figure out how to troubleshoot it.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

Blackhawk wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 4:45 pm It's been a while since I dug into it, and I'm wondering - is there any viable commercial option for printing these days? It seems like more and more products are being released exclusively in .stl format, and I have no way to use them. There are not (surprise surprise) any local places that provide such a service.
You'll probably find the most affordable option is to post what you'd like to have printed at r/3dprintmything:
/r/3dprintmything wrote:Print things for others or get something printed!
r/3dprintmything

Want something printed but can't afford a printer? Have a printer that just collects dust? Trying to sharpen up your modeling skills? Help each other out! This subreddit is for people with printers who are willing to design and print stuff out for others and send it to them, and for people who can't get a hold of a printer and want something printed!

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PLEASE READ IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST TIME REQUESTING
Welcome to r/3dprintmything!

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Blackhawk
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Blackhawk »

As more and more tabletop companies have quit releasing physical products in favor of just pushing files on people (especially you, Modiphius), I'm coming back around to this, usually frustrating myself. But I could use something to save for (and look forward to in the long-term.) I'm hoping that I can get a couple of questions answered. I need to know what my options are before I can even decide if it's possible (space, fumes, etc.)

First, what types of printers are good for printing terrain and would produce usable miniatures that don't look like Minecraft characters?? Just a quick look at the options turns up more alphabet soup than Washington DC, none of which are ever referred to as anything but acronyms, even when talking to clueless people like me: SLA, SLS, FDM, DLP, MJF, DMLS, EBM, ABS, PLA, PETG, TPU, PVA, WTF?

Second, how long does a piece take to print? Something medium sized, say, a large car, a garden shed, or even a small building?

Third, how much space do these suckers take up, and are they easily moved?

#2 and #3 are more about whether I could set it up, run it during the day, then move it somewhere at night, as it would pretty much have to be in my bedroom with an exhaust fan running and the door shut to keep any fumes out of the rest of the house due to birds.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Hey BH...sorry, I've been away from the site for a bit because of personal things going on with the family, but I dropped in to see what is going on...it's way too late tonight to respond, but I'll try and remember to come back here tomorrow and see if I can get you started.
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hentzau
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

OK. Here we go.

For home 3D printing, you really have 2 options today...MSLA (Masked Stereolithography Apparatus) vs FDM (fused deposit modeling.)

MSLA printing is commonly referred to as resin printing...you have a build plate that dips into a vat of resin. The vat has a clear bottom that has a screen underneath it that generates UV light. The build plate lowers into the vat of resin, stopping a micron above the bottom of the vat. The screen fires, and the resin reacts with the UV light, hardening pixels of resin, building the model from the plate down. So your model actually prints upside down. Printing in this manner relies on elaborate support structures that allow for the parts to print. Once the printing is done, you pop (hopefully easily) the model and supports off of the build plate. You then have to give the models a thorough cleaning, usually in a high percentage (90% and higher) of IPA (isopropyl alchohol). You then carefully remove the supports from the model, and then give it an additional exposure to UV light to finish curing the resin. This is done via a dedicated UV exposure device, some people build their own using a box and reflective foil and a UV light inside, or just put the models out in direct sunlight.

MSLA printing is messy, complicated, and usually needs multiple pieces of equipment. You need to use gloves and protective eyewear when handling the uncured resin...it can cause burns on unprotected skin. You also need to be careful about what's under the printer, because of the possibility of drips or spills...resin will ruin the finish on furniture. Resin is also stinky. There are eco-resins that do not off-gas nearly as much as standard resins, but there is still a bit of an odor. If you want to err on the side of caution, you shouldn't be doing your resin printing in an enclosed area without some sort of ventilation rig. I do my resin printing with eco resin, and I use an air purifier when I run it, plus crack open a window near the printer.

Cleaning the minis...I have a dedicated cleaning and exposure system that has a vat of IPA that I drop the minis with supports still attached into.
This device also cleans off my build plate at the same time, so it takes care of that aspect too. You put the print in a basket (or lower the build plate with minis still on it) into a vat of IPA and set a timer for how long you want the clean cycle to run. A propeller on the bottom of the vat then agitates the IPA around the figure, cleaning off the excess unexposed resin.

Disposal of your IPA after use (you can clean off hundreds of minis before you change it) is problematic. I use a system where I use coffee filters and a funnel and run the IPA through the coffee filters to clean out as much excess resin bits as possible and move it into a clear plastic jar. Once in the jar, I leave it out in the sun for a few days, and do a final filtering. You can then re-use the IPA, or dispose of it according to your local ordinances. You also should cure all of the support material that comes off of the minis before you throw it into the trash. I keep a tub of mine and just take it outside on a sunny day to cure it before I pitch it.

Failed prints. You will have failed prints, it is inevitable. Some are catastrophic, where for some reason your print breaks away from your supports and you end up with a bunch of exposed resin stuck to your FEP (Fluorinated Ethyl Propoline) sheet (a replicable plastic sheet that is the bottom of your resin tank, it allows the UV light to shine through and cure the resin bit by bit). After each failure you have to clean out your resin tank by pouring off the excess resin back into a bottle (through a filter so you don't have any bits of exposed resin that get poured back into your vat for printing later), scraping any stuck bits of resin off of the bottom of the FEP, cleaning the whole tank with paper towels and IPA, and then inspecting your tank for any leaks/punctures in the FEP. If the FEP is punctured or damaged or if you can't get it completely clean, you will need to replace the FEP. Not a terribly hard process...just usually involves lots of screws plus needing to get the tension of the sheet just right on the tank. If you want to get scientific about it, when you tighten it down, you use a guitar tuner and tighten it to the point that when you hit the sheet like a drum it produces a tone of between 325-420 mhz.

Slicing your models...you will be provided with models from whatever vendor/store they come from. These files will be in a format called STL, or Stereolithography files. You take your STL file and bring it into your slicer of choice. Many different versions out there. For resin printing, the big boys are Lychee slicer and Chitubox. The slicer has settings specific to your printer model and the type of resin you are using. Most slicers have these built into them for the major printers and resin brands, you just have to select them. You bring your model in. Hopefully it is already supported. If not, you have to build your own supports. The slicers have auto-support options, but that is extremely hit or miss. You also have to rotate your model and put it at an angle that will give you the best chance of success. Once again, if it is pre-supported, usually not a problem, just drop it on the plate and go. The once caveat with pre-supported models...you really can't mess with the scale of the model too much. if you reduce or increase the scale of the model, it also changes the scale of the supports, and that can cause failures. I have never gotten good at setting up models for printing. I usually hope they are in a scale that isn't too egregious next to mine and hit slice.

Printing time. On the printer that I have, printing off a 28mm figure will take anywhere from 2 to 3 hours. And that time won't vary if you are printing a single figure or a whole plate full of them, because it exposes an entire level of the whole build plate at the same time. what increases build time is the height of the model you are printing. Like if you print a model of the Eiffel tower that is 100 mm, it will take approx. 4x as long to print vs a 28mm figure.

Printing types. If you want to print minis and greebles and small terrain pieces like trees and plants and furniture, this is where the resin printer shines. Most resin printers are going to have much smaller build plates, so printing things like buildings is going to be difficult. Also, if you print larger pieces, you need to hollow out the inside of the model in your slicer and put in drain holes to allow for excess resin to avoid being trapped inside. if you get uncured resin trapped inside of a large model, it can cause the model to eventually crack or break into pieces.

Printer recommendations. Take this one with a grain of salt, because I only have the one printer, the Photon Mono 2K SE. But I wouldn't buy this printer again...it looks cool, and it is a solid printer because it has a metal case that it is enclosed in. And it has worked fine for me, but I'm not a big fan of the Anycubic slicer, and I've had problems using Lychee. Seems like prints from Lychee or Chitubox take 2x as long if I slice the model on there as opposed to the Anycubic slicer. But the printer has performed very well for the most part. If I were going to be buying today, I would be looking at the Elegoo Mars or Phrozen Sonic Mini. Monochrome screen, current minimum for a new printer is 4k Resolution. If you want to be a baller, go up to the 8K screens, I've seen some amazing prints come off of those devices. If I were buying today, I would probably be looking at the Elegoo Saturn 8K, with the 10" screen so I could print up more at a time. I'm still not sure that even if I had the larger print bed that I would be doing much terrain on it. But maybe. Never say no. That being said, even on my 2K machine I have gotten some outstanding prints on it.

Curing station. Pretty much any one on the market will do the job for you. My Anycubic one is great, but if I got a larger printer and went nuts it probably couldn't hold a model that was bigger than 6" across. Or you can skip the curing station and use a couple of pickle baskets for cleaning and build your own uv station. It's a nice to have, not a necessity.

OK. Enough about resin printing. I'm going to pause here for a bit, and see if you have any questions, or let me know if this is even what you are looking for.

[EDIT] Oh, missed a key point. Size. If you go with a Mars or a Phrozen Mini, they are about 1 foot square. They aren't heavy, because they are mostly plastic. But if you are moving it, you're really going to need to drain and clean your resin vat after each day, which becomes tedious.
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Blackhawk
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Blackhawk »

hentzau wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 10:48 am OK. Enough about resin printing. I'm going to pause here for a bit, and see if you have any questions, or let me know if this is even what you are looking for.
Wow, great write-up, thank you. I don't really have any questions off of the top of my head, as I'm mostly trying to get a handle on the options right now and see if they're even possible. I do get a sense that tabletop war/skirmish games are moving toward a point where they almost require a 3d printer for anything not scratch-built. We're in enough of the same Facebook tabeltop groups - it's amazing how many of posts these days are mostly 3d-printed products when just a few years ago it was commercial and/or scratch-built.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Blackhawk wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 11:42 am
hentzau wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 10:48 am OK. Enough about resin printing. I'm going to pause here for a bit, and see if you have any questions, or let me know if this is even what you are looking for.
Wow, great write-up, thank you. I don't really have any questions off of the top of my head, as I'm mostly trying to get a handle on the options right now and see if they're even possible. I do get a sense that tabletop war/skirmish games are moving toward a point where they almost require a 3d printer for anything not scratch-built. We're in enough of the same Facebook tabeltop groups - it's amazing how many of posts these days are mostly 3d-printed products when just a few years ago it was commercial and/or scratch-built.
I have a boring team meeting coming up this afternoon. I'll try and type up some stuff about FDM during that.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Now onto FDM printing.

FDM printing uses a filament of various types, heated through a hot end, to build up a model from a print bed. The filament comes in a spool, and you can have a literal rainbow of colors that you can print in. FDM printing is a lot slower than resin printing, but generally has larger print beds to print on, so you can get larger models to print.

The traditional FDM printer uses an XYZ gantry to do its printing. The X-axis is your print head traveling along an arm going left-right in your build area. The Y-axis is the print bed, and that will move forward and backwards. The Z-axis moves the arm of the X-axis up and down (traditionally only up during a print.) The print bed is heated to help for the filament to adhere. Most print beds use a special coating to help with filament adherence, my favorite is a material called PEI on a spring-steel plate that is like magic to help filament stick to the bed and you flex the plate when done and your prints just pop off. Other bed surfaces can be glass, tempered glass, borosilicate glass...these will usually give you a print bed without warping that can happen with metal beds. In addition to the bed heating, people will use adhesive substances to help the prints stick...things like custom-made adhesion materials, painters tape, regular school glue sticks, and hairspray.

An FDM print begins as a does a resin print, by taking an STL file and running it through a slicer. The most commonly used slicers are Cura and PrusaSlicer. You set up basic settings within your slicer telling it the printer type, the filament type, the nozzle size, nozzle temperature, print bed temperature, and layer height. Layer height pretty much determines your quality, in combination with the nozzle size. The smaller the nozzle size and lower the layer height, the more detail you will get, the fewer and less pronounced the layer lines will appear, but it will also increase your print time, a bunch. Part of what you need to determine is what level of detail you want vs how long you want it to take.

Behind the scenes there are hundreds of other settings that you can play with and tweak to get your printer to perform at peak speed and details, but once again, this is a real art to get these settings tweaked.

The most commonly used filament is PLA (polyactive acid) which is made from corn starch as it's primary component. There is no smell or off-gassing from the melting of PLA. It does a great job of creating simple models, but it is somewhat brittle. This is all I have ever printed with. The other filaments, like PETG and TPU...these are more difficult to print with, because you have to print at higher temps and PETG off gasses so you usually have to have it in an enclosure.

For the most part, models that have been made to print with FDM in mind don't need to have supports. You can add supports to FDM prints, but they are pretty terrible to remove and will slow you down, so you want to always try and print without supports.

Bed leveling is really at the heart of being able to get a good print from an FDM printer. Automated bed leveling is becoming more and more common with consumer level printers, but even that will need some fine manual adjustments. Straight up manual adjustment requires using what they call "the paper test", where you move the print head to the 4 corners of the bed, bring the z-axis down to zero, put a piece of paper between the print nozzle and the print bed, and then adjust the height of the bed using knobs until the paper is just catching between the bed and nozzle. Once you get your leveling dialed in, you can go for months without having to re-level... but as soon as you move the printer, or replace the nozzle or the print bed, you will need to re-level.

Recommendations: I have had 3 FDM printers, an Ender 3 pro, an Ender Cr-6, and a Prusa Mk3S. I was pretty happy with my Ender 3 pro, and knew pretty well how to manage and troubleshoot any issues with it. I was seduced by the CR6, because of its promises of auto bed leveling, and it printed pretty well for me for about 6 months until it just went to hell and I couldn't get a print to work to save my soul. So I dropped the big money on a Prusa. I couldn't afford the pre-assembled version, so I built it myself. Took me about 12 hours to build. But it printed great. I got beautiful prints off of it, and the auto bed leveling was a thing of beauty. And it worked great for about a year. But right now, it's just a paperweight. I can't get any of my prints to stick to the bed. Everything I've tried just won't work. I've replaced multiple parts. Super, super frustrating. I'm about to punt and try and sell this one at a discount and buy one of the new Ender 3 V2 Neo printers. That's the printer that Tom Tullis over at Fat Dragon Games is recommending right now.

Speed...FDM printing is not fast. Depending on your layer height, larger prints can take over 24 hours to complete. Bunches of smaller prints on a single bed can take a long time as well, because unlike resin, you're not curing an entire layer all at once, you're having to travel all over the bed to lay down a layer of filament for each piece. I think the longest I've had a print run is like 39 hours or so.

Bottom line...3D printing has a learning curve. You won't be perfect out of the gate. You will get frustrated. You have to learn how to maintain and repair them. It is time consuming. But it's also magic, when you consider that you can go to a site like Heroforge, create a miniature that looks exactly like you imagine your character, and then 3 hours later you have the mini in your hand. I've slowed down a lot on my 3D printing, but its there when I need it. I have to get my FDM printer going again, because I am starting up a new project and I have a bunch of terrain I need to get ready.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Blackhawk »

Thanks for part 2!

With FDM printing, how far away can you get from everything looking like it was built in Minecraft?
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Blackhawk wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 1:33 pm Thanks for part 2!

With FDM printing, how far away can you get from everything looking like it was built in Minecraft?
Well, it doesn't look like it was built in Minecraft, but if you squint you can see layer lines. A good coat of primer will cover most of the layer line sins, and once you get the paint on it isn't noticeable at all.

Also, contrary to popular belief, you get some artifacting on resin prints as well. Some of the larger items you can see these slight waves, especially on rounded objects. It all comes down to layer height and anti-aliasing. You don't see that nearly as much on a mini because of the smaller scale. Also, increasing the resolution on the printer (2K vs 4K vs 8K) helps.

I'll post some of my 3D printed terrain so you can see some examples. Then you can get an idea about whether you could live with the layer lines or not. I don't even notice them any longer.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Image
Image
Image
Image
The ruins, the tent, the altar and the sphinx head are all FDM prints. If you zoom in (or hold them close) you can start to see the layer lines. But that’s the same with my minis…they look great on the table, but you really examine them and they’re a mess.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Blackhawk »

Thanks. I can see them. Actually, they don't bother me in that context - it looks like canvas on the tent, and like striations texturing on the stone (which is normal for sandstone.)

I think it would bother me more on something more modern.

I'm conflicted - if I had the space to do it safely, I'd be looking at resin printers. FDM printers seem more practical from some perspectives, but I think the layer lines would bother me (on some projects more than others) when it came time to paint (especially if washes were involved), and extremely long prints would be a problem with the thing sitting in my bedroom.

Aargh.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Blackhawk wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 3:29 pm Thanks. I can see them. Actually, they don't bother me in that context - it looks like canvas on the tent, and like striations texturing on the stone (which is normal for sandstone.)

I think it would bother me more on something more modern.

I'm conflicted - if I had the space to do it safely, I'd be looking at resin printers. FDM printers seem more practical from some perspectives, but I think the layer lines would bother me (on some projects more than others) when it came time to paint (especially if washes were involved), and extremely long prints would be a problem with the thing sitting in my bedroom.

Aargh.
Yeah, the Modiphius files are optimized for resin printing. I printed one of their early corvega models on my FDM printer and the results weren't great. I got to use the wreckage to practice my rusting and chipping techniques though.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Hmm. Just spotted that Anycubic has a Photon Mono 2 with a 20% bigger build plate and upgraded 4K screen for $200. That’s a nice printer for a nice price. $50 cheaper than an Elegoo Mars…

Tempting…
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Punisher »

Just to put my 2 cents in.
I have a couple of FDM printers and 2 resin printers.
It really depends on what you want to print. I use my resin for all minis and small terrain. If I need to make a large print I use my FDM printer.
My wife is not a fan of the resin smell but I found some plant based ones that help minimize the smell. Thanks to Covid, smell isn't an issue for me. 😉
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Also, if you have a MicroCenter near you they have a hell of a deal for an Ender 3 V2 for new customers…

Usually $280, you can get it for $99 if you sign up. In store purchase only.

I’m picking up one just to have a spare.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Man, it is so nice to be back up and printing, especially since I didn't have the ability to print for several months. I finally did what seemed to be the opposite of what I though the problem was and raised my probe on the printer (yeah, yeah...I said probe) and that fixed it. So I'm back in business.

(But to just show you how on the edge all of this is, I got my adhesion issues fixed, printed the first part of a 2-part print for a Japanese shrine, and then suddenly the SD card reader on the printer stopped working. So, I had to install an Octoprint Raspberry Pi print server to allow me to keep printing. It was on my list of things to do, so no biggie, just accelerated my plans to do so.)
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

About $25 in filament and a lot of hours later…

Image
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Isgrimnur »

Very nice.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Zarathud »

Wow, that is awesome.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Smoove_B »

Yeah, that looks pretty crazy. Filament printing has come a long way since the last time I looked at it, apparently!
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

And after being down for a couple of weeks, my Prusa is finally back up and working. It had several failures in the extruder all at once, but after a lot of trial and error and just going back and really double checking I figured out the extruder gear had slipped off of its shaft and was just spinning freely. So back to printing scenery for my China Station campaign for Pulp Alley!
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by stessier »

I don't do 3D printing, but saw this review and the reviewer was so impressed that I thought it was worth sharing. $300 is a lot cheaper than I was expecting.

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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Punisher »

NY has lost it's mind...

https://all3dp.com/4/background-check-t ... host-guns/

Actual legislation
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2023/A8132

The comments spell out everything wrong with this.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Blackhawk »

There are so many insane bills proposed that I've quit even paying attention until it actually advances a bit.

They're kind of like lawsuits - anyone can file one, but that doesn't mean that suing the city because your address is '13' and unlucky is going to go anywhere.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by raydude »

Has anyone had any experience with any of the commercial 3D printing services? Or with r/3dprintmything? My high schooler needs to have parts printed out for her science project and I don't have time to attend the classes required for me to operate the 3D printers we have at work.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

raydude wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2023 12:28 pm Has anyone had any experience with any of the commercial 3D printing services? Or with r/3dprintmything? My high schooler needs to have parts printed out for her science project and I don't have time to attend the classes required for me to operate the 3D printers we have at work.
How soon do you need them? And what are you trying to print? How many objects? I could probably do it for you. DM me.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by raydude »

hentzau wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2023 12:34 pm
raydude wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2023 12:28 pm Has anyone had any experience with any of the commercial 3D printing services? Or with r/3dprintmything? My high schooler needs to have parts printed out for her science project and I don't have time to attend the classes required for me to operate the 3D printers we have at work.
How soon do you need them? And what are you trying to print? How many objects? I could probably do it for you. DM me.
Thanks for the offer! DM sent!
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

raydude wrote:
hentzau wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2023 12:34 pm
raydude wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2023 12:28 pm Has anyone had any experience with any of the commercial 3D printing services? Or with r/3dprintmything? My high schooler needs to have parts printed out for her science project and I don't have time to attend the classes required for me to operate the 3D printers we have at work.
How soon do you need them? And what are you trying to print? How many objects? I could probably do it for you. DM me.
Thanks for the offer! DM sent!
First one done…

Image
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Daveman »

My wife surprised me this Christmas with an Ender 3 printer! I'm very excited and completely clueless about 3d printing and figured I could ask some 3d printing for dummies kind of questions!

1. I ran the built in cat figure test print yesterday. I noticed that it looked like it was printing a very thin base at the bottom of the figure that extended a bit past the boundary of the figure itself. As a gamer I'm used to figures being on bases so I assumed it's a base. When it finished printing and I went to remove the print from the printing pad (looks like a sheet of metal with some teflon-like black surface that rests on the heated printer base) the figure popped very easily off the "base", while the base is thoroughly stuck to the pad. I gather I need to reheat the printer base and/or use a hair dryer to heat this up and get it off. Haven't tried it yet.

In doing a little research, I get the impression the "base" is probably a "raft"? Some printing method that applies filament to the pad to assist in adhesion (and presumably easy removal of the thing you're actually printing?) So did I "break" the figure off the base or was that just a raft? At a quick glance opinion seems to vary on whether rafts are needed or not?

2. What is the basic order of operations for printing/designing stuff? From my limited poking around:

a. Find/buy .STL files of stuff I want to print, or use a 3d modeling program to make .STLs of my own? Blender seems to come up as a recommendation?
b. Run the .STL file through a "slicing" program, which converts it into a format that works with my model printer. Looks like .gcode for this Ender 3? The Ender comes with such a program but there are better options out there? Sounds like this is also where you would input things like how big you want the print, level of detail, etc. Some editing/review of the end result might be needed if the slicer winds up adding/removing stuff?
c. Save the .gcode file to the memory card, put it in the printer and go!

The cat came out great, so presumably I didn't screw up the assembly or calibration so I have that going for me :D
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Punisher »

It definitely sounds like a raft. Does your build pad come off easily? Like is it magnetic? If so, you shpuld be able to pop it off and bend it to get pieces off.
If it doesn't come with it, that might becan upgrad2 to look into.
Your process seems correct. I used Fusion instead of Blender tjough because I was taking a free Fusion class.
I cant think of the soyes (I'm sure someone will pop in with a list) but there are plenty of places to find free stls. It might get tricky of you are looking for something very specific but even then ive had success finding free stuff.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by hentzau »

Congratulations and welcome to your new hobby. What model Ender did you get?

I'd recommend you go check out the Fat Dragon Games YouTube Channel. He's what got me started. His channel is specifically focused on helping people print out his dungeon tiles, but his set up and upgrade videos for Ender printers are some of the best out there.

For 3D modeling, you can get started just by using the default Microsoft app if you're running Windows, Paint 3D. Play around with it, bunches of tutorials to get you going, and then work your way up to the big boys like Blender. I've never really gotten the hack of doing modeling, despite taking a few runs at it, other than designing some very simple tokens and templates for games.

For slicer, Cura is kind of the gold standard for FDM printing. You can use PrusaSlicer too, but that is kind of geared more towards the prusa line of printers. Lychee is now doing both resin and FDM, but they're still very new in the FDM world, so I would stay away from that for a while.

If you have specific questions, drop them in here. Not sure if I can help, but I've been FDM printing for about 5 years now.
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Re: 3D Printing

Post by Blackhawk »

Man, I just can't get past my desire to have 3d printing tech, despite having failed repeatedly to find a way to do it at home. Now that Michelle has moved out, and, just within the last couple of months has finally gotten the last of her stuff out, I'm in the process or redoing my entire bedroom for space. Now I find myself trying to figure out if I can find a way to work a 3d printing area into my closet. Said closet is the only room in the house that can be completely isolated (for fumes), and wasn't originally a closet - so it has a huge window I could fit for exhaust.

Now, to do this, I'd have to completely change how I store my board games, as that entire section of wall is a massive shelf that holds a meaningful number of board gmes. I'd also have to come up with a solid surface, and an actual exhaust solution, plus buy the actual printer. And yeah, there's a window behind there. It's covered with heavy cloth to keep the sun off of the games.

Enlarge Image

Wheew, there - I think writing that up was enough to talk myself out of it.

There is something seriously wrong with me.
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