Surface Finishes On Home 3D Printers?

[AlanG]

Now i admit straight from the off that i know next to virtually nothing about 3D printers. But having looked into resin casting i was also looking at the world of 3D printing too.

I know what types of surface finish you can get with resin but what about 3D printers? Can they do a smooth finish or are they useless for this? How small can you go with the detail level?

 

[Fernando N]

Hi Alan, the little I know of 3d printers is that how smaller the filament is the better the detail.
Had repaired some figures for a mate awhile ago and they were printed is in 1/35 sortish
Not as smooth as we modelers are expected to but some sanding can help that and yes they are Rammstein figs
Of course a good printer will cost a pretty penny...
Hth Fernando

 

[Steven000]

It's very hard to give an answer as there are so many different printers available...

I have a fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3d printer, which was great for a lot of things but not for scale-models.
A resin printer can print scale-models indeed, but unlike 'casting' these are printed in layers...
The layer-height is an important parameter about how 'fine' the surface detail is.
The smaller the layer height the longer it will take to print it.

When you build-up a model in layers you'll need to add a supportive structure for 'overhanging' shapes, without such a structure the 3d print would collapse during printing
Most printers have options to add these structures automatically, but you'll have to clean it up afterwards...

(google image)

Also the resin is toxic and can be a pain to deal with,
most of the 3d printers are not 'click-the-button-and-you-have-a-nice-print' ... unlike advertised(!)
So if you buy one read a lot of reviews...

Have fun!
Steven

 

[Gary MacKenzie]

The liquid resin printers are becoming cheaper and can create very fine models.

There is also some new software that builds the model with filament using a slightly different technique and improves the look of the models.

Smooth operation eliminates FDM stair-stepping in University of Hamburg study - 3D Printing Industry

Researchers at the University of Hamburg in Germany, have proposed a novel way of slicing 3D printed objects to create smoother results. By 3D printing nonplanar layers close to the horizontal, this slicing method removes the stair-stepping effect typical to FDM surfaces. In addition to the...

3dprintingindustry.com

 

[AlanG]

Cheers guys. I'm looking into making some items for my models and was just wondering if it's worth the investment of a printer. Obviously i would make 'extras' and sell them should persons want them but primarily it would be for me. 99.9999999% of items would be Fw190 related...... obviously

 

[wotan]

Alan

The filament printers give too rough a surface unless you go for the arm and a leg expensive ones. The resin printers are quite good but they require lots of nasty toxic chemicals that require ventilation, and for you to stop breathing for an hour or two while they print. Not the sort of thing I would buy for home use. You can always use professional printing services.

John

 

[Dave Ward]

Resin printers give very nice results, but unlike the FDM prints, they need 'curing' after construction, usually in some form of UV light, and I believe that shrinkage occurs, so that has to be compensated for in the 3D model The chemicals used are toxic & need careful handling. I've been following home 3D printers for a while, and at the moment, it's not quite there for the average modeller, it's coming, but not yet. The FDM printers generally handle PLA & ABS filaments, the ABS being closer to polystyrene, than the plant starch derived PLA. I'm not sure about dimensional stability, and PLA can absorb water & degrade.
For home use, I'd say not yet............
Dave

 

[Neil Merryweather]

Hi Alan,
I work with both types of printer every day as a professional architectural model maker.
Don't even think about the filament type for detail modelling like we do, unless you want to spend a lot of time sanding the lines away. They are good for big bland things like buildings but not really the kind of things we want in this hobby.
The resin type is much more suited to the kind of thing you are referring to but you would need to spend at least £300 on a very basic one which will give you lots of headaches before you get something decent out of it. Do you draw in CAD? Because you will need to create your own files to print- there are some things available for free on the internet but it's most unlikely it will be exactly what you want, so at best you would need to be able to digitally tweak it.
I have been using them for 15-20 years at work , and I have only used the filament type to make bases or jigs n my hobby
I HAVE printed a few things in resin( see my Scots Greys Charge thread), but crucially I haven't had to spend my money on the machine itself.
Dave is right, they ARE getting better and cheaper, but they are not like a paper printer where you simply hit PRINT and something comes out the other end. I spent a lot of time tinkering and failing.
People at work often ask my advice about which printer to buy, and my first question is always "What do you want to print?" The answer is ALWAYS "Well, I don't know,I just thought it would be a good thing to have"
Now at least you have a serious answer to that question, but unless you want to spend all your modelling time wrestling the printer into submission, or you have a ready made market for your FW 190 bits, I would stick to casting at the moment.
Don't believe the hype from the manufacturers, who only need to sell the machines. The world's sheds are full of abandoned 3D printers.....
That said ,yes I DO want one when I retire, but I do at least know how to use it already.
I do hope this helps
Cheers
Neil

 

[Dave Ward]

The point about designing in CAD is very relevant - I spent the final 20 years of my working life designing mechanical components & machinery ;layouts. I used high end software, CADAM, CATIA, IDEAS , Inventor - which took a long time to learn ( not to mention expensive training courses ). It's all very well making a 3D CAD model, but making an accurate model depends not only on your own skill, but the accuracy of the information you have - just as an example, how would you model the nose of an F-16? It's not a simple ogive, it's flattened, top to bottom, subtly blended - not something you'd knock out in an hour or so!
I used to deal with a rapid-prototyping company, and I visited their site quite regularly, and their equipment was awesome, Stereo lithography ( SLA ) & laser sintering (SLS ), as well as the resin bath - all of which was very expensive & needed highly trained engineers to get the best out of them ( They ran a 3-shift system for maximum return on their investment ). The largest 3D printed component I had made was a 4-cylinder diesel engine cylinder head ( of my design ), in transparent resin, so we could tweak the flow of water coolant through the head, it took about a week to print, and a day or so to cure! No idea of the cost, but suggestions of further prints were vetoed!
Dave

 

[AlanG]

Cheers guys. You've all basically confirmed what i thought in the first place........ Stick to resin casting lol

 

[john i am]

Cheers guys. You've all basically confirmed what i thought in the first place........ Stick to resin casting lol

Hi Alan I know you've had a lot of negative feedback on your post but you shouldn't be put off in my humble opinion.I won't pretend to know the first thing about them. Ade close enough who used to post on here sometime ago got one recently. He's had some great results with his printing and is now considering a resin printer which will give even better results. I think the one he uses now cost around £200 I've posted a few random pictures of his work. He started around January and obtained all the information he required from YouTube videos. I certainly wouldn't give up on the idea mate. I myself am strongly considering one. Cheers John.

 

[Jakko]

Don't even think about the filament type for detail modelling like we do, unless you want to spend a lot of time sanding the lines away. They are good for big bland things like buildings but not really the kind of things we want in this hobby.

At a model show earlier this year, I was looking at some of these in action at a stand with RC model ship builders, who apparently used a lot of 3D-printed items. I concluded that at least the filament printers they used were far too crude for the kind of modelling I do (mostly 1:35 scale), though they worked fine for RC ships that aren’t intended for being viewed up close.

The resin type is much more suited to the kind of thing you are referring to but you would need to spend at least £300 on a very basic one which will give you lots of headaches before you get something decent out of it.

From what I’ve seen in photos, this is far more suitable, but exactly those headaches are what’s stopped me from buying one so far. The hassle involved with the chemicals, clean-up, stench, etc. is putting me off, plus:—

Do you draw in CAD? Because you will need to create your own files to print

CAD software and I get along very poorly. The bloody programs just never seem to have been designed by sensible people who have given any thought at all to UI and UX, not to mention affordability to non-business users. About the only one I can work with reasonably is OpenSCAD but that’s very laborious because of having to code what you want instead of being able to draw it. It also has a number of advantages, though, exactly because you have to code everything rather than draw it

People at work often ask my advice about which printer to buy, and my first question is always "What do you want to print?"

Agreed: first decide what it is you want to do, then find the right tool for the job.

 

[SimonT]

I agree about the filament printers - I bought a cheap XYZ PLA printer to fiddle with and rapidly found that it is not much good for small modelling items

Even at the very smallest layer settings you get lines everywhere

I have made some usable larger items including my own design build/paint stand as the lines are not a problem. Even that had another problem though - warpage due to the heat differential between hot plastic and cold printer bed
The PLA squirts at about 213degC
The 150mm flat circular base prints like a banana even with strong tape holding it to the bed
The vertical of the stand is a 10mm square rod - printed flat on its side but even that does not print square. The hot plastic sags and the top edge sags so the result is rectangular rather than square

The CAD doesn’t bother me as I have been doing it for work for hundreds of years - I use CorelCAD which is a full Autocad clone at a fraction of the price, but still not cheap (Was a lot cheaper when I first started using it)

Intellicad or Turbocad are good programs at the cheaper end of the market

 

[Jakko]

CorelCAD which is a full Autocad clone

That’s not a recommendation, you know that, right?

A few years ago, when I had some things I decided would be best done in CAD software, I began with AutoCAD (I had tinkered with that 30 or so years ago too, when my father had a copy courtesy of his job) and the UI problems I mentioned above were really off-putting. It’s probably not a problem for anyone who learned how to use it, but the learning curve (as a DIYer) is so steep and AutoCAD’s conventions so unlike those of modern operating systems that it’s difficult to get anything at all done with it at first.

I also tried VectorWorks, which was notably better UI-wise (nowhere near the ease of use that Apple or Microsoft would give you if they made software like this, mind) but had other weird problems. The main one I remember is that it suddenly, without warning, turns objects that have had all kinds of transformations done to them, into single pieces — meaning you can’t go back through the transformations and modify them, for example if you decide the wall of a hollowed-out piece needs to be thinner after all.

 

[Dwayne]

I know I am a bit late for this thread but here goes anyway. If you print with ABS and I think PET you can use acetone to smooth the end result. See here for more.

 

[AlanG]

Thanks Dwayne. Nothing wrong with adding more info. I have a few ideas i'd like to print but surface finish is key as i really don't want to spend ages cleaning them up.

 

[Dwayne]

The main problem is both require quite high temperatures which leads to various possible problems like your getting close to the temperature that the liner starts to deform. I have done a few ABS prints on my printer but I didn't try smoothing them.

 

[Steven000]

I tried a few times smoothing things with acetone/acetone vapour in the past, but it's quite hard to smooth things and still keep all the details, it might work for things like abstract (printed) art but rather difficult for scale models imho.

My (FDM) printer is collecting dust for almost 3 years now, it was like a child; very time consuming and you couldn't turn your back on it for 5min or it left a big mess! (Temperatures, bed adhesion, nozzle block-ups, tangled filament etc etc etc)
Steven

 

[monica]

late in this one but all very interesting as well,as some will no that i have done a few figures in 3d printed,
and it is hard with the layer lines ,to smooth them out,or have it printed ,with a different high so ,there
not so bad to get around,some of the plastic can be smooth with ,acetone,but are meant to be harder to
print,
I do think for me the way is ,is to get the resin printed figures,