Adventures in 3D printing...

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Robert
I'm surprised we don't hear of more clubs getting together to fund one to maximise the output. I guess the truth is you need someone who is keen enough to make the printing itself their hobby for some time while they learn it.
I now have my own FDM printer which was (AMAZINGLY) a redundancy gift from my job- (better than a carriage clock!), and I use it now as a freelancer, but the data comes from the designers. I do have limited 3D CAD skills and I have made many a tool-holder and household gadget or fix (replaced the coffee percolator knob for instance- big deal...).
I am not someone who is into selling things so I do not plan to go down that route. Those who follow my builds will have seen some of the things I have 3D printed, including the circular base for my Scots Grey Charge diorama. But I must stress I have been doing this for YEARS, and even in a professional context it probably took me (and my team of younger people) 6 months to be able to get quality prints reliably most times. Admittedly that was in the early days of affordable printers- even in a business context we waited about ten years before we were confident enough to invest in a machine of our own. I do wish I could learn digital sculpting, but my old brain struggles with a new phone or change of internet provider these days, so I am not optimistic...
I DO plan eventually to get one of the new 'affordable' resin printers, but we are still talking £250-£300, plus the issue of the smell of the resin in the house, so I am waiting until I can see some in person before I dive in.
If anyone is serious I suggest they wait until Lockdown is lifted and go to one of the trade fairs to see the variety on offer, and actually understand what is involved with running one, and in the meantime there are plenty of reviewers on YouTube and such .
The resin printers are indeed getting cheaper and due to the advances with the type of LCD lights for curing between layers, the time for each layer is coming down to 1-2 seconds rather than 10-15. Also, water washable resin, so less IPA and therefore cost.
I guess the point of my original post (and all of the replies here have been really valuable) is that I was trying to gauge the availability of really good STL and OBJ files out there so I could download/buy and then print things like a decent set of exhaust cans for an F-15 or decent landing gear. Therefore buy once and use many times. What I’ve concluded (at least for now) is that there is little if anything out there that currently means I would not continue to use after-market resin parts. It may be I’m looking in the wrong place which, again, was what I was trying to ascertain.
Surely over the coming months/small number of years this is going to become more accessible and we will get to a place where we can print at home what we buy from Res-Kit and Aries etc?
 

GerryW

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As in all 'new' technologies, the price will come down considerably (I can remember when the first DVD players were well over £1000) just waiting is all, plus the quality will go up.
 
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To be honest, if you did CAD then you would probably be in the best position to actually make use of it, as you actually have the skills to make a 3D drawing of the parts you would want to print out. Unlike just about everyone else, who needs to develop those skills first, on software that all seems to have been designed by people who have never given a thought to usability or discoverability in their lives.
Most of the software is made for nerds by nerds. That's my realm and I'm ticked off with how unfriendly blender is. It's THE software to use for 3D modeling and it's entirely built around keyboard short cuts with mazes of menus and weird icons to work through else where. It's a mess but that's the nature of open source software much of this relies on or builds off of.

I've been 3D printing at home for a year now and I've run into my fair share of problems. As an amateur the first issue is it's a hobby not a time save or a quick fix. You will need to invest hours into getting your machines to work how you want them to and every time you switch out material you're going to have to fiddle again. Your filament might have a different constitution (It's cheaply made in China...) or your resin might cure slightly faster/slower than the last batch. Resin is the only way to go for model making unless you're looking to make internal skeletons for things on a FDM printer than cover it completely afterwards. Resin is a hazardous to work with and putting it in the spare room alone isn't enough to avoid serious health risks. You might not mind the fumes from the printer but uncured resin on gloves and kitchen roll in your bin will slowly creep out. Good way to mess up your lungs and get headaches so I wouldn't recommend it. I haven't touched IPA for cleaning only water and that's going to need disposing of as well. You can cure it but it can't go down the drain after no matter how well you filter it. IPA can be filtered and reused time and time again if you want but it smells even worse than the resin and is a fire hazard. Resin 3D printing is dangerous and while many people like to say it's the future it has to solve that problem first. If you can't print a model without touching uncured resin, checking for failed prints/emptying the tank to check and have it come out the other end cleaned and cured ready to paint it's not viable for the mainstream hobby. Resin is an annoying material to work with when it's purchased over the counter. Working with it raw is beyond 95% of model kit builders either through lack of interest or lack of ability despite the interest.

As for a club investing in one, not worth the money unfortunately. Someone still has to be the tea boy and do all the work printing. The costs of printing isn't cheap outside of the material needed either and you will be needing to constantly buy disposable items for clean up adding to the cost on top of your initiate investment. Prints will fail to print randomly, some prints just won't ever work no matter how well you know your machine or how well you support them and you don't want Terry turning up asking you to print an entire warhammer army. The basic resin printer is the Elegoo mars line at the moment and sits at about £250 for the pro version. Assuming 10 people buy in and you do one print a day you're going to struggle to print more than 10 28mm miniatures per build plate. If the tea boy is willing to do all this every day for free just so he can get his 1 day of up of printing up to 10 miniatures he's not got his head screwed on right. Prints take between 5-12 hours on the best quality setting and then you have to wash and cure them. It's a part time job with none of the perks at that point. At least if the paper boy messes up he doesn't have 8 guys breathing down his neck waiting in line and have to pocket the expenses of failed prints or replacement parts.

I covered miniatures in my example because home printing anything else is impractical unless you're going into busts and statue sized models (which is THE reason to own a printer, cost effective and massive selection). Printing large single surface parts requires intense attention to detail in your printers set up. If your build plate is even slightly off angle you're going to have a warp and you still need to cure it in a way which keeps it perfectly level. You can break kits down into smaller more managable pieces like a standard model kit if you want to spend a month printing what you could pick up from the shop for 30 quid instead I suppose. You're going to need a larger than standard resin printer for things like plane wings or decent sized tank bodies. which is about 4 times the cost of the usual models people use at home. I think it's £600-800 for the next size up Elegoo model, which will cure faster to cut printing times down but has the same resolution as the standard model (4k over a larger area so it even outs).

Project creep becomes dangerous when you have a printed as well. Since you already paid for the resin you don't have a cost associated with the things you print as you print them. Today's must have item is tomorrow's backlog when that really cool new release catches your eye... Far too easy to clog up shelves with would be projects
 
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Bob
Sorry for the double post, I can't go back and edit the one above and forgot to quote this.

The resin printers are indeed getting cheaper and due to the advances with the type of LCD lights for curing between layers, the time for each layer is coming down to 1-2 seconds rather than 10-15. Also, water washable resin, so less IPA and therefore cost.
I guess the point of my original post (and all of the replies here have been really valuable) is that I was trying to gauge the availability of really good STL and OBJ files out there so I could download/buy and then print things like a decent set of exhaust cans for an F-15 or decent landing gear. Therefore buy once and use many times. What I’ve concluded (at least for now) is that there is little if anything out there that currently means I would not continue to use after-market resin parts. It may be I’m looking in the wrong place which, again, was what I was trying to ascertain.
Surely over the coming months/small number of years this is going to become more accessible and we will get to a place where we can print at home what we buy from Res-Kit and Aries etc?

Current screens are 4-8 seconds to cure depending on the resin. Mono screens half that. I covered water washable resin and it's more expensive so if you can filter your IPA you're meeting about in the middle cost wise.

Historicals and real world subjects have very little support out there. Since most people into them are older folk who are barely able to use a computer to begin with the market isn't there for it. You find small groups here and there or one guy who's designed his own stuff and might be willing to share it but that's pretty rare too. Catalogs will grow over time and slowly fill in but I expect commercial 3D printing to take over in that department. Either castings of 3D prints or 3D prints direct from company printers.

I don't see it becoming more accessible any time soon. It's already as simple as it can get technology wise to print things. The improvements will be based on speed of printing when they need to be based on safety when printing. Better ways to remove prints and wash them especially. The whole industry outside of one company is based in China, making things as cheaply as possible for a massive mark up. Health and safety isn't very high up their priority list and it's unlikely to change any time soon for resin. FDM printing is going to appeal to the mainstream wanting to make coat pegs and TV remote holders since those are things everyone needs replacing or creating. FDM might see some better safety features due to being a fire hazard when things go wrong (and even then some companies don't turn on the software option which shuts down the machine if it loses connection to the heat censor and leads it to push more and more heat into the hot end). But resin is unfortunately a hobby machine with very few practical uses outside of that.
 

Neil Merryweather

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Brilliantly put and by someone with actual experience. Thank you for taking the time to write all that- I was feeling like the voice of doom. I especially like your points about clubs buying one- I would definitely have become the teaboy!
Very interesting what you say about the Elegoo-I was looking at that for myself because I have professional experience on the Form 1 (until I was made redundant and went freelance) so I don't have ready access to resin printing now. I think I will pass for now.....
 

boatman

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WELL OK GUYS ive read through this whole thread an i admit that i understand point .99% of it so for me way to complex an for me scratch building with my own two hands is the way to go for me an either that or buying the kit an done with it as this is modeling is suppose to be a hobby to enjoy an 3D building in just my opinion the machine is doin all the building an not you so for me no thanks an i think the only thing ive got built in 3D is my water tank for my steam unit but this is just my opinion
chris
 

Dave Ward

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Software! I started my CAD experience with a programme called CADAM - it was a 2-D system, originally produced by Boeing this ran on a mainframe, with dedicated workstations, I had in house training for this, then this moved up to CCD, an upgrade of CADAM easy to move onto, and would work on PC's ( albeit top range machines ). The big jump came with CATIA V4, from Dassault Systems - this was a full scale 3-D software suite - it had parametrics, analysis, animation - this ran on a mainframe, again using dedicated workstations ( IBM RISC 6000 ). I dabbled with this, then went on several training courses to learn the best way to use it. The first component I actually designed was a camshaft. I did all sorts of mechanical bits & pieces, having more advanced training, before moving onto larger bits - cast iron crankcases & cylinder heads. CATIA V5 was introduced, which would run on a PC, but was a different beast to V4 - again, training. My next employer had several 3-D system, CATIA, IDEAS, Autodesk Inventor, again a bit more training.
OK, this was serious commercial business, but the time needed to become proficient, working full-time, was quite alarming - months, not weeks, and this for people who were already proficient with earlier systems ( Indeed some guys never made the progression ).
I inwardly smile, when I read people glibly saying they can knock up 3-D CAD files for modelling! It's like comparing a paint-by-numbers piece to the Mona Lisa!
Dave
 

boatman

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Software! I started my CAD experience with a programme called CADAM - it was a 2-D system, originally produced by Boeing this ran on a mainframe, with dedicated workstations, I had in house training for this, then this moved up to CCD, an upgrade of CADAM easy to move onto, and would work on PC's ( albeit top range machines ). The big jump came with CATIA V4, from Dassault Systems - this was a full scale 3-D software suite - it had parametrics, analysis, animation - this ran on a mainframe, again using dedicated workstations ( IBM RISC 6000 ). I dabbled with this, then went on several training courses to learn the best way to use it. The first component I actually designed was a camshaft. I did all sorts of mechanical bits & pieces, having more advanced training, before moving onto larger bits - cast iron crankcases & cylinder heads. CATIA V5 was introduced, which would run on a PC, but was a different beast to V4 - again, training. My next employer had several 3-D system, CATIA, IDEAS, Autodesk Inventor, again a bit more training.
OK, this was serious commercial business, but the time needed to become proficient, working full-time, was quite alarming - months, not weeks, and this for people who were already proficient with earlier systems ( Indeed some guys never made the progression ).
I inwardly smile, when I read people glibly saying they can knock up 3-D CAD files for modelling! It's like comparing a paint-by-numbers piece to the Mona Lisa!
Dave
WELL Dave i think you have hit the nail on the head with your post here as in my opinion its all been made out to be easy just load the machine with what it requires an press the go button an hey presto you have the bit you want that how it seems to me anyway i'll always use my two hands or buy the bits i need but im old fashioned i suppose its ok i suppose for the youngestes who understand an can learn quickly
chris
 
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Jakko

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Most of the software is made for nerds by nerds. That's my realm and I'm ticked off with how unfriendly blender is.
Blender has low user-friendliness? No! ;)

I gave that program a couple of tries and dragged it to the trash in frustration every time.

It's THE software to use for 3D modeling and it's entirely built around keyboard short cuts with mazes of menus and weird icons to work through else where.
Don’t forget what’s probably the stupidest decision made by anyone in software development in the last 30 years or so: left-click doesn’t select the thing your mouse pointer is over. Unlike in, oh, just about 100% of other software released since the Xerox Alto.

Resin is the only way to go for model making unless you're looking to make internal skeletons for things on a FDM printer than cover it completely afterwards.
I’ve seen it used for the outside of large models of remote-controlled ships. These are not intended to be seen up close, so it kind of works, but I wouldn’t want to use it for the kind of models I build (mainly 1:35 and 1:72 military vehicles, the occasional 1:72 aircraft and the odd odd subject).

Resin is an annoying material to work with
Like I said earlier, this is one of my main reasons for not having bought a resin printer.
 
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WELL OK GUYS ive read through this whole thread an i admit that i understand point .99% of it so for me way to complex an for me scratch building with my own two hands is the way to go for me an either that or buying the kit an done with it as this is modeling is suppose to be a hobby to enjoy an 3D building in just my opinion the machine is doin all the building an not you so for me no thanks an i think the only thing ive got built in 3D is my water tank for my steam unit but this is just my opinion
chris
It's not fair to say 3D printing does all the work for you. It depends what you're printing. Eagle models started making 3D printing videos recently and prints entire kits on par with garage kits or some injection modeled kits. It's a lot of hassle to do but you can get niche kits you couldn't get other wise. 3D printing limitations stop you from printing entire models and popping them off the build plate ready to print. Even 28mm miniatures require you to fix scaring where supports connected the model to the build plate (can't print onto thing air). There is quite a bit of effort going into planning how to print the model so it's a bit more difficult than ordering a can of coke from a vending machine.

Software! I started my CAD experience with a programme called CADAM - it was a 2-D system, originally produced by Boeing this ran on a mainframe, with dedicated workstations, I had in house training for this, then this moved up to CCD, an upgrade of CADAM easy to move onto, and would work on PC's ( albeit top range machines ). The big jump came with CATIA V4, from Dassault Systems - this was a full scale 3-D software suite - it had parametrics, analysis, animation - this ran on a mainframe, again using dedicated workstations ( IBM RISC 6000 ). I dabbled with this, then went on several training courses to learn the best way to use it. The first component I actually designed was a camshaft. I did all sorts of mechanical bits & pieces, having more advanced training, before moving onto larger bits - cast iron crankcases & cylinder heads. CATIA V5 was introduced, which would run on a PC, but was a different beast to V4 - again, training. My next employer had several 3-D system, CATIA, IDEAS, Autodesk Inventor, again a bit more training.
OK, this was serious commercial business, but the time needed to become proficient, working full-time, was quite alarming - months, not weeks, and this for people who were already proficient with earlier systems ( Indeed some guys never made the progression ).
I inwardly smile, when I read people glibly saying they can knock up 3-D CAD files for modelling! It's like comparing a paint-by-numbers piece to the Mona Lisa!
Dave
It sounds like you have a wonderful knowledge of history most people can't even scratch the surface of. I only know the modern practical software and I can cover that quickly to help people understand how it works.

CAD software is engineer software, it's exact and very rigid. A free online one you could try is Tinkercad if you want to experiment with it. It's good for making mechanic parts and is relatively simple to use because it involves putting shapes together. You use your shapes like lego to build up the object you want, adjusting them as you need. I managed to pick up the basics of Tinkercad in a week and was able to create desktop tools like paint brush holders and various little bits around the house.

Blender/Maya is the stuff people make computer games and movies on. Where CAD software is very rigid, 3D modeling is very flexible. You can adjust single polygons to create any shape you need, add textures and all sort of stuff you want for creating life like creatures as well as mechanic parts. It's by far the most powerful and complex tool of the 3. To learn this takes months of study, years to get really good. It's also something you need to instinctively understand to get the most out of. Working in a digital space requires thinking that way which isn't going to click for everyone. CAD's more mechanical inclination makes it easier to work with as well as being much simpler to use software which something like Blender being less Legoy (for lack of a better term) requires a different skill set.

The third type of software is up and coming and entirely useless to people here I suspect. 3D sculpting in Zbrush is exactly the same as sculpting clay in real life. You add, remove, stretch, poke, prod and apply textures to a ball of "clay". For making organic creatures it's impossible to beat and artists who can switch to a digital sculpting method can knock out organic models that will blow your mind. It's becoming the go to walk to create game and movie characters going forward since it takes the traditional sculpting style of practice effects and makes it faster and easier to create in. If you want to mess around with it Sculptris is an older free software which is easy to use and get to grips with you can try completely free. If you can use a mouse you can give sculpting a try in it. It's hard to sculpt something good but it's very easy to mess around with, like play doh.

To put sum it up. In CAD you would design a car part, in Blender you would make an entire plane with a fully detailed cockpit and in Zbrush you would sculpt Godzilla.
 

JR

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All very interesting esp the posts by guys that have used the professional models.
In years to come I'm sure it will be something that we use without thinking about it, meanwhile I shall stay with using Balsa wood and Foamboard.
 

boatman

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It's not fair to say 3D printing does all the work for you. It depends what you're printing. Eagle models
(Bob qoute)
OK Bob each to his own if you enjoy it so be it but have fun doin it as that to me is what moddeling is all about
chris
 
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