3D printer subjects - The way of the future?

[Lord_Voyager]

So, my friend purchased a 3D printer and is going a bit nuts printing out everything that strikes his fancy... Kinda like when you buy a new blender and now everything in your refrigerator is a smoothy.

I'm a big fan of the 1/1000 scale Star Trek universe ships... Federation, Klingon, whatever. Up on Thingiverse is a 'Valley Forge' class starship and I got him to print it out on high detail and WOW.

Goes together like a plastic kit but you need either 5 minute epoxy or C/A glue...  because of the printer marks, you need a putty to smooth it all out but DANG it's such a nice idea...

And once I figure out a good way to post pictures, I'll show off my handywork...

[Lord_Voyager]

I'll post something that everyone can see when I figure this out...

[Gondor]

And once I figure out a good way to post pictures, I'll show off my handywork...

Think you still need a little work on that as I can't see anything 

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

It's a Google pic, and you can't see them unless you're a 'signed on' Google user I'm afraid.

[NARSES2]

Home 3D printing is almost certainly the way of the future, although whether in my lifetime or not is another matter. It's rather similar to home design and printing of transfers, once upon a time unheard of, now relatively common and to a very high standard.

The main thing holding it back of course will be cost. Whilst you can cost the actual printers quite easily I have still seen no accurate methods for how to cost the output, and by accurate I mean not just the final product, but all the trial runs necessary to get to that "final" product. Now the number of trials needed would obviously depend on the users ability to use the system and you would also learn by experience, but it would still be interesting to see accurate costings.

[Caveman]

Nonobar is doing some great things with 3d printing. I'm interested in resin printing which seems to be the way to get good detail, though it's a bit more faffing around.

[Hobbes]

The main thing holding it back of course will be cost. Whilst you can cost the actual printers quite easily I have still seen no accurate methods for how to cost the output, and by accurate I mean not just the final product, but all the trial runs necessary to get to that "final" product. Now the number of trials needed would obviously depend on the users ability to use the system and you would also learn by experience, but it would still be interesting to see accurate costings.

The number of trials quickly drops to 0. I did one trial print for the first few parts I designed, and the lessons learned from those were enough to not need trials for later projects. My first parts had really thin walls, making the part flexible. That proved difficult to work with, so I added some bracing. Shapeways has good guidelines for part dimensions, if you follow those the parts rarely pose a problem at the printing stage. I use the Shapeways printing service, to I get to skip the whole 'find out how the printer works' phase.

With some experience, the time needed to make the drawings drops. The engine set I used on the VC-10 Superb, took about 12 hours to draw. Before that, I did a third stage for the Ariane 4, which has more surface detail than a jet engine. This took ~3 days.

The big drawback of 3D printing for me is that it means spending lots of time on a computer. I took up scale modelling because I wanted a hobby that involves a lot of 'manual labor' as a counterweight to my work days that are spent using a computer.

I've also bought a couple of 3D printed 'kits'. I use quotes because the entire subject consisted of one printed part, meaning you skip the entire assembly process. That's fine if you're just after the end result, but again, the build process is important to me.

So for now, 3D printing is part of my toolkit. It allows me to create parts that are difficult to scratchbuild. For example jet engines, which are curved in 2 dimensions. When I scratchbuild these, they always end up looking asymmetric despite endless rounds of PSR. Building a matching set of 4 is an exercise in frustration.
But I'm not going to stop scratchbuilding, or assembling kits.

[NARSES2]

The big drawback of 3D printing for me is that it means spending lots of time on a computer. I took up scale modelling because I wanted a hobby that involves a lot of 'manual labor' as a counterweight to my work days that are spent using a computer.

Very interesting Harro, especially this comment. I hadn't really thought of that.

I suppose like anything 3D printing will become part of the !armoury" in the end ?

[zenrat]

The big drawback of 3D printing for me is that it means spending lots of time on a computer. I took up scale modelling because I wanted a hobby that involves a lot of 'manual labor' as a counterweight to my work days that are spent using a computer.

Very interesting Harro, especially this comment. I hadn't really thought of that.

I suppose like anything 3D printing will become part of the !armoury" in the end ?

Prolly end up like printing your own decals.  There will be those who have figured it out, those who have tried it and given up and those who are happy for others to do it for them.

[nönöbär]

To me, 3D printing is an intersting addition to other tools you can use for model building. And of course, you can use it for many other things as well. A little bit like a hammer - if you have one, everything looks like a nail.... 

Right now, there are two kind of printers affordable for "normal" users, I have one of each.

FDM-Printers:
Simply spoken, they head up a plastic wire and print objects by prtingin plastic lines layer by layers. Those are the most comon and cheapest ones. Running costs are also not that much. Normally, you can print layers of 0.1mm height - and this is the reason why those kind of printers are not so good for oding very small things. Like 1/700 scale ship parts, you come to the limitis of those machines. However they are great for printing bigger things, I have used it to make some spare parts for plastic parts that were broken in the house.

SLA-Printers:
Those machines work with liquid resin that is hardned via uv light. They have a much higher resolution than FDM pritners, I usually use it with 0.03mm layer hight. More would be possible, but this would increase printing time. Those printers are much better when it comes to print some small parts for our models. The bid disadvantage - the resin is smelly and toxid. Cleaning the printer after work is messy and makes no fun. Running costs are higher and the printers are more expensive (Altough you get some useful ones for under 300$/300€ now).

As it was mentioned here-  if you start to create you own 3D objects, you have to sit at the computer for quite some time. Especially in the beginning, you need time to get used into all of this.
And not ot forget - there are many free 3d objects in the web that you can download and print. Or use them to make something new from it.

And for my model building - I still scratch build stuff the "old way", because sometimes its faster then all the 3d printing stuff. But for some things, 3d printing really can speed up things.

[NARSES2]

A little bit like a hammer - if you have one, everything looks like a nail.... 

And the bigger the hammer the better in my view.

Thanks for your comments. I wasn't aware of the two different types of printer 

[nönöbär]

Thanks for your comments. I wasn't aware of the two different types of printer 

This is a FDM printer:


On the right, you see the filament, the middle you have the print head (with the warning sign on it) that moves sideways and up&down. The ground plate can move forward and backward. The little orange box on the lift contains a raspberry pi running octopi to control the printer. But the printer can also be operated without one. On little orange box at the filament right is a camera, so that I can check the pritner from remote. Of course, all the orange stuff is printed with a printer. Hint: Once you have a 3d printer, one of the first things you print are parts for the printer

This is a SLA printer:


On the bottom, you have the tank with the liquid resin in it. Below it is a lcd 2k display with a uv light behind it. By making pixed transparent, the uv light can then harden the resin. On top, you se a green plate. This one moved down into the tank, 0.03mm above the bottom. Then the first layer is hardend and sticks at the plate. It htem moves uo, so that new resin can float belo and then moves exactly 0.03m higher than before. So the next layer is processed. Layer by layer it them moved the printed objects out of the tank.

When finished (like on the photo), you have to get the object off the plate, clean them with isopropanol and then harden them under a uv lamp (or sunlight). The tank has to be emptyed  - his is when it getts messy....

[PR19_Kit]

Woah!

This all very techie AND educational. 

I'm familiar with the FDM printer, my mate Pete has 2-3 of them in various sizes, but I've never heard of the SLA type. That stuff looks like it's GROWN out of the tank! 

[nönöbär]

Woah!

This all very techie AND educational. 

I'm familiar with the FDM printer, my mate Pete has 2-3 of them in various sizes, but I've never heard of the SLA type. That stuff looks like it's GROWN out of the tank! 

This is exactly what is happening - it grows out of the tank. With about 20mm/hour.

[NARSES2]

Woah!

This all very techie AND educational. 

Absolutely Kit, it's also amazing. The only one I've seen before was in the Science Museum a good few years ago and that was downstairs in the kids part.

On the subject of 3D printers and their abilities the I newspaper had this snippet this morning :-

"3D Printed boat sails to a record. The University of Maine has unveiled a giant 3D printer with which it set three world records : for the largest printer, for the largest solid 3D printed object and the largest 3D printed boat. The patrol boat 3Dirigo is 25 foot long, weighs 2.5 tons (2,267kg) and was printed in just 72 hours"

And yes I did check it wasn't April 1st and did have a quick look on-line for it  Amazing stuff