You really are having fun with this aren’t you Dave 
FDM PLA 3D printing - with a model making inclination
- Thread starter Dave Ward
- Start date
fun and exasperation! Bizarrely, the thing I thought I would have no trouble with is the CAD side of things - I'd been so used to using one particular system that changing to another is proving difficult - maybe the old grey cells are digging in their feet and refusing to learn yet another programme! Luckiily I've found loads of things from the 'net that I can print!You really are having fun with this aren’t you Dave
Dave
You’ll get there Dave. I wouldn’t know where to start……..
This just popped up on another forum:
Pete
Pete
I won't be long before you'll be making dinner with your printer Dave.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...print-it-the-3d-culinary-revolution-is-coming
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...print-it-the-3d-culinary-revolution-is-coming
Nah - the build plate isn't large enough!!! :hungry:
Dave
So far, in printing the USS St Louis, The printer has spent just under 50 hours in producing 4 out of 5 hull sections I'm going to start a new thread in the 'warships under construction' section before going any further.....................
Dave
Dave
Sounds good to me Dave.
Dave may be of interest , some settings to alter
Gary,
thanks - I'd seen this one, and tried some of the suggestions, whilst they do work there is always some form of trade off - if you're printing to a tight schedule, fair enough. but for myself, I can live with it - my machine produces better prints, at slower printing rates, and I don't have any deadlines!
Dave
One of the limitations of 3D printing is the build plate size, whether SLA or FDM. ( I'm talking about hobbyist machines, not commercial ). You have to either scale down a print, so it fits, or chop it up into sections. I found a model that really attracts me on Thingiverse by user PC_Model_Yard.
Jauréguiberry - French Battleship, commissioned 1897 - one of the really quirky French designs!
The model is scaled to 1/700, but that's too small for my taste, so I scaled it up to 1/350. Of course, that meant it wouldn't fit on the printer build plate. I had to cut it into 2 sections. It did take me quite a while to work out how the operation worked on the slicer software, but eventually I managed it. Printing time is predicted to be about 6 hours a section........................this will now go in the queue to be printed!
Dave
Jauréguiberry - French Battleship, commissioned 1897 - one of the really quirky French designs!
The model is scaled to 1/700, but that's too small for my taste, so I scaled it up to 1/350. Of course, that meant it wouldn't fit on the printer build plate. I had to cut it into 2 sections. It did take me quite a while to work out how the operation worked on the slicer software, but eventually I managed it. Printing time is predicted to be about 6 hours a section........................this will now go in the queue to be printed!
Dave
A quick and very efficient cutting system is built into windows in the 3D builder program, which is many 3d printing people's way to cut a model up, although some of the updated slicers now do a good job of it too.
It is also a very good fixer of broken 3d models.
I had real failure - on my first overnight print!. I stayed to watch the first layers go down, and they stuck down OK - next morning - the printer had finished & it looked OK - at first.......................
The mother of all warps! - I have no idea of the process that caused this - but that took about 8 hours to find that out - good job the filament doesn't cost much!
The problem seems to be on long, pointy, comparatively thin parts. I've read up on this, and the solution seems to be to print on a 'raft' - this is an extra wider layer that is printed, before the real print is laid down on top of it!! Obviously it takes longer to print & takes a few more metres of filament, but if it prevents the failures, I'll live with it.
I'm printing 1/350 models of French pre-dreadnoughts Jauréguiberry, and Bouvet. I've had to split each hull in half, so they can fit on the build plate. The failure of the aft part of the Bouvet meant I didn't have enough red filament to finish the Jauréguiberry, so the front part is now printing in white!
Dave
The mother of all warps! - I have no idea of the process that caused this - but that took about 8 hours to find that out - good job the filament doesn't cost much!
The problem seems to be on long, pointy, comparatively thin parts. I've read up on this, and the solution seems to be to print on a 'raft' - this is an extra wider layer that is printed, before the real print is laid down on top of it!! Obviously it takes longer to print & takes a few more metres of filament, but if it prevents the failures, I'll live with it.
I'm printing 1/350 models of French pre-dreadnoughts Jauréguiberry, and Bouvet. I've had to split each hull in half, so they can fit on the build plate. The failure of the aft part of the Bouvet meant I didn't have enough red filament to finish the Jauréguiberry, so the front part is now printing in white!
Dave
These are the complete 1/350 hulls of the Jauréguiberry ( front ) and the Bouvet. The original files are in 1/700, I did print them out at that scale, and they did not look good!
The resolution of the printer, as it is, isn't fine enough to cope with small details at 1/700. It is possible to change the print nozzles from 0.4mm to a smaller size ( like airbrush nozzles ), but that's something to try in the future, so upscaling is the best way for now.
In case anyone is wondering about how I'm choosing what to print, I'm looking for models that aren't available as injection moulded kits - there a fair few 3D files of Titanic, Bismarck etc. but I'm looking for those that are unlikely to be ever produced in polystyrene.
Dave
The resolution of the printer, as it is, isn't fine enough to cope with small details at 1/700. It is possible to change the print nozzles from 0.4mm to a smaller size ( like airbrush nozzles ), but that's something to try in the future, so upscaling is the best way for now.
In case anyone is wondering about how I'm choosing what to print, I'm looking for models that aren't available as injection moulded kits - there a fair few 3D files of Titanic, Bismarck etc. but I'm looking for those that are unlikely to be ever produced in polystyrene.
Dave
After a day of faultless printing............................... I fired the printer up - didn't touch any settings, the filament is the same, the same slicer software - the next print didn't stick - just made a small plastic brillo pad! - I thought maybe the bed hadn't heated up properly, removed the debris, cleaned the plate up & tried again. Same result. I then sat down and re-levelled the bed - not a lot of adjustment, just a tiny tweak in 2 corners. The result is that the printer is now happily printing! I know that some printers have a bad reputation for losing their levels & it seems that mine is one of these.
It's currently printing out a section ( of 4 ) for the hull of a 1/350 HMAS Canberra ( 1942 ) - which I found by chance - I was actually looking for the aircraft! This was one of those files that was at 1/700, and I've upscaled it to 1/350 & consequently had to cut it into sections to fit the build plate.
1/350 because you can get things like photo-etched railings in that scale..........
Dave
It's currently printing out a section ( of 4 ) for the hull of a 1/350 HMAS Canberra ( 1942 ) - which I found by chance - I was actually looking for the aircraft! This was one of those files that was at 1/700, and I've upscaled it to 1/350 & consequently had to cut it into sections to fit the build plate.
1/350 because you can get things like photo-etched railings in that scale..........
Dave
Great progress Dave.
Now you can cut the files up hopefully soon you can get to removing the finer details to print in different orientations to reduce the need for supports and and get even better results.
For instance on your USS Missouri I would have removed the decks and printed them flat, and printed the hull sections on end and empty of support. They would be much lighter and need much less reinforcement to hold them together
Trying to print parts in different orientations, to reduce the supports, or at least minimise the contacts is part of the learning curve - especially on the smaller bits - the larger parts, OK, because of their fewer number, I can live with that.
Is the usage of resin comparable to that of filament? That is for a given size of model, would the price be similar? In a commercial environment, I can understand the need to reduce printing times & material costs, but as a hobbyist just dabbling with PLA at the moment, it's not a major priority!
Dave
My reason for reducing support is build time rather than cost,and in the case of the the ship , total weight versus strength of bond.
Also it's preferable to have any support landing on the build plate rather than part of the model.
And if you get a failure of a detached detail it doesn't require a rebuild of the whole thing.
As for resin, in my mind it's more about reducing the witness of the support or the weight of a part rather than the cost.
A mixed bag - I attempted to use a filament called PET-G - it's stronger than PLA, but more difficult to use - it prints at a higher temperature than PLA - my first attempts didn't even stick to the build plate. I thought I'd got it, but when I took the part off the bed, it delaminated - the layers didn't stick together. - it's something to do with layer cooling - I'd turned the fans down to 50%, but it seems that they need turning down even more. Gave up on that for the day, don't have much PET-G filament left.
Looking for models, the problem is that the file descriptions aren't helpful - what may be obvious to the creator isn't obvious to anyone else. Type in ( looking for warships ) battleship, cruiser & destroyer & you get hundreds of hits - mostly from Star Wars, Star Trek & loads of interstellar wargaming genres.
I actually did find an interesting model - a 'R' - Class Submarine from 1918..................
The first hunter-killer subs, designed to be faster underwater than surfaced - streamlined - single propeller - too late in WWI to see much action. All 10 scrapped post war. The model is to 1/72 ( I think ), but they weren't very big only 50m, so the print should be 70cm long split up into several sections. I 'll have a look tomorrow & see what the files are like. The HMAS Canberra I was printing, the hull turned out fine, but there are so many detail parts missing that it would be more an exercise in scratch building, than printing!
Dave
Looking for models, the problem is that the file descriptions aren't helpful - what may be obvious to the creator isn't obvious to anyone else. Type in ( looking for warships ) battleship, cruiser & destroyer & you get hundreds of hits - mostly from Star Wars, Star Trek & loads of interstellar wargaming genres.
I actually did find an interesting model - a 'R' - Class Submarine from 1918..................
The first hunter-killer subs, designed to be faster underwater than surfaced - streamlined - single propeller - too late in WWI to see much action. All 10 scrapped post war. The model is to 1/72 ( I think ), but they weren't very big only 50m, so the print should be 70cm long split up into several sections. I 'll have a look tomorrow & see what the files are like. The HMAS Canberra I was printing, the hull turned out fine, but there are so many detail parts missing that it would be more an exercise in scratch building, than printing!
Dave
Had a problem this morning - the print wouldn't stick to the build plate on my big Anet printer - I thought it was a levelling problem, but no, whatever I did the filament wouldn't stick & created plastic brillo pads! Thought it may be the filament, so I opened a new shrink wrapped spool of PLA. Whilst I was loading this & purging the old filament, I noticed that when the filament came out of the nozzle, instead of dropping as a thin thread, it came out & curled round the side of the nozzle. I tried cleaning it, but eventually had to change the nozzle - a tricky procedure, as it has to be done with it hot - about 230C - bad enough getting the old one out, but putting in a new one! Despite being careful I still managed to get a few burnt fingers. I obviously damaged the original nozzle somehow, and it wasn't pushing filament out correctly. I'm mystified, as it was printing OK yesterday, and the only thing I'd done to the printer, other than turn it on was change the micro-sd card!
Dave
Dave
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