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This ‘ere 3D printer is a great lark
Posted by jimcox on November 7, 2021 at 5:00 amI seem to have a dataflow & process that works 🙂
Working on a model of an NZ mountain pass traversed by a state highway (Queenstown – Wanaka Mountain Route for those that know it)
Final output around A4 size and a shade over 20mm thick
Mesmerising to watch – but man is it SLOW (48hrs)
DeletedUser replied 1 year, 4 months ago 7 Members · 18 Replies- 18 Replies
I spoke too soon.
Got about 97% of the way through and the printer feed mechanism fell apart.
Plus one of the corners has lifted from the build plate.
I guess that’s what prototyping is all about – Those issues aside I am well pleased with the result
Maybe if I delete half the surface triangles I can get it to print faster
It is an “Ender 5 Plus”
I’ve been using Cura for slicing – it has a huge number of settings you can play with.
The main travel speed restriction is imposed by the plastic type. But I’m sure there is room for some travel path optimisation – which would help.
Enjoying thus thread. My 18-yo bought himself a 3D printer for fun.
@jimcox nothing cool here, really, geographically. But, over time I could see the boy wanting to convert one of our job site topos, maybe.
So far, he has done many figurines, a jigsaw puzzle type chess board and chess set. He and I played chess on it. We are equally terrible chess players.
I think his longest prints so far are maybe 3 hours. So he felt your pain with your 48-hour print that failed at ~97%.
His older brother at university uses 3D printers for research projects he is working on as well as for fun. Two years ago as a freshman he rebuilt an electric guitar with 3D printed parts.
I started 3D printing a while back. I find it a very pleasing creative outlet. You can see some of my work here – https://www.cartesiancreations.com.au
My recent show-off piece is this beast. A fossil giant wombat, now (or soon to be) assembled at the SA museum (or possible Naracoorte Caves, I’m not too sure).
Your wombat is AWESOME.
Presumably you had to print and join parts – the printer in the background seems rather small in comparison.
What was the original data set like – and how was it captured?
@jimcox Only one piece needed to be split into 3. I have a third printer that’s a fair bit larger (350x330x420) than the little Prusa. The original data was from CT scans and needed a fair bit of work to make print ready. There’s a few posts in my blog about it.
@jimcox, here is a link to the process I use to 3D print terrain files. The most relevant part for you may be the section discussing STL file reduction using the free Meshmixer software. There are probably many other STL filtering apps out there as well. As for printer plate adhesion, the best glue that I have found is this brand from Amazon.
Here is a picture of the 42″x60″ model that I cut for the state of Colorado. In all, there were 28 separate tiles, each averaging 8-15 hours to cut.
Nice. I reckon I’m going to have to try that for Tasmania.
@rudystricklan Impressive. What printer did you use and what was approximate cost of materials? Also, what file format and size did you start with and how large and format of the 28 tiles?
thanks,
@hpalmer, I used three rolls of Hatchbox black PLA filament, so materials cost was ~$75. My printer is a QIDI X-Plus, with a build volume of 270mm (X) by 200mm (Y) by 200mm (Z). The processed STL files were all around 62MB– I reduced them 50% using MeshMixer:
- Posted by: @rudystricklan
@jimcox, here is a link to the process I use to 3D print terrain files.
That really is impressive. The underlying geology is fascinating 🙂
I tried your link – it leads to a docx file – don’t suppose you have it in pdf format (please)?
Thanks
@rudystricklan
Thanks for that.
You’ve given me at least three sottware rabbit holes to wander down.
Am I right in thinking that you were making one tile for each rectangle of original terrain data? I was wondering how you got them to fit together so well.
Here’s Tasmania. 300x300mm
our colleagues print rotary stamps, I printed a phone stand for myself
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