3D Printing results. Pic heavy.

[Mofo]

The parts are here, and I've had a preliminary play. A few thoughts...

They smell nice. The print process uses a wax to support the actual printed plastic, so it basically prints a big block of wax with your bits inside. The wax is mostly removed, but there's some residue, which has a nice, coconut smell.

It also means you'll need to soak the bits in warm, soapy water to fully clean them. Might have to invest in an ultrasonic cleaner. Not *terrible* to clean, but could be a problem for painting. We'll see.

The plastic isn't as brittle as I'd thought. It's kind of somewhere between resin and clear plastic - slightly flexible, but still feels brittle. Cut a few parts off with a JLC saw, and it felt much like clear plastic. Handle with care, but not with kid gloves - it should be workable.

There's more texture than I'd hoped. It'll need quite a bit of cleanup, which means production printing is out. Also: lots of rivet detail is probably a waste. (in fact, any significant detail is probably a waste) I'm thinking, clean masters, then scribe/drill any surface detail.

The baggage pods are about 1mm thick, IIRC, and they feel pretty robust. No real worries handling them at all. Thinner parts are a little more delicate feeling, but not bad.

I built in a clearance for the baggage pod halves, and they've got a satisfyingly snug press fit. I didn't factor in a gap for the doors, and they'll need some clean-up to work. So def. factor in clearance in future.

The parts are tough to photograph, as they're transluscent - clear white on a white background? Not fun to autofocus. I'll try to shoot some primer tomorrow for a better idea how they look.

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Pics! Full gallery here: s21.photobucket.com/albums/b251/IronChefMoFo/parts/3d/prints/

The 1/32 pod. Detail is pretty clear... it's just heavily layered. Couple heavy coats of primer and some sanding and it should be smooth, but it's definitely not usable OOB. The rivet holes are visible, but I don't think they go through. I'll have to drill them out, I guess.


Worth noting: the hinge detail on the print looks like scribed lines between each segment; the original model had gaps. Not a big deal, but an interesting change. Also, the holes only printed on the 1/32 pod; I can't see them on the 1/72 or 1/48 ones.

Better view inside the pod, showing the lines. They vary over the part's surface, in depth and pattern. Some areas are pretty light, others are coarser. Guess it had to do with the orientation on the print bed:


The BDUs have that pattern change in their middles. Again, weird. They're coarser than I'd hoped, fins are a little thick, but hopefully workable. And certainly easier to handle than tiny PE pieces, or something (nice thing about printing everything in situ - you don't have to glue and align parts!)


I added a box around the BDUs, to protect them during shipping (everything was well packaged, BTW). Here's part of one of the walls. Not a bad zimmerit texture, actually. I'll do some playing with the scrap plastic to see how it handles.


Generally? I'm pleased, not thrilled. The limitations are still clear. Not really sure if it's worth splashing out many times the price to try another printer; more research is in order.

[kyrre]

Hmm. So if you're going to do this you should take into account a certain amount of primer, and then some sanding. That's certainly doable. But a lot of work.
But hey, beggars can't be choosers. Have you started working on the Thunderjet airbrakes?

[Mofo]

Have you started gathering references for me yet?

[timmay]

I have found if you soak RPP parts in Scalecoat Wash Away Stripper for about thirty minutes it will remove about 99% of that oily shit that they insist on using at Shapeways. You will find it in the model RR paint section of most stores. Timmay!

[Mofo]

I'll have to give that a try. It's not so much that they "insist" on using wax, as it's a necessary part of the process - the wax supports the printed part as each layer is formed.

Finally shot some primer this morning (that 'horrendous week' comment elsewhere? part of that means that all painting is pretty much out for the foreseeable future). This gives a better feel for the actual appearance of the parts. (again, more pics at the link up top)

1/32 baggage pod. This looks pretty rough, but I suspect a large part of the problem is that the tubular body is actually formed as a polyhedron in the digital file. IOW, because all the shapes get broken down into small triangles, what should be a smooth arc actually becomes a series of flat surfaces.


It's not too hard to clean up, though. Did some light sanding on the 1/48 pod, and it looks much better. Needs another once-over, but it's on its way. I just sanded the raw part, sans primer, which made it tricky to judge smoothness (you can see the rough interior through the transluscent plastic). Priming should make it much, much easier to gauge progress - and help fill in some of the rough surface. The material sands pretty easily, BTW. Again, somewhere between clear plastic and resin; the only problem being, wax residue can gum up files/sandpaper.


1/48 SUU-21. Fine raised detail that will have to go when the part gets smoothed out. I think they're about .1 or .2mm thick. If the part was smooth, they'd look GREAT!


Xacto view for a sense of scale. The .1mm square recessed panel lines look pretty nice. Not sure how much will remain once the part is fully cleaned, but they're pretty good looking at the moment.


1/72 SUU-21. Again, the raised detail will be lost in cleaning. Interestingly, there seems to be almost a "trail" left by the raised details. Notice how there's a sort of streak running right to left, starting at each of the raised bits. Not really sure why... just kinda weird.


1/72 SUU-21 again. Pleased with the recessed detail... if only it was smooth. Oddly, the 1/72 part looks much nicer than the 1/48 here. (pics of both in the full album. also, again you can note the weird "trail" effect)


1/43 wheels (roughly the size of a nickel). Again, nice detail, rough surface. If they were smooth, they'd be awesome. Definitely look better than flat PE though.


1/43 brakes. Flat surfaces seem to be the biggest problem. Cones and domes aren't too bad. Flat spans? Going to need a lot of cleaning.


1/32 BDU. Interestingly, the aft half has a different texture to the front half (aft half was printed with supporting material, so it has a rougher texture). Yet again, if it were smooth, it'd be great. Clean up will be tricky here due to the delicateness of the parts. Fortunately, I've got plenty of spares.


Finally, a view of the fins... and another shot of the 1/48 pod's top. Rough, but fixable. The nice thing is being able to have the fins printed in-situ. It'd be a bastard trying to glue them on, and straight, from separate PE bits. For that matter, I *could* have the bombs printed, already attached to the bomb racks - no assembly required.


Sooooo.... summing up. I know I was pushing the limits with these files, and it gives me a good idea of the technology's capabilities. Surface roughness is the biggest problem here, and that's partly down to the specific printers used for these parts; other technologies are better. The detail is there... it just needs cleaner prints. I'm looking into a few other places that use different printers/technologies now, to see how things compare. The tradeoff is going to be quality vs. cost. Shapeways is cheap, and workable. Other vendors are expensive (some *really* expensive), but closer to production ready. Just have to find the balance.

[kyrre]

Been on the road, back in Norway, and haven't found the time to answer.
If I were you I'd be down right disappointed and not thinking "this is fixable". Some of these things are only fixable with a lot of sanding and a lot of primer - and then your fine details are gone.
Can't help but think that the way to go is to make the basic shapes in print, so you get the dimensions correct, then all detail must be added afterwards, before making a resin copy.

[craig]

How many microns is the resolution on the printer Mike? Now have access to do some CAD and rapid prototyping and be interesting to see if it is likely to be any better.

Interestingly, this printer can print soft rubber of the sort you could use for making moulds for casting, so depending on the quality might be an option - obviously not if it produces the same texture as yours.

[Mofo]

Done a whole lot more research in the meantime.

Kyrre, a couple of things about the quality. #1, yeah, it's disappointingly rough, but it did clean up alright(ish) with some light filling/sanding. You're right that it's better suited to doing basic shapes, then adding details, since you'd lose a lot of detail in the sanding process, but it's not a bad way to get rough shapes. #2, that's *this* printer (Shapeways' Frosted Ultra Detail). Other print technologies are different, and are smoother, but pricier. Basically, there are a bunch of different technologies for 3D printing, and even more specific manufacturers/printers (and bureaus running those different printers), so it's a matter of finding the right printer for the job, balancing price, resolution, delivery time and quality. Shapeways is cheap, but not super high quality; I can go to a different print bureau using the same printer but running higher resolution, but it'll cost. Or I can go with a different print technology that'd have smoother results... but it costs. I've also heard that Shapeways has struggled with their FUD prints - some are really great, others are really rough. Not sure if they're having problems with their machine, or just optimizing resolution vs. production speed.

#3, part of the problem, particularly in the baggage pods, is that I saved the CAD file at a relatively low resolution. The CAD file is done as a series of sketches and processes - cut, extrude, revolve and mirror these sketches - which are projected to view the surface. The file format used for printing converts the surface into a series of polygons that all have to be individually mapped. It's sort of like the difference between an illustrator file that plots individual lines and a jpeg that plots every pixel. So lower resolution means the model is broken into fewer, larger angles. For a tube, that means if you set the angle to 10`, you'll end up with a 36-sided shape - which leaves a subtle but visible facetting. Set the angle to 1` and you'll get a 360-sided shape, with facets so small they're basically invisible.

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All that being said, Craig...

Shapeways' FUD is done on a 3D Systems Projet printer. I think Shapeways is running at about 100 microns layer depth, though other Projet printers can go down to 16 microns. XY resolution also varies, from about 600 dpi to 1020x760.

I'm getting ready to send a couple of prints out, to be done on two different printers. One is an Envisiontec Perfactory; it'll do 15 microns in the Z axis, and 2800x2100 X/Y. But it's expensive - good for small or highly detailed stuff that can't be cleaned up (say, an ejection seat), not so good for big, easily sanded items (like a canopy master). The other is an Objet printer - which is what it sounds like you're looking at. Its prints aren't as smooth as the Envisiontec, but they are better than Shapeways' stuff. Resolution there can go down to 16 microns z, 600x600 x/y. And incidentally, it's the same kind of printer ModelFactory Hiro uses for their masters.

But ultimately, you've just kind of got to give it a go and see if you're happy. Do your research on who/what is good, then do a test print with something smaller to see if it lives up to expectations.

In the meantime, if you're looking for a volunteer to try out your source's printer, I'd be happy to give it a whirl.

[craig]

Thanks Mike. Drop me an email at craig.sargent at xtra . co . nz - be keen to send some stuff for a test print before I get around to actually getting the software up and running to check quality and costing.