3D Printer

[tifosi12]

What I like about Fusion is that everything you need (plus some) is in one package. Prior to that, it seemed like you needed to learn three or four pieces of software, or pay a fortune for a package that had far more features than required.

That sounds more like my approach: I'm using a set of 3D tools each for some few purposes. Thankfully the industry settled on the STL standard, so stuff is interchangeably.

[CC Clarke]

3D Modeling is something I've had a little experience with both as a student and later, instructor, so I'll throw out a little of what I've learned along the way. I was very fortunate to have an experienced instructor who taught modeling methodology and not just tool usage.

I've been creating 3D models professionally for fourteen years and can assure those of you who are into or are contemplating learning 3D modeling, the learning never ends. If someone tells you they're an expert, their either delusional or worse. There's a big difference between an artist and an artiste. I will always be a student, ready to learn new techniques. There are multiple methods to achieve the desired form, so there is no one right way to get the end result. though there are some methods that are faster than others, depending on one's skill level.

There are multiple styles of modeling for both hard surface and organic models. (Submarine models are often combinations of hard surface and organic.) Techniques use splines, (excellent for lofting hull lines) box, NURBS, point-to-point, and edge modeling just to name a few. The most accurate modeling method is with blueprints, but sometimes all you're going to have a photos. The most important thing to have when modeling a complex object is as much reference material as possible. A good model can easily take months of hard work to produce. Especially where organic shapes are concerned, it isn't enough to create the shape, but smooth poly flow that creates accurate geometry and lends itself well to 3D printing should be the goal. If a model containing a lot of compound curves has insufficient polys, the result will be unsightly faceting requiring a lot of manual effort to hide before painting.

Generally, modeling style is only taught in formal classes. It is almost impossible to learn style on one's own unless you're one of those very rare, gifted individuals. The majority of modelers are left to try for an accurate shape. For simple models and creating holes in bulkheads, this is fine; but if you want to model something like a Whiskey Long Bin from scratch, organic modeling techniques are the way to go.

It was interesting to note how many students dropped out of the modeling class I attended at Universal Studios. Out of the 31 that showed up full of enthusiasm on the first day, there were 15 left two weeks later and 12 after three months. I asked the Director if this was a normal attrition rate and he said it was fairly typical. Apparently most of the students didn't expect it would require so much work. And it work it was. For every hour in class, there was at least two hours of homework. Weekends were spent wrestling polys for Monday presentation deadlines.

Luckily, I wasn't there to learn special effects for working in film or TV - I had an engineering job and my company paid my way to add a new capability to our service portfolio. I three myself into it and learned as much as I could in the six months I spent there, living in a hotel.

Once the class was over, the real learning began. Spending 12-15 hours a day for the first year, I was able to double my speed about every three months. Speed and accuracy are the keys to becoming an efficient modeler. It takes a tremendous amount of perseverance and practice to get to the point where you have the confidence to tackle anything.

The tricks that work for me are:

1. Set realistic deadlines.
2. Build one section at a time and stick with it.
3. Save, save, save! There are few things more depressing when modeling that to suffer a crash and have to redo an hour's worth of work. I save my files every three to five minutes religiously.
4. Keep learning new ways to use old tools.
5. Take frequent breaks.
6. Use symmetry and mirroring to reduce the workload whenever possible.
7. Challenge yourself to trying new techniques.

During this holiday where I'm stuck inside, I'm working on a submarine at the moment and have multiple versions, borrowing parts from a master to save time as I modify each version. One is for a static display model and the others will be optimized for 3D printing.

For software. I use Lightwave3D. It was the first commercial software for "regular" folks, introduced 25 years ago on the Amiga. It has been used on numerous award-winning movies and TV shows since it is also an animation program. I have access to plenty of high-end CAD software like SolidWorks and ProE, but can create faster with just as much accuracy using Lightwave. Plus, I can texture, light and animate with a degree of realism that CAD programs can't touch.

I've attached a couple of wire renders from an artist who is much better than I when it comes to sub-D modeling (where the mesh is manipulated like a piece of clay to get smooth, rounded faces with a minimal number of polys.) Notice how the polys (all quads) flow in uniform directions, which blend and contribute to the overall organic shape. STLs use triangles (3-sided polys) which are nothing more than sub-divided quads (four-sided polys.) I model in quads and then turn the mesh into triangles before outputting as an STL for 3D printing.

If you have any modeling questions, chime in, and I'll offer suggestions if possible.

[Subculture]

Yes i understand, it is bewildering at first. For the first few weeks I just produced garbage, and I still make loads of mistakes. It's like learning any new skill, start simple. Begin with sketching, then learn how to constrain dimensions, then from a sketch extrude, revolve, sweep and loft into a solid. Then you can apply bevels, chamfers, holes, threads etc.

It gets more advanced once you start getting into complex geometry, where shapes twist and turn over two planes. Once comfortable with solids, start looking at surfaces, which give you more flexibility, then there are also the sculpting interface with T-splines, I'm currently wading my way through that at the moment.

What I like about Fusion is that everything you need (plus some) is in one package. Prior to that, it seemed like you needed to learn three or four pieces of software, or pay a fortune for a package that had far more features than required.

[tifosi12]

I think prices of the Chinese FDM printers are pretty much bottomed out, can't see how they could go significantly lower. I think the resin printers will soon be sub £100, almost there now for a lower resolution model, but not quite.

I think the big leap will be in easier to use CAD software, especially for drawing complex 3d geometry. I use Fusion 360 which is pretty fantastic, but it's still tricky to work with once you move beyond basic shapes.

Yeah I looked at Fusion, was a bit too complex for me. I'm using Tinkercad. Quite limited but easy to use and works for many simple tasks.

[Subculture]

I think prices of the Chinese FDM printers are pretty much bottomed out, can't see how they could go significantly lower. I think the resin printers will soon be sub £100, almost there now for a lower resolution model, but not quite.

I think the big leap will be in easier to use CAD software, especially for drawing complex 3d geometry. I use Fusion 360 which is pretty fantastic, but it's still tricky to work with once you move beyond basic shapes.

[tifosi12]

The advantage of tinkering is you learn a lot about your printer, the disadvantage is it takes up time you could have spent modelmaking. I'm sure in future years we'll look back in amusement at these machines, much in the same way people would be amused by daisy wheel or dot matrix paper printers. I think the future lies with powder sintering and resin polymerisation, the latter has already come down hugely in price, and I'm sure powder sintering will follow suit.

Fully agreed. Yes, I grew up with PCs, my first was a Sinclair ZX-81 (IIRC) and I remember my first dot matrix printer (Epson of course). We have come a long way since and I bet the 3D printers will go through the same evolution. Prices have already come way down, which is nice.

As for the self-help videos on Youtube: some of them drive me crazy with the fluff they cover and when you have a real issue you're more likely not to find an answer out there, so yes you have to learn your printer

[Subculture]

The hardware on mine was okay(ish).

Some of the allen bolts supplied seemed to defy any allen key in my collection, metric or imperial, being some strange standard of their own that fell between the two- lousy tooling stamping them out I assume. I replaced a few of the bolts in the critical areas, which cost pennies, but really isn't something you should have to do. Adding a bottle of threadlock to your order is also worthwhile, as these machines do produce enough vibration in use to shake themselves loose after a bit of use.

The other main issue was the z axis alignment. As standard there was no adjustment, and the factory position was far too stiff. This was a common complaint, and lots of mods out there, I made a new bracket from aluminium which allowed adjustment, and the motion was very supple after that.

The advantage of tinkering is you learn a lot about your printer, the disadvantage is it takes up time you could have spent modelmaking. I'm sure in future years we'll look back in amusement at these machines, much in the same way people would be amused by daisy wheel or dot matrix paper printers. I think the future lies with powder sintering and resin polymerisation, the latter has already come down hugely in price, and I'm sure powder sintering will follow suit.

[tifosi12]

I use Cura slicer software, which is free, and works very well for me with my much modified Creality Ender 2 machine. I think Creality have ironed a lot of bugs out of their machines since i got my Ender 2. I found the mechanical hardware reasonable (not perfect but serviceable), but the electronics had issues, and i ended up replacing he mainboard, PSU and cooling fans on my machine. The board on my machine seemed to lose its firmware, resulting in a blank display, i wasn't alone with this fault. The fans went very noisy, and oiling only temporarily relieved that, so i replaced them with old computer fans I had laying around. The PSU put a ticking noise on the workshop intercom system, which suggested poor noise suppression- I replaced it with a secondhand xbox PSU.

I expect that's thoroughly put you off, but there are plenty of people with totally stock Creality printers that haven't missed a beat, and I think they have reviewed their quality control since the days when i got mine.

I've only worked with PLA until now, but recently purchased a reel of ABS to try out some experiments with. Cura has a mode which prints a draft shield around the item being printed, and this is specifically for plastics with a higher melting point that suffer from warping on open frame type printers. No experience yet, but have feedback from others it works well, and have seen a video of it in operation, so I'm hopeful of a successful outcome- we'll see.

I have an Ender 3 Pro and I'm using their software Creality. I have Cura as well but prefer Creality, simply because I know it so well by now. Using it in expert mode though. The software is good, the printers as you say are a bit hit or miss: I had the same printer before until the feeding mechanism for the filament went bust. Probably not mechanically but electronically as in fried CPU or something. So I bought the same printer again and after just a couple of prints its mechanics for the horizontal axis gave up. So I used the good parts of both machines and built a Franken Ender 3 Pro which so far (knock on wood) has done a great job cranking out submarine parts for days on end. The good news is that an Ender 3 Pro is about $ 200 so if something breaks, buy another one. :)

If $ doesn't matter I'd go for the top printer from Dremel. The thing is a dream come true.

[tifosi12]

Lindberg made one BUT it had design issues to a sharp eye BUT if looked at from a distance, would be usable. Still see them on ebay from time to time.

Yes, and I got that one already. In my storage area for future conversion. Yes, it has some issues, but some can be fixed and some I'll just ignore. :) The thing is HUGE. Apparently 1/72 but nearly twice as long as my Revell type VII of the same scale. The Japanese built subs like they were battlehships. :)

AFAIK at the time they released that kit there was talk of another one and I have followed that "ghost" around on the internet. Not sure it was ever released, apparently Walmart had it in inventory, but maybe that was just an ad and never materialized after Lindberg saw all the issues they had with the first kit. Bummer.

[Subculture]

I use Cura slicer software, which is free, and works very well for me with my much modified Creality Ender 2 machine. I think Creality have ironed a lot of bugs out of their machines since i got my Ender 2. I found the mechanical hardware reasonable (not perfect but serviceable), but the electronics had issues, and i ended up replacing he mainboard, PSU and cooling fans on my machine. The board on my machine seemed to lose its firmware, resulting in a blank display, i wasn't alone with this fault. The fans went very noisy, and oiling only temporarily relieved that, so i replaced them with old computer fans I had laying around. The PSU put a ticking noise on the workshop intercom system, which suggested poor noise suppression- I replaced it with a secondhand xbox PSU.

I expect that's thoroughly put you off, but there are plenty of people with totally stock Creality printers that haven't missed a beat, and I think they have reviewed their quality control since the days when i got mine.

I've only worked with PLA until now, but recently purchased a reel of ABS to try out some experiments with. Cura has a mode which prints a draft shield around the item being printed, and this is specifically for plastics with a higher melting point that suffer from warping on open frame type printers. No experience yet, but have feedback from others it works well, and have seen a video of it in operation, so I'm hopeful of a successful outcome- we'll see.

[george]

Lindberg made one BUT it had design issues to a sharp eye BUT if looked at from a distance, would be usable. Still see them on ebay from time to time.

[tifosi12]

Thank You for the link for the I-401 files
George

My pleasure. In case you do something with them as improving, I wouldn't mind getting your update. Likewise I could keep you posted once I get around to do this.

Japanese WW2 boats are so rare, pitty.

[george]

Here is the link:
https://www.stlfinder.com/model/i-40...PRqQ2/1745357/

Actually a 401, not 400. Not that I would know the difference. The model apparently has some flaws in the details and the creator promised to come up with a new version. Quite frankly it looks good enough to me. That said it does need some work: He made the tail section with rudder and dive planes as one piece, so you need to take this apart with some CAD program. Also the interior is a bit rough, I would have added the support for the WDC in there. And he designed it for bajonett, which I'm not a fan of, especially not when done with plastic instead of metal parts (this is where I could start a tirade about a kit I bought from a manufacturer who is clearly out of his mind with that stupid design, but I won't name any names).

So at some point I will have to clean this up and start printing.

BTW: the 3D print files for the other two subs can be bought from the Drydocks

Thank You for the link for the I-401 files
George

[bwi 971]

Just buy a prusa......yeah you pay gold but it works every time you select print.
Built area does not matter.....slice your design you made, downloaded or bought in pieces and assemble them afterwards.

Be aware that printed pieces need to some (a lot imo) afterwork to make tem presentable.

I own a prusa MK3 and a anycubic proton.

Grtz,
Bart

[tifosi12]

My print area is 12 x 12 x 12", which can handle 99% of the work I do. Depending on the scale of what you want to print, YMMV. The larger the boat, the longer it takes to print.

Printer recommendations are going to be all over the place since there are so many to choose from. You get what you pay for, but it doesn't make sense to spend >$1000 if you are just getting started.

If you only want to print only PLA, (especially when first starting out) you don't need an enclosed printer, but if you want to print with ASA or ABS (increased heat tolerance if the boat is exposed to direct sun for very long) you'll need an enclosure and a heated print bed that can support those types of filaments.

Features like print resume after power interruption, and filament sensors that pause the print until new filament is loaded are very nice to have.

Unless you want to be totally dependent on other people to create the objects you print, the ability to create (or modify) 3D files is a valuable skill. It takes years to get good enough to start from scratch, but you get true freedom to create. Simple mods like extending a flange or building WTC supports do require as much proficiency and can be learned quickly.

A set of digital calipers will get a lot of use.

Agreed with most. My comment about an enclosed printer is more to the point that it could be hard for a newbie to assemble a non enclosed printer. E.g. the Ender 3 comes in bits and pieces. They go nicely together but it is not always straight forward. An enclosed printer normally comes fully assembled.

I would also recommend a self leveling printer. The ender requires manual intervention which is doable but gets tedious after a while and is not super precise, which will then cause warping of the object.

Finally take a close look at the feeding mechanism for the filament: The one in my Ender is a pain to deal with. Expensive designs like the Dremel make that a lot easier.

Then there is "remote sensing" where you can hook your printer up to the internet so you can monitor its progress from your iPhone. Might sound a bit over the top but once you start printing something big (like a sub made of a dozen pieces each requiring 16+ hours of print job) you would like to check in to the print job from time to time. Nothing is more annoying than checking in after a day and see a pile of filament spaghetti instead of a nicely printed object. Then again you might roll the dice and take that risk. It doesn't happen very often.