A different 3D printed diesel

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LNR
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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by LNR » Sat Jul 25, 2020 7:54 am

Fabulous job Philip, very nice proportions and crisp lines, the open cab is a nice feature too. That grill looks just like a pressed steel grill right down to the round ends to the holes.
Grant.
PS just not sure about putting the driver into the blender, :shock: poor chap!!!

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by Peter Butler » Sat Jul 25, 2020 11:44 am

A beautiful neat and tidy job, well thought out and superbly finished. I love the appearance of it but sound in model locomotives (all locomotives!) I find most annoying..... possibly neighbours do too?
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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by ge_rik » Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:52 pm

A brilliant job, Philip. The larger size does make it look a lot more workmanlike. Your printer gives a far better finish than mine. I haven't tried, but I suspect it would struggle to print a figure successfully. Did you need to give supports for the arms?

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by philipy » Sat Jul 25, 2020 2:23 pm

Thanks chaps.

Peter, I couldn't give a monkeys about the neighbours tbh, not that there are any very near but we have to put up with the noise of their lousy motorbikes and boy racer cars, so the very occasional loco noise is nothing.

Rik, my figure printing isn't very good tbh. I actually took a picture of him but didn't want to show it! The body isn't too bad but heads always come out misshapen usually with holes either side the nose and lumps where the eyes should be. For this one I've roughly filled and filed the head and used because again it can't really be seen. Some of the problem is with Makehuman and getting the proportions of arms, fingers, etc, correct with no thin bits which break off and there is a tendancy for the layers to show along the length of a horizontal arm, for instance.
Yes they definitely need support everywhere, not just arms but faces too otherwise the chin and nose get lost. When straight off the printer bed it looks rather like a Dr Who alien!
Because you asked, I'll wash my dirty linen in public, though:

DSC_0002 driver.jpg
DSC_0002 driver.jpg (137.79 KiB) Viewed 5925 times
Philip

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by ge_rik » Sat Jul 25, 2020 2:35 pm

The pose is good. I think it's difficult to get fine detail on a 3d print, so hands and faces do seem to end up a bit Mr Blobbyish. Not that I've tried it yet, but the 3d figures I've bought do lack finesse

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by -steves- » Sat Jul 25, 2020 8:06 pm

philipy wrote: Sat Jul 25, 2020 2:23 pm Thanks chaps.

Peter, I couldn't give a monkeys about the neighbours tbh, not that there are any very near but we have to put up with the noise of their lousy motorbikes and boy racer cars, so the very occasional loco noise is nothing.

Rik, my figure printing isn't very good tbh. I actually took a picture of him but didn't want to show it! The body isn't too bad but heads always come out misshapen usually with holes either side the nose and lumps where the eyes should be. For this one I've roughly filled and filed the head and used because again it can't really be seen. Some of the problem is with Makehuman and getting the proportions of arms, fingers, etc, correct with no thin bits which break off and there is a tendancy for the layers to show along the length of a horizontal arm, for instance.
Yes they definitely need support everywhere, not just arms but faces too otherwise the chin and nose get lost. When straight off the printer bed it looks rather like a Dr Who alien!
Because you asked, I'll wash my dirty linen in public, though:


DSC_0002 driver.jpg
I think that loco is superb compared to the standard ones on thingiverse, which I am printing at the moment, so very well done for that.

As for figures, I also have a resin UV printer which I would love to have a try at printing a figure, but I can't find a decent railway ish type one online. If you, or anyone can send me the stl file for one, I would be more than happy to give it a go and even print you a few if they come out well?
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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by philipy » Sat Jul 25, 2020 9:31 pm

Hi Steve, thanks for the kind words.
I'll happily send you the stl for my driver if you can PM me an email address. Be interesting to see how different equipment handles it.
Philip

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by ge_rik » Sat Jul 25, 2020 10:19 pm

Sorry, Philip. I didn't mean to sound critical in my previous post. I think you've done a great job - as I said the pose is really good (which is the bit you were responsible for) - but it does seem that 3D printers just aren't that good at handling finer detail like faces. Mind you, I've had a go at modelling my own figures with Fimo and Green Stuff and I found that hands and faces are the most difficult - so maybe 3D printers are on a par with the rest of us.

My wargaming mate is appalled at the quality of figures which he sees on most model railways (including mine). When I look at some of his figures, I never cease to be amazed at the level of detail which wargames figurine modellers achieve with figures which are even smaller than ours.

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by Peter Butler » Sat Jul 25, 2020 10:59 pm

ge_rik wrote: Sat Jul 25, 2020 10:19 pm I never cease to be amazed at the level of detail which wargames figurine modellers achieve with figures which are even smaller than ours.

Rik
I think that, for War Gamers, their figures are the 'main event' so they spend more time and money on them than we would. For garden railways the figures are just part of the scenery, so get less attention. There are good manufacturers of 16mm figures which are printed from scans of real people, ensuring correct proportions and features, and are reasonably priced per person. It can get expensive when a coach party comes to town!
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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by philipy » Sun Jul 26, 2020 6:54 am

Rik,
I didn't read anything overtly critical in what you said, so don't worry about that. I totally agree with all that you said throughout that post.

I've actually been giving some Deep Thought to the subject since yesterday and I may know the answer from the 3D printing POV ( it's pretty close to 42 actually).
I suspect that the reason for the misshapen head is actually holes in the mesh.
This is what happens:

1) A screenshot of the driver from Makehuman, before exporting to Blender,
Driver MH Screenshot.jpg
Driver MH Screenshot.jpg (11.93 KiB) Viewed 5871 times

2) Screenshot of the same figure after posing in Blender:
Driver Blender screenshot.jpg
Driver Blender screenshot.jpg (85.34 KiB) Viewed 5871 times

3) Screenshot of the Blender stl export in Cura waiting to be sliced ( this is where it gets interesting but complicated):
Driver Cura screenshot.jpg
Driver Cura screenshot.jpg (36.29 KiB) Viewed 5871 times
Note:
Cura has automatically scaled it by 10,000% but the resulting figure is 143mm tall on the buildplate, as shown. That's easily sorted by telling Cura to scale to say 85 or 90mm high (or whatever is needed). However the point is that the original Blender export is huge and as I've found before with other things, a mesh with fairly gentle curves at a large scale can't be translated down very much before those curves become too small for the software to handle and you get holes in the mesh. That is most likely to happen round the face of a human figure, most notably on the eyes, nose, mouth, chin and ears, plus hands/fingers, which is exactly what I've found previously without understanding why.

4)Closeup Screenshot of the figure in Cura, after reducing to 90mm high:
Driver  Cura closeup screenshot.jpg
Driver Cura closeup screenshot.jpg (11.81 KiB) Viewed 5871 times
I now suspect that the blue shading on the Cura picture, above, is actually indicating that there are mesh holes in these areas. Then when it comes to slicing and printing, the software and printer simply do their best and gloss over the defects which is why strange holes, lumps and blobs appear.

There are mesh repair tools available, 'Meshmixer' is one, but I've downloaded and taken them out again more times that I can remember. Not because they don't work but because they are too complicated to learn and understand for the limited use I have for them.

So, I think I now understand what is happening but no idea how to deal with it. Even if I could use Meshmixer, I'm not sure that it or Cura or the printer could handle the extremely fine detail, so we might still end up with featureless shapes.
Philip

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by ge_rik » Sun Jul 26, 2020 7:39 am

Hi Philip
This review rates Meshmixer highly for auto fixing meshes. I've not used it yet for that purpose, but the explanation on here might be useful.

https://formlabs.com/uk/blog/best-stl-f ... are-tools/

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by philipy » Sun Jul 26, 2020 8:12 am

Thanks Rik.
Meshmixer always does get rated highly, but by experts in the field, not numptys like me!
I've had a quick look at that link, thanks, but need to study in more detail later. At first glance sounds easy but then they start on the jargon and my brain fades.....
Philip

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by ge_rik » Sun Jul 26, 2020 9:08 am

philipy wrote: Sun Jul 26, 2020 8:12 am ....... At first glance sounds easy but then they start on the jargon and my brain fades.....
I know that feeling .....

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by metalmuncher » Sun Jul 26, 2020 10:00 am

I have a a few tricks to try and make printing figures from makehuman easier.

First, you are totally correct about there being holes in the mesh as it comes from meshmixer and this can contribute to ruining the face quality of a print. The main problem I found is that the mouth is an open cavity, so the printer has to try and form the lips with a tiny amount of material, the area might be thinner than the nozzle diameter so you get messy extrusions in that area.

To get around this, I have two steps:
In edit mode in Blender, close off the mouth by moving some of the vertices of the lips so they intersect:
closelips.PNG
closelips.PNG (199.64 KiB) Viewed 5849 times
Now netfabb can remove the mouth cavity, before and after:
c_mouth.PNG
c_mouth.PNG (40.39 KiB) Viewed 5849 times
c_nomouth.PNG
c_nomouth.PNG (36.44 KiB) Viewed 5849 times
Netfabb is a mesh repair tool that is built into PrusaSlicer, but I think there is a standalone service you can use as well. You can see it also altered the shirt that would be too thin to print. Meshmixer can probably do the same job.

I also like to cut the figure in half for printing using the tools built into PrusaSlicer:
sliced.PNG
sliced.PNG (203.56 KiB) Viewed 5849 times
This has a couple of advantages, namely if if you end up having a failure or quality issue, you don't have to reprint the whole figure, only the bad half, and it minimises support required for the arms. You can also flip the legs so cut surface is flat to the bed, significantly reducing the required support material, but then you have to do a lot of filling and cleanup on the very visible top of the thighs. If you were printing a standing figure this would be much less of an issue, and I would print with the cut flat to the bed.

Phillip, I think the blue faces in your Cura screenshot are the software pointing out where you have steep overhangs, the printer will be extruding in thin air there which will almost always result in imperfections. Because I cut my figure at an angle, the top half is leaning back when printed, this reduces the overhangs on the face and makes it worse at the back of the head, but the back of the head is much easier to fill and clean up after printing than the face.

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by philipy » Sun Jul 26, 2020 12:00 pm

Thanks Richard.
I've been doing some playing this morning, using Meshmixer following the basic tutorial in Rik's link and it *says* it's fixed various holes, but I haven't been able to try it yet. I also managed to sort the scaling in MM at the same time, so thats a bonus!

Somewhere along the way I found a pointer to the Netfabb online repair tool. I've heard of it before but didn't realise there was standalone free version! Anyway, I've tried that as well and it says it has fixed things but again I haven't actually tried it.

Both repaired versions still show the blue area's and I was coming to much the same conclusion, that it simply shows the 'underside' areas ( Soles of his shoes are blue as well.)

It has been in my mind to try to print the heads separately, so that, as you say, there isn't so much to reprint if there are problems, plus the body wouldn't be in the way of any filling and filing.
Philip

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by philipy » Sun Jul 26, 2020 4:06 pm

Ok, so I've now done a 'fixed' mesh print, using the Netfabb online repair tool.

First the latest Dr Who monster, before his support was removed:
DSC_0001.JPG
DSC_0001.JPG (104.44 KiB) Viewed 5671 times
Next with the support roughly removed, from this side it looks virtually identical to my original, unfixed mesh, print, including the hole in his face:
DSC_0003.JPG
DSC_0003.JPG (91.98 KiB) Viewed 5671 times
Finally, from the other side, the 'fix' seems to have left the poor chap with a major break to his leg which he didn't have before - the cure seems to be worse than the disease.
DSC_0004.JPG
DSC_0004.JPG (120.41 KiB) Viewed 5671 times
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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by Trevor Thompson » Tue Nov 17, 2020 9:01 pm

Has anyone got any further with printing people yet?

I have had success with animals from thingyverse, horses dogs cats and the like.

However I have not been able to find anything suitable for figures or people. The processes you described here seem really difficult.

There must be a way!

Trevor

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by philipy » Wed Nov 18, 2020 6:59 am

Using a resin printer seems to give better results for small and complicated items including figures.
steves has some success this way and having seen some of his examples, I splashed out and bought myself an Anycubic Photon S a couple of months ago. Unfortunately I've had so much going on, one way and another, that I've done no more than get it out of the box and acquire the necessary ancilliary items. Haven't even switched it on yet! I think the learning curve may be a bit steep and I need enough time to sit and play with it without distractions, to begin with.
Philip

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by FWLR » Wed Nov 18, 2020 11:26 am

Has I am now getting into learning more about 3D printing I have started to read this thread on Phillip's different 3d printed diesel and wow what a superbly brilliant model. It's looks far better than the commercially bought from the bigger manufacturers. The sound is brilliant I think and well worth the effort and time in fitting.

The more I see how you use your skill with 3D printing Phillip, the more I want to try and get a printer of my own.

The figure by the way would be good enough for most garden railways, they are usually too far away close up aren't they.

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Re: A different 3D printed diesel

Post by ge_rik » Wed Nov 18, 2020 12:31 pm

Hi Rod
I notice that the aluminium framed version of the printer I bought has recently dropped in price to £89. The main problems I had with my £80 printer came from the cheap plywood frame which has taken me quite a while and a fair bit of expense in trying to improve. The aluminium frame should overcome many of those problems.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CTC-Ender-3- ... O&LH_BIN=1

Be aware though, that it comes in kit form. The online video guide suggested mine could be assembled in a couple of hours. It actually took me nearly three days 🙄

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