More on 3D Printing for a complete beginner

[philipy]

When you have perfected those put my name on your list of potential customers..... as you say, difficult to source and fiddly to make.

Will do, but don't hold your breath.

[philipy]

Spurred on by Peter's kind comment, I've had a go at the swan-neck and downpipe brackets. I think the ribbed collars at the ends look a bit too hefty?

The downpipe itself is a length of Plastruct 4.8mm OD tube or rod ( actually its a cheap Chinese lookalike!), I can't see any point in trying to make a basic item like that. So on that basis, I've adopted that as a standard when it comes to sizing components. I started at 5mm diam. for the gutter yesterday, so its pretty close anyway.

P7060004.JPG (354.17 KiB) Viewed 5523 times

[tom_tom_go]

Post away Phil, it is very interesting.

If my day job did not involve computers I would be buying a 3D printer right now

[ge_rik]

Get thee behind me! This thread is really tempting me - though I'd have to sell something to fund it.

Rik

[philipy]

though I'd have to sell something to fund it.

Rik

The wife?

[ge_rik]

though I'd have to sell something to fund it.

Rik

The wife?

Are you sure you don't have horns and a pointy tail?

Rik

[philipy]

Are you sure you don't have horns and a pointy tail?

Rik

Nah, but I HAVE got a 3d printer!

[markoteal]

Loving the pipes! Looking good - I also would happy to be a customer - until I can sort out myself a printer out

[philipy]

Ok, have had a weekend drawing and also experimenting with machine settings, most of which just proved the old adage...If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

I'm sorting out what I want for the station building, to go with all the platform bits and pieces. Have got the doors and windows drawn up, but did have some print problems, mainly down to errors in my 3D drawing abilities - more of that later.

Wondering what else I could sensibly 3D print, yesterday afternoon, I suddenly thought "Ah, chimney pots". Went searching t'web and came across a site full of them http://www.chimneypot.com/catalogAll.cfm
Although its a US company, many of the actual pots look generically familiar to my eye and many reference UK towns, so I assume that's where the designs originated.

So some drawing hours later to translate a photo into a reasonably representative drawing, followed by 30minutes or so on the printer, and I have this ( alongside the original picture - I bet you can't tell which is which! )

My plan is to print the production models ( I need 5) in brown filament, and I think I need a couple of tweaks to the drawing to improve the proportions slightly..

Chimney pot.png (165.73 KiB) Viewed 5421 times

[markoteal]

Again look good - certainly the top two thirds of that one look like the pots around my house

[Peter Butler]

Nice work again Philip.... please add chimney pots to my 'wish list'.

[tom_tom_go]

You could always sell it as a chess piece...

[philipy]

You could always sell it as a chess piece...

Funnily enough, that thought crossed my mind as well.

[philipy]

There has been a posting gap on this thread this week, but I haven't been idle. I've been doing a building to go with all of the printed platform components. The building itself is Foamboard, so nothing new to talk about there, but doors, windows etc are to be 3D printed.
I'll be honest and admit that the sash windows have given me problems that I wasn't expecting, mainly I suspect due to my inexperience and lack of knowledge. Anything that has an 'overhang' requires a removable printed support - you can't extrude a filament onto thin air. I have two sorts of support material, a snap-off one and water soluble one, but I found neither satisfactory. They were either too firmly attached to remove easily or somehow mixed with the print material to give a jumbled birds nest that was useless. I suspect I haven't got the various temperature settings correct, its bad enough doing it with one material, but for two at the same time,its a 'mare.

Anyway, having produced loads of completely useless complete sash windows, I decided to revert to Plan B and produce a small 3-part kit, consisting of a frame and two separate sashes. Since these can all be printed flat on the bed, there are no overhangs to worry about!

In the following pic, the two on the left show two windows as they come off the printer, the next one is one window separated from it's support rafts, followed by two windows cleaned up and partly assembled, and lastly, 4 completed windows ready to install in the building (apart from adding glazing material).

P7140012.JPG (290.51 KiB) Viewed 6140 times

What has become apparent to me is that this is where the machine comes into its own, producing 9 identical windows. Ignoring my drawing and learning curve time, they actually take about 1hr 40 minutes each to print, plus maybe 15mins each to clean up and assemble, so say 2 hours total, per window. However, for most of that time I can be doing other things whilst the printer buzzes away by itself, so effectively it takes less than half an hour of my time to make a complete sash window. Plus, now that I have the drawing, I can print more at any time in the future.

[Peter Butler]

Beautifully done and a great addition to your rapidly expanding range.

[markoteal]

Great stuff again Philip

And as well as expending his range, he's been giving me some help in my first efforts at 3D designing - thanks again

[tom_tom_go]

Guys, is this the printer you are using?

http://robox.cel-uk.com/

I might be able to get one through work for projects as we need to make boxes to house PCB's, etc - can it do stuff like that as the plastic boxes need to be durable?

Cheers,

Tom

[philipy]

Tom,
The answer to the basic question is "Yes". However, the max print volume is relatively small unless you go a for a big industrial size model at mega money. Mine f'rinstance is 230 x 145x150mm, maximum.

As for robustness, that depends on material and to some extent your design i.e designing in reinforcement, speccifying wall thickness, etc, but ABS prints well and is one of the most recommended materials, along with PLA. All the items I've illustrated so far have been in PLA but I am experimenting with ABS at the mo. So far so good and I hope to post a piccy later today or tomorrow. You can also get PetG and Nylon, although nylon prints at higher temp and needs a different print nozzle, I understand.

Really it's drawing skill that is the limitation, initially at least, but for fairly simple boxes that should be a doddle.

[tom_tom_go]

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the response.

The printing area is quite small, we would need something larger.

[tom_tom_go]

Something like this?

http://www.aniwaa.com/product/3d-printe ... p-x350pro/