3D printing help


BigGRacing

BigGRacing

Aka. Gary Russell
Hey everyone,
Are any of you utilizing 3D printing much by chance? I saw a thread someplace, a fueling tower if I recall that someone built with a 3D printer. More so interested in doing buildings, anyone familiar with anyone that does it at a reasonable price or someone that might have some templates ?
 
Have a look at shapeways which is one place that comes to mind, there will also be plenty of others, if you do not want to go down the 3D printing path yourself.

However for the price of a printer you might as well give it a go yourself, it is not that hard, the most time consuming thing is modelling up the building in CAD.
 
Gary , there are two basic types , filament and resin .
Filament printers : start around $200 -$300 , The more expensive the features and the more stable the platform .
limited resolution , basically they're a glorified hot glue gun on an XYZ table with a feed mech.
They do work but resolution I think was around .1mm
You can do fairly large objects .

Resin printers : start around $300 -$500 for the printer and I think around $200 -$300 for the washing machine
material cost was higher seem like around $50 + for the resin.
messy clean up
small size objects , N scale cars would barely fit
Excellent resolution probably around 10X better.
You'll probably drop close $1000 US before you turn out the first object.

I came to the conclusion that Filament was really the only cost effective way, but I'd have spend a lot of time on CAD software designing buildings . And you would still need to buy/obtain/make the plans ect . In my opinion it wasn't worth it. Unless your just interested in 3d printing , its hard to make pay for itself for personal use.

I didn't find but one or two databases with templates , and I decided that I already had an XYZ table that I purchased and hadn't really been able to use it. If anything I would put a laser on it and use it to cut wood and card stock with.

If your expecting to buy one , download the buildings and press a button and presto ...get what you need for your layout . I don't think your going to get there.

They're really more of an experimenters novelty , than cost effective solution to high kit prices.
 
I have both types of printers, FDM and resin. They are both fun to make stuff with, but there is a learning curve for sure. The learning curve is pretty steep if you don't have any CAD experience - designing the things you print is a bunch of work. Luckily for me, I used to do CAD for a living.

FDM is good for larger objects, but can be a bit coarse. You can do a bunch of things to improve the finish but they tend to be a lot of work.

Resin printing is great for smaller, fine detailed parts. The build envelope is usually a lot smaller than most FDM printers but there are larger resin printers out there now.

This is the sand tower I made on my resin printer. It's 12 parts and took a lot design and trial and error to make. I'm very happy with how it turned out though.
 
This is the sand tower I made on my resin printer.
This was a brilliant piece of work for sure and inspired me to consider this idea, but I think its a cost that I cannot move into right now. I think I will have to scratch build with poly etc. for now.
 
BigGRacing said:
This is the sand tower I made on my resin printer.
This was a brilliant piece of work for sure and inspired me to consider this idea, but I think its a cost that I cannot move into right now. I think I will have to scratch build with poly etc. for now.
Click to expand...
If I already had a resin printer , I would be looking to detail parts with it likebarrels crates ,motors, stuff that you can free lance .You might save a few bucks .
 
I've used my FDM 3d printer for locos in the recent past, but I just started doing buildings and other details and I'm hooked on these, too.
IMG_2060.JPG

Here are a few of the details I'm working on, so you can see what they look like, plus some closer shots. Like the two desks/chairs (I started doing furniture a few days ago):
IMG_2057.JPG

These are HO scale. (One's in oak; the other in pine.) Also you can see a close-up detail of a roof truss for a building that's going to be entirely 3d printed. (I like rivets, too, twforeman. And your tower is awesome!) Also a roof ventilator. And as twforeman stated, it helps if you know CAD. These were done on AutoCAD, which I actually like better than Fusion360. I'm old-school engineer; started out drafting by hand but worked my way up to CAD.
IMG_2058.JPG

Sofa, chair, coffee table, round table, also some rain gutter details (yes, it is hollow on the other side). It's 0.3 mm (0.012") thick, so if you're wondering how fine you can get, this is close to it. I'm not sure how much better you can get with resin printers. The final shot is of brick walls.
IMG_2059.JPG

I didn't even realize it until after I 'developed' the picture that the column was showing the backside! Sorry. But at least you can see the brick detail on the others, and I really did model each of those bricks individually! The main wall section took exactly two hours to print, and I'm using 14 in the building. (I suppose I could do one and make a casting, but the backside also has details on it, and that would necessitate a two-part mold, so it was a toss-up.) Also, on the corner, there is a detail that is missing from most model buildings: the cornerstone, complete with the date 1892. That's one of the great things about 3d printing: you can customize so easily. The final walls were printed in concrete color, so all I have to do is paint the bricks.

Okay, that's my two-cents worth. I love my printer(s) and can no longer live without it. It is the best thing that ever happened to my modeling skills. Now that I'm a senior and my eyesight (and arthritis) makes me physically challenged to do tiny things, it has opened up a whole world of possibilities that I never dreamed of.
 
Thank you. I got into 3d printing because I 'had to'. Our high school bought two 3d printers, and since I was the only one with a background in engineering, guess who got the task of figuring out what to do with them. So I bought one of my own (a Prusa kit) just to play around (!). I read your other post about the tower and was 'wow'! I thought about a resin printer, but at this point I don't want to deal with the mess, even though I could probably make some super things with it. And I will share my .stl files with anyone who wants them.
 
It's horses for courses, there will be times that scratch building will be the way to go and other times 3D printing, or a combination of both. It will take just as long to CAD something up as it will to scratch build. It just depends on how much detail you want to get into.

I have a Anycubic Photon, I wash the prints with methylated spirits in an ice cream container, made a curing station out of bread box. So you can do this cheaply and it's not as messy as they say once you have sus'd it out and have a routine.

Also, check this site out, pretty amazing what can be done, you will have to translate. Also check about the RMWEB forums for 3D printing plenty advice there.

3D Prints
 
I looked at getting either type of the printers and came to an amazingly obvious solution in my case.
For the amount of items I want or need the fastest cheapest and easiest it to just buy them from someone with a printer. (not to discourage anyone)
What sealed my decision was when I discovered “Miniprints”.
 
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