3D Printing

[marc_reusser]

Didn't know where to really put this...

Very interesting behind the scenes look at how they did the stop animation ad for "Chipotle", and used 3D printing for the models/figures.

http://youtu.be/AFlbGwAW7rw

[Bill76]

Nice film and very instructive to learn about how the film is made. Minimalist modeling ...

[mabloodhound]

Got my 'Ratcher & Pawl' assembly for my hopper kits from Shapeways. After ruining the first set with some mold release, I enlarged the bolt heads and ratchet teeth. I also ganged enough together to get 20 kits done (2 left/2 right per kit).

I know Ed and others were asking about some minimums. My bolt heads are 7/8" in full size, reduced to 1:48 here. The connecting pieces between each assembly measures .0185 (3/4") thick by .042 wide. The base plate is .022, meant to simulate 1" thickness in full size.
The connectors worked fine and the plates separate easily and trim up fine. For reference, the plates are 14" by 18" in full size.

I cleaned the parts using Bestine. Because of my last failure, I made a special trip to Michaels to buy this. Make sure you take your 40% off coupon or else it's $16!
I washed in Dawn afterwards with a fine wide artist's brush.
They cleaned up well and turned a solid white color afterwards. I broke off and trimmed a left and right side strip, painted with WalMart primer and now they're ready to go on the car.

I'm happy and can't wait to try the next 3D parts.

[finescalerr]

Success. Nice work. -- Russ

[mabloodhound]

Thanks, Russ.   I'm still learning SketchUp so it takes some trial and error to get that part done.   
Thanks to Ed (Traxx) though, he has a great tutorial on the 3D part and that goes pretty fast.
And I haven't had anything rejected by Shapeways yet.

 

[David Emery]

"Bestine" is nasty stuff (known carcinogen and low flash point) so use carefully.  When someone does these in HO, let me know!

dave

[eTraxx]

"Bestine" is nasty stuff (known carcinogen and low flash point) so use carefully.  When someone does these in HO, let me know!

dave

Ok. Let ..

[Lawton Maner]

You drank this;

http://papercement.com/msds_bestine.pdf

[Ray Dunakin]

We used to use Bestine all the time back in the pre-computer days of graphic design and production. I also used it for years when I was doing airbrush illustration, to thin rubber cement for homemade friskets.

[marc_reusser]

Yep...aerated Bestine was awesome....but even better was aerated Xylene, in a closed room. We ued to airbrush and "paint" with both, when we did full sized car renderings, and sketches.

The parts look great BTW. Congrats on your success.

[W.P. Rayner]

Yeah, Bestine was a trip... used to use it for cleanup in the old paste up days. It's a wonder there were any straight lines in the paper! It is nasty stuff, so use with all due caution. Can't believe the price (though, like everything else, prices have gone up in the past thirty-five years!) ... you may want to check some art supply firms, see if you can get a better price.

Paul

[marklayton]

Scott Adams has some ideas for 3D printing projects in today's Dilbert strip...



Mark

[finescalerr]

Mark, go stand in the corner. And not a model; the real you! -- ssuR

[mabloodhound]

So now a note for those folks designing something in SketchUp to have printed at Shapeways.   The final product is great but getting there can be totally frustrating.

I needed some truss plates (used instead of queenposts) for my Hopper car kits.   I had some molded styrene ones on hand (this is 1:48 scale btw) and I measured these to get my dimensions for the SketchUp drawing.
Now Shapeways likes metric dimensions and the repair software (NetFabb) also uses millimeters so smart me did all my dimensions and drawing in SketchUp in metrics.   I completed the grouping of (720) truss plates (I need 12 per car).
I then followed the standard procedure to export from SU as a .dae file and import to MeshLab to create and .stl file.   Then open with NetFabb to repair any holes, edges, etc before shipping it off to be printed.
This is when I noticed that the overall size of the group was considerably smaller than the original drawing.   And it wasn't in multiples of 10 as it should be if it was reading centimeters or millimeters.
After almost a day of fiddling I sent a copy of the files off to Ed Traxler (eTraxx) to see if he could figure out what I was doing wrong.   At first he too was puzzled but soon discovered the problem.   When you create a drawing in SU and then export it, SketchUp ALWAYS converts it to INCHES!
WTF!   So what was happening, my drawing I made in millimeters was being converted when I created the .dae file.
So Ed went through the conversion steps in SketchUp to make my drawing in inches and then was able to export it and get it repaired in NetFabb at the correct size.
Why SketchUp even allows a drawing to be made in metrics is beyond me if it's going to convert it to inches anyways.   The key here is to always check your overall size in NetFabb to make sure it is teh same as your original drawing.   Otherwise you'll end up with a mis-scaled part from Shapeways.
Thanks to Ed for his help and tutorials.
 

[finescalerr]

That must have been both perplexing and mildly frustrating. I would have thrown myself over a cliff .... -- Russ