B9 Bonanza!

[Ray Dunakin]

Looks as good as injection-molded to me.

[eTraxx]

Here's a HO Water Cannon I created for a friend. The 'post' under the flange is 1/16" dia. The small 'bolts' on the square flange are 0.1mm dia and 0.1mm long .. all the flanges are also 0.1mm .. minimum for 'embossing' ... just to give a size reference. This was to meet the constraints for FUD at Shapways. I'm interested to see hwo well they print. It's a .stl file zipped.

(this is pushing FUD to it screams in pain .. "That's all she can take Captain!"


http://www.etraxx.com/stl/single.zip

[Bexley]

I'll give it a try when I get home tonight.

[Bexley]

Hm. It's going to be tricksy, because the overhangs are so small. I may have to cut it in half. Actually, I'll probably try it both ways, cut in half, and with tiny tiny supports under the overhangs.

[Bexley]

Didn't cut the pump, just added supports. I had to use some pretty fine ones to support some of the overhangs, so they may not be strong enough. Also printing another hammer and sprue of guns, for reference. I upped the pigment content again, closer to the upper limit of what I can put in. We'll see what happens. Got it running early enough that if I stay up a bit late, I should be able to clean and photograph everything tonight. If the coming rain storm doesn't knock my power out.

[finescalerr]

What is "rain"? That is something we in Southern California have never seen. Well, at least not for about five years. This year's annual total was only about 4 inches and I am very concerned about the future here.

As for your prints, I hope I speak for more than just a few people when I say this whole thing is fascinating and I very much appreciate your frequent and detailed posts.

Russ

[Bexley]

Well, the power didn't go out. At least, the electricity. I fell asleep on the couch. I checked it briefly this morning, and everything appears to have printed. But I won't be able to say how successful the print was until I get home tonight.

[Bexley]

I pulled the parts out and cleaned them. It looks like I had some small failures. I suspect that I need to back off the pigment amount a little. Making the resin more opaque decreases light bleed, which gives crisper details. However, it also reduces light penetration in general, making the layer cure slightly less. I think the initial layer didn't attach to the build surface well- it looks like it shifted a bit. Luckily, the subsequent layers adhered to that partial layer, so the print didn't entirely fail.

I put two of Ed's parts in the print. One fully printed, one partially printed. I think the partial was a victim of the initial layer shift. Interestingly, two of the supports I added higher up the model for stability didn't fail, so it only failed to print up until the point where the first of those supports joined the model. What was surprising was that it appears to have printed well from that point on. The successful one looks good, but it's so small, it's hard to tell how well it printed without some macro photography. I'm hoping those hex heads will actually e hexagons when blown up larger. Photos soon; the items are post curing right now.

The other parts are as crisp as I could want them for mold masters, so I'm pretty thrilled.

[Bexley]

Picture time!


First, the layer shift. The parts in the center and right are Ed's, the one in the center is the one that partially failed.





The guns, again. The one on the right is the newer one, the left is from the last print.





And hammers. older to newest from left to right.





Ed's part. Not the greatest photos. It's tough to tell in the image, but looking through a loupe, the hexagon heads are almost hexagons. Sort of halfway between hexagonal and round. It's also tough to see in these photos, but the tiniest little rivets are there too, but they're pretty soft.

[Bexley]

If/when I recalibrate to prinvat 30 micron xy, I'll toss Ed's model on there and see how it comes out.

[finescalerr]

Today's improvement is very evident. -- Russ

[eTraxx]

Just to show what B is working with here ..



The 0.3mm groove was put there so if someone wanted to use the water cannon without the little 1.6mm dia post they could snap it off at that point (or cutting guide?). Notice it printed quite well!  The hex head is only 0.346mm across the flats .. this is TINY!!

I thought it would make a good practice object since it is scraping along the edges of the constrainst / minmimums for printing in FUD at Shapeways.

For those interested .. trying to create something in HO that 'sorta kinda' resembles the full-size water cannon, here is what I used as a model

[Bexley]

This weekend, I'm going to try a long print- the fuselage for a little Orky airplane, which is about five inches long. The vat only holds a small amount of resin (well, probably over a liter would fit, but the fill line is low in the vat) so for longer prints, you need to be there to top it off. But if I have time, I'll likely try a 30xy print, and see how the water cannon does then. Also, to see if there's a noticeable improvement between 30 and 50.

[Bexley]

Just hit start on my first really long print- a little over eighteen hours. It'll be done around 1 pm tomorrow.

[Bexley]

Appears to have been printing without problems when I checked this morning. Though, I accidentally gave the machine a good whack when I was topping off the resin, so I expect there to be a line/shift in layers from the projector moving. We'll see.