Learning from the Noobverse for all the noobs having fun with the UM3

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Just a hopeful hint that the clumsy noob here can help others just learning like myself.

OK, this is a follow-up thread on the Enterprise as it was chock full of surprises. A bunch of pics with stages of development.

First, this is the Enterprise as I originally printed it with a working stand design (Third redesign). The Enterprise fails mostly because of the material I chose plus a detail or two were too small for decent printing. The material curled a bit on the leading edge of the Saucer and the Deflector Dish needed to be  expanded to print at this resolution: 0.1MM/100 Microns.

The Enterprise failed mostly due to the material choice (Matterhackers Nylon) as it is too flexible. You can see the nacelles starting to warp.

The Stand was the worse thing to correct as material change did not fix the issues. This is the first attempt while the Nylon was soaking to dissolve the PVA. Really bad and too spindly to be printed with success as I did so. Just...so...BAD!!

This one shows that the material change helped, but still too spindly to print well. And the print speed was too high to lay detail without swinging the thin parts around like an old car antennae in the wind.

This shows that a better design (not too spindly) and a speed correction made a lot of difference. Over all, for the second color, I slowed the print in Cura, but also caught it when it was doing the small cradle parts and adjusted in the machine to 65% of that speed so that it did not whip around the thin parts while printing. Acceptable print with minimal clean-up.

This design held the Enterprise snuggly while not being obtrusive to the overall aesthetic. The Ship print is still crappy.

And a size comparison with a USD Quarter.

During this, I worked on two sized ships. The small one I slightly beefed up the deflector dish and will reprint with a PLA next time. The small version is made to be printed on the bed in any orientation that can fit in 'flight position.' This is it in Cura at 100%.

This is the large ship tilted to fit in the full print area on the UM3+ and a ton of support materials. This one measures just a bit over 14" inches, stem to stern and the deflector dish is at scale.

These is the two ships and their stands in view in the 3D Package.

Actual Stand Designs:

The small stand printed well and am printing the large stand now. Both are printed at 0.1mm/100 microns. But the stand is about a 14 hour print and the small stand printed in about 3.5 hours.

I will print the small ship next at about 41 hours and then the large one at about 81 hours.

Small ship is 0.1mm/100 microns. and large ship is at 0.2mm/200 microns.

Hope this helps all the other noobs out there.

Edit:

As soon as I get a decent print out and 'proofed' for public consumption, I will post the models for the large and small versions with each stand design separated for two color prints if desired. Just want to get it right before the go up.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Guest

[Livein3D 6]

What an ambitious project! Our makerspace has the U2 which we upgraded to the 2+. After personally owning 2 unreliable home built, we decided to invest in the U3 because of how reliable and how much better the 2+ prints were. We received our U3 last week.

So far we haven't been able to get the rotating orb to print which was a surprise but it was because the black filament knotted almost 3 days into the print. Will have to reprint. Right now just printing some add on pieces for the U3 (tool holders, etc.)

I need to read up on how to design for the U3 as I am very excited about the prospects! I look forward to seeing your future posts as this one was very informative! Thank you....

[kmanstudios 1,120]

What an ambitious project! Our makerspace has the U2 which we upgraded to the 2+. After personally owning 2 unreliable home built, we decided to invest in the U3 because of how reliable and how much better the 2+ prints were. We received our U3 last week.

So far we haven't been able to get the rotating orb to print which was a surprise but it was because the black filament knotted almost 3 days into the print. Will have to reprint. Right now just printing some add on pieces for the U3 (tool holders, etc.)

I need to read up on how to design for the U3 as I am very excited about the prospects! I look forward to seeing your future posts as this one was very informative! Thank you....

Thank you. As i learn, and make many, many mistakes I want people to learn from my clumsy hands what NOT to do in a lot of cases and the things I discover. i am a very bad communicator on a social level, but I think, not so bad on the tech stuff.....maybe:P

This piece was not designed for 3D Printing. It was designed to show things in my classroom. That is why I searched for very, very accurate plans and worked to make this as accurate as possible. These are the images it was created for:

And an animation I made for the fun of it:

And, by the way, I've been KmanStudios for almost 20 years, but, our lax internet policies and people without creative thought are aping the name a lot. And, google has let them get away with it, even to the point that some idiot got his version of the name on it just by making the first 'K' uppercase.

So, with that in mind here is a follow-up. As things progress I will continue this thread until I am finished with the prints to, hopefully, share some interesting things I find.

I used conical supports. That requires turning on the 'Use Towers' in the support area and then in 'Experimental', you will find conical support. It has some nice advantages other than just saving some support material.

Here is the outline of a standard support:

Then, this is the base outline of the conical support:

This has the added ability to use "Touching Buildplate Only" to limit use of support in areas where not needed, but also allows it to 'lean into' voids where needed such as this area on the front deflector array:

And then lean into it some more as it advances to help support trouble areas:

This allowed me to play with angles and minimum support radius to get only what I needed to support the print without wasting huge amounts of PVA.

Here you can see the support cone in the finished print:

I call that the "Cone of Support" with apologiesto Maxwell Smart

Using this method, I have found that I can use a decent amount of support density so that the support interface will not pillow and create 'dimples' in the model. I have several prints that has happened to me on as I try to push boundaries between software and hardware.

And, speaking of pushing boundaries, it literally let me go to the back and front edges of the buildplate in the software and I told it to ignore the warning in the firmware. Here is the back edge. You can barely see, in my fuzzy pic, that the most outside line is right on that edge:

And on the front, it just hits the edge of the triangle warning (That I always ignore whilst burning me fingers on hot bits)

When the model is finished and ready to be posted (Just now dissolving the PVA) I will put it up on the 3D Prints, Youmagine and Thingiverse with the stand (both parts that can be united for single color or used as two color) and the modified model. The model is made for Cura as it does an incredible job of making a super clean shell out of intersecting parts. Mesh booleans just choke on this model. And, being designed for an image or animation, it did not matter. It is just repurposed for 3D Printing. The small scale model has had a few parts beefed up in width so that it is not needed to use 'horizontal expansion' as that would kill a lot of other small details such as the windows.

I am still trying to find a way to make a clean shell that does not lose detail, but, that is a ways off as I explore things. I just may have to re-topo the model and I just do not have time at this point to do that.

Hope this helps other noobs with this machine and the software. If they both can take the punishment that I give out, it is a machine and software combo that is worth it. Just gotta play a bit.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Instead of an edit, I am making note that the large Enterprise is on hold as I print out a polycarbonite sample for the VA prosthetics division.

First time printing PC and giving it a shot.

As a funny aside, the box and spool are mislabeled as transparent, but is black. LOL

PC is PC I guess and for experiments, does it really matter?

[kmanstudios 1,120]

OK, so now I have the small print done and ready to show. It will be up soon for everybody to get the model, g-code and project file. Just juggling a few things right now....

This is sitting in a pan I got to let the PVA slurry and bottom of the print separate from the glass.

Then, once it comes off, onto the bowl where all the PVA can soak. I really had to let this soak a while so it would let go of the pokey thingy on the deflector dish......

And here, I am harvesting all my PVA that I can. I even put all the towers in and get the bits between layers of materials. Squishes out like an accordion. But, taking the goo off helps the underlying areas of PVA get soaked. And, sometimes, it just pops off easily.

Nice and clean now and on the stand. You can see a thumbtack in the background. Draft Print even held the Pokey thing at the front of the Deflector dish as it is smaller than the 'needle' of the thumbtack! But, I did beef it up a bit in the modeling program so that you would not have to use horizontal expansion as that would kill other details.

The Deflector dish and Array up close.

From the front:

The underside where the Saucer, Engineering and Nacelles/Struts sat on the PVA. It even preserved the window and navigation lights

And a shot of the top of the saucer to see the windows. Depending on how the windows aligned with the angles and print rez, you can see the windows. They are all cut in everywhere on the ship.

Some areas are cleaner than others, but the ship is raw in these images to not 'pretty up the results'. All flaws are as the printer (and, I am sure, my settings) allowed.

But, wow! What a difference between it and the Crappyprise on my first attempt:

As soon as I can, I will get this up online. The project file will have it posed on the plate at 110% of model size. I just wanted to push the boundaries a bit. But at 100%, it fits really, really nice.

As I got my support settings better figured, I managed to save time on the printing. I managed to get the Large model from 81 hours in my first sett of posts down to 68 just by playing with towers and conical supports. That is the main reason for including the project files when I upload.

The large on should be done by the first of this week as I have to get some other prints out first. But I am fiddling with settings to maximize speed of print against quality of model. That is the biggest reason the first print failed so badly. Settings not optimized.

Edit: At print size here, the Enterprise is right at 8 inches long. That is 110% of the model that will be included. I did test the model at 100% in the slicer to make sure the pokey thingy in the Deflector dish did not disappear during print. But it is very, very delicate.

Edited April 18, 2017 by Guest

[kmanstudios 1,120]

OK, this thing (Small version) is up now on Youmagine

https://www.youmagine.com/designs/uss-enterprise-original-series

and 3D Prints here:

https://ultimaker.com/en/community/prints/33286-uss-enterprise-for-small-print

And Thingiverse:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2267889

Thingiverse has the high-rez model available. Youmagine just sat there spinning. It is a big file. So, you can get both files if you like.

The large rez version does require some power. The small version does have the same details, just a slight bit crunchier in corners.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Guest

[randyinla 14]

Nice! I also chose the Enterprise as my first U3e print! (great minds think alike) I specifically chose this model because it was one of the first prints I tried on my U2 a few years ago. Using PLA support back then was horrible!! Tried to print 2 or 3 times, but the support scarred up the surface beyond saving. Have been waiting patiently for dissolvable support ever since!

I started this latest print on Sat and it completed a few hours ago while I am stuck here at work, so I haven't seen the final product yet. I rotated it 45 degrees on the build plate and think I chose the Standard profile, tweaking a few params here and there. Used the included silver PLA and PVA that came with the U3e. Total print time was 1d 17h. Will post pics after dissolving the PVA

Here is the version I printed:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1306104

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Cool

And, I do not care where it comes from, I like the great minds thing

I am taking my large one and cutting it up into sections that can be 'tongue and groove' (I think that is correct...more like joining pins between parts) and the printed inexhaustibly large as well. When I  say big, I mean at 45° on the UM3, 1/4 of the saucer just fits LOL

It also means that it will not/should not need support. The only thing is that I have to finish up my cinnamon box to help quit smoking. blechhh......

I'll post some screen shots whenever I get a bit of sleep. Putting the 3D print portfolio together to try and get work. Ugggghhhhh......

I just checked a dimension....the saucer, when put together would be 17.3 inches/439.2mm measured port to starboard. That be left to right fer all ye landlubbers.....

Edited April 25, 2017 by Guest

[randyinla 14]

When I view the model I printed in X-ray view, there are a lot of red areas. Looks like a bunch of small windows and some text on the side of the Nacells and the top of the saucer. Like maybe the person who modeled it deleted them but didn't clean up afterwords? Would be awesome to have "U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701" sticking up out of the saucer by .1mm or .2mm.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I am thinking of doing that for the large model. For the small one, I avoided it because I figured it would be obtrusive.

and, yeah, some of the models from there are not so great. I have spent a lot of time fixing models to the point I would rather make them. Give this one a shot to see what you think

[randyinla 14]

The print took 1d 17hrs and the PVA dissolved overnight. There must be something wrong with the model (full of red issues in xray view) because the radar dish didn't print, nor did the rounded front covers to the nacells! The underbelly is rougher than I thought it was going to be, but a 1000 times better than when I printed it on my U2 a few years ago. I love seeing the small windows.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

The print took 1d 17hrs and the PVA dissolved overnight.  There must be something wrong with the model (full of red issues in xray view) because the radar dish didn't print, nor did the rounded front covers to the nacells!  The underbelly is rougher than I thought it was going to be, but a 1000 times better than when I printed it on my U2 a few years ago.  I love seeing the small windows.

What were your settings? I can upload a Gcode or project file if you like Also, in my cura (2.5) I have every control exposed and some strange tweaks...maybe.

Also, just finished putting on the markers for the large model (14"/355.6mm).

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I did do a download and checked to see if I messed something up. This is the downloaded file in X-Ray. Yours should match this image.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Wait...that is not my model you printed.....My model has 'By Kman' stamped in the bottom.

[randyinla 14]

I had already downloaded a few Star Trek models from thingiverse and started printing one prior to seeing your post. I linked to it in my first post above. So you've added the protruding text to the model? That's awesome. I had to shrink the model so it'd fit on the build plate. I wonder if I shrunk it so much that the round nacell covers and dish were too thin to print? I've had that happen in the past where a particular feature was thinner than .4mm and didn't print.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I had already downloaded a few Star Trek models from thingiverse and started printing one prior to seeing your post.  I linked to it in my first post above.  So you've added the protruding text to the model?  That's awesome.  I had to shrink the model so it'd fit on the build plate.  I wonder if I shrunk it so much that the round nacell covers and dish were too thin to print?  I've had that happen in the past where a particular feature was thinner than .4mm and didn't print.

That makes sense. At first, I thought that the model I uploaded had an error in it. Hence a bit of panic on my end LOL

But, yeah, a lot of those models are not designed for small print and, as you say, those little things will just go away. Happened to me the first time I printed my own model. That is why I had to beef up the deflector dish for small prints.

It is also why I am not going to put the raised letters and paint guidelines on the small one. It would be so big that it would look odd. That is why I did it on the large model and the one I am super-sizing.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I was thinking and would be curious if you looked at the model in the layers view when you slice your models. It would be a good way to see what would or may be lost. Things such as the deflector dish and the pokey thing may show as missing from being too small or thin.

What slicer are you using?

[kmanstudios 1,120]

OK, I just started the large print with the new paint guidelines put in. I made a few changes to the settings and the print time is up to 72 hours. Still better than 81

While that is going, I am supersizing the model. It will be cut up into sections for printing. Total length is 39.5 inches/1004mm. 8) This will have a set of slots and pegs to match up while allowing for flat printing. The paint guidelines have been modified to this size as to not be as intrusive as possible. At this size, 1/4 slice of the Saucer Section, turned about 45° Just fits the buildplate area. It can hold smaller pieces like the pegs for assembly, but really squeezes into the UM3 buildplate. I may have found something close to the size limit of this shape based on the UM3 printing area.

Once the large model is printed and proofed, I will upload it as well. I wanna make sure it works so that people have a good printing experience. When the Supersized one gets up is for debate since it will take forever to proof and will have to do other things as well. This is when I wish I had at least three printers.

One to do prints with lower temp materials

One to do higher temp materials

One to futz around on and test things while the other two are engaged with real work.

It is a goal, I would think

I have decided against putting up project files and gcodes unless requested. It occurred to me that it would be specific to the UM3 and Cura. For instance, if I open the files in Simplify 3D (yes I own that, but so far, prefer Cura...may change, but that is as it stands now) things are slid over and not aligning.

[randyinla 14]

I was thinking and would be curious if you looked at the model in the layers view when you slice your models. It would be a good way to see what would or may be lost. Things such as the deflector dish and the pokey thing may show as missing from being too small or thin.

What slicer are you using?

 

I use Cura 2.5. I seem to remember looking through layer view and not noticing things missing. Having said that, I just downloaded the model here at work and loaded it up in Cura layer view and damn! The dish and nacelle domes are clearly NOT all there. The domes come out like bird claws, grasping something.

It was able to print out the "needle" in the middle of the dish. I usually am good about double checking in x-ray & layer view. Will have to be more diligent in the future. I probably won't take the time/filament to print out another Enterprise. However, that is not to say a Klingon Bird of Prey is out of the question

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I probably won't take the time/filament to print out another Enterprise.  However, that is not to say a Klingon Bird of Prey is out of the question

 

Ahhh, but what version?

I took a look at the model link you posted and got a bit of a chuckle as they got into a discussion about the 'phaser cannon' on the bottom of the saucer. I'm pretty studious and never saw it before, but, it all depends on what version someone decides to do. Sometimes it can come out a composite of versions.

You looked at the sliced version at work? You work at a 3D printing company or somewhere with the tech?

I be jealous mon....

Seriously, I would love to be in that environment. Forums and working at home is ok, but a bit of a vacuum. But to be able to be around different tech and machines and just learn and share....sigh.....

Edited April 26, 2017 by Guest

[randyinla 14]

I watched the entire remastered TOS and don't recall seeing the canon under the saucer.

I am a Software Engineer.  Nothing to do with 3D anything.  Not a challenge to download/install Cura and then download a model from Thingiverse  I mentioned "at work" simply to designate "not close to my 3D printer". ...which is funny, because when I first got my U2, I kept it in my cubicle at work for a few months. Everyone loved stopping by to see what new thing I was printing up.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Guest

[fbrc8-erin 302]

Nice!  I also chose the Enterprise as my first U3e print!  (great minds think alike)  I specifically chose this model because it was one of the first prints I tried on my U2 a few years ago.  Using PLA support back then was horrible!!  Tried to print 2 or 3 times, but the support scarred up the surface beyond saving.  Have been waiting patiently for dissolvable support ever since!  

Here is the version I printed:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1306104

 

The Enterprise was my first UM3 print too! With the UM2 I was always amazed at what the printer could accomplish as far as overhangs and articulated parts, without supports (I hated removing PLA supports). When the dissolvable supports came out I went out of my way looking for something that would have been a pain without them. The first few models I looked at had already been broken up into multiple pieces for easier printing. I ended up printing this one: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:261491

[kmanstudios 1,120]

It is amazing how that basic design has ricocheted through 50+ years in one form or another and all those forms look so cool. and, as teeny weeny as that model is you made, wow, it held the detail nicely

Oddly, my first print was not supported when I got my UM3+. I am not sure why, but it did not print with the support material. First day in the noobverse...somehow it was not feeding properly. It was a Batman Bust I found on the net.

I was too chicken to go beyond that.

Just out of curiosity, how was the x-ray view on that model? Most I have found are really bad with red stuff all over the place as randyinla said about his model.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

As I am waiting on the large 14 inch model to print, here is the beginning of the supersized model. Parts are not complete as I just got the main parts cut properly. But I wanted to make sure things sat on the build plate. 'Just barely' would be the words I would use.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Guest

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I watched the entire remastered TOS and don't recall seeing the canon under the saucer.

The thing with the re-mastered versions is that they CGI'd the Enterprise, so it would remain consistent throughout the set. During the series, however, they had several versions and recycled stock shots from the first pilot onward. They even used the AMT model for the outside shots through the windows in "The Trouble with Tribbles". The original AMT version was not that accurate and the conning tower was a bit out of whack. Betcha by golly wow, though, that I spent me hard earned sheckles on one or two versions. I even have two of the Polar Lights 1/1000 and the full series of the 1/350 of all the Enterprises.

Still, never saw a phaser canon and the phaser beams came out from the saucer in two beams....not one cannon. They also added missing special effects in places where they missed it or could not afford it.

I am a Software Engineer.  Nothing to do with 3D anything.  Not a challenge to download/install Cura and then download a model from Thingiverse :)I mentioned "at work" simply to designate "not close to my 3D printer".   ...which is funny, because when I first got my U2, I kept it in my cubicle at work for a few months.  Everyone loved stopping by to see what new thing I was printing up.

Still cool though

Edited April 27, 2017 by Guest