Looking to buy but have a couple of questions

[shaun 0]

Been interested in 3D printing for a long time and now i am in a position to get on. Ultimaker seems like my best choice for the resolution (would like to make resin kit like statues as well as gaming minis) and i dont care about the speed, (if it takes 5 hours to get the res i want let it take 5 hours) but in all my research some things come up again and again.

The key to geed resolution is a heated build bed, is this true and if so is there a heated bed default on the Ultimaker? The resolution of less than .1 mm seems perfect and i have see examples of people doing this but it seems that it takes a lot of practice, (which i am prepared to do) but some modification to hardware/firmware, is this true or is it a case of it can do less than .1 mm ress out of the box but better res takes some tweaking? Finally the layered stripping that i see in most figures i assume is the slight bulge that each layer has when layed down requireing either a sanding down of the bulge or a filling in of the valleys, But is that stripping a real effect or just an optical illusion, i mean if i painted the model does this stripe effect disappear?

There i think thats all of my questions, apperciate all answers and help and guideance on this pathway

[Daid 303]

A heated build platform does little for resolution. It helps in printing with ABS (but printing in PLA is better in most cases), and it helps against warping on large prints.

I've done a few shots at gaming minis at Warhammer scale (40-50mm in height), and the results where decent, but nowhere near official minis. Not a perfect photo, but this is possible:

http://daid.eu/~daid/IMG_20120125_211716.jpeg

The "layer lines" you see are almost invisible at 0.1mm layers, which everyone should be able to achieve, and people have printed at 0.02mm layers. But on the resolution, the nozzle tip has a 0.4mm hole, this means every corner/detail needs to be made with 0.4mm round lines. So you can get very detailed objects, but you cannot create very sharp objects on the X/Y plane.

Note: It's almost impossible to sand PLA, because the sanding causes the PLA to go soft before you get the wanted effect.

[shaun 0]

But on the resolution, the nozzle tip has a 0.4mm hole, this means every corner/detail needs to be made with 0.4mm round lines. So you can get very detailed objects, but you cannot create very sharp objects on the X/Y plane.

That would imply that improvements in resolution can be made just by going to a smaller nozzle, something to think about. That mini is not bad, i can imagine fine features are hard but maybe not impossible especially if combined with green stuff modeling. But i would say that the blurb in the ultimaker shop says that x/y res can be less than 125 microns, (.125 mm) but if the nozzle is .4 mm surely that means that the resolution cant be smaller than .4 mm without tweaking, what is the element that i am missing here, what step of the procedure am i not understanding when it comes to that .4/.125 mm resolution issue

[Daid 303]

The X/Y positioning is way more precise then 0.125mm.

Imagine a marker, your normal marker on paper, while it makes a large dot, you can still draw very precise lines with it. You just cannot make sharp outside corners with it.

A smaller nozzle would be interesting, but nobody is selling one of those right now.

[joergen 2]

A smaller nozzle would be interesting, but nobody is selling one of those right now.

http://www.makergear.com/products/nozzles

[Daid 303]

A smaller nozzle would be interesting, but nobody is selling one of those right now.

http://www.makergear.com/products/nozzles

Damn, last time I checked the 0.25mm nozzle was crossed out. Anyhow, for me that's a $10 nozzle with $30 shipping costs. I would be interested in trying smaller nozzles, but that price is a bit steep. (And I have so many other things to play with)