The peculiar world of 3D printing. Printers and CAD in a world of Craft Knifes and Pencils.

[Stabliofarmer]

I might as well start the topic I've spoken about in the purchases topic. If admin want to do the fancy thing where they move posts to different threads then I think what was discussed in the purchases topic would make a nice start to this one. 

Anyhow, in the mean time... 

Printer 

Printing

Printed wheels

Edited October 5, 2021 by Stabliofarmer

[Janval]

1 hour ago, catkom3 said:

Yes Jan, I've looked at others before, But I have never seen the RS Designspark before so posted that link as an alternative to the more familiar CAD software, I have just watched a short RS video, And even although it was Spanish it did look fairly simple, PS, Nice Facebook page.

Regards

Joe.

Well if it looked simple in Spanish, then I'm sure it must be! Thank you.

Out of curiosity, does anyone use Autocad for this? I used it in school but that's becoming 15 years ago now.

[catkom3]

I would never have believed back in 2014 that haveing cut down the tracks on my Pistenbuuly Snow groomer to make it a Greentec silage machine that seven years later I would be able to, in the comfort of my own house useing an inexpensive 3D printer produce correctly sized / scaled new flexible tracks to put back on it,??

Regards

Joe.

[catkom3]

I've just had a play around with that RS designsparks software, And first time out got really lucky second and third tries were rubbish, But I drew this up just following the instructions " Create your first solid" as I was making this I thought that looks very close to being a big bale, So exported it and printed it, This RS software might be useful to you Sean as there is a seperate Electrical section, I think James might also like some section of this, I've included a link to a video not made by RS but by a guy who regularly uses CAD and he was impressed by it capabilities, Watching him makes it obvious he knows his way around CAD,

Regards

Joe, PS the wee guy is for scale purposes.

 

[Stabliofarmer]

Love the pisten bully tracks Joe, impressive stuff. 

CAD wise most formats are incredibly similar. I used SolidWorks at uni and in my current job, used Cero on my placement and they share alot of similarities. I'm currently using fusion but it feels very cartoonish in comparison with SW, which it is meant to as a 'creatives' platform. The RS looks very close to Free CAD which is what I plan to try next a sit looks like an old version of SW. 

I will pick up on cad in a future post. 

[catkom3]

Cheers James, tracks were freebies on Thingiverse, when it comes to things like CAD my short term memory is useless, But I'll just keep plodding away, It also seems to work better when you pay attention and actually read what comes up on screen when you hover over an item, 

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2614829

Regards

Joe.

[Stabliofarmer]

Starting to push the printer alittle more now, and getting my head around Fusion 360 which really does feel like learning a second language! 

I'm redeveloping the Hakki Pilke firewood processor I've scratch built in the past to a castable model kit. I'm taking plenty of photos and screenshots along the way to do a full write up but for now this is where we are. 

[Stabliofarmer]

1 hour ago, catkom3 said:

Interesting you should mention take lots of pictures James, As I have recently discovered this scanning tutorial useing just your phone / camera and a PC, How you would obtain loads of images of the bottom of your object beats me though, But it does look better than any affordable 3D scanner I have seen so far,??

Regards

Joe.

 

 

There was an interesting feature on 3D scanning on the new Hornby Model Railway programme on Yesterday. Looking at that though there's still alot of manual cad and other post processing after the scan. 

[ginjaninja95]

There becoming more popular, I have an anet A6 which was cheap as. Attached some throughs I printed. I find time to draw is my biggest issue 

[b_emmons]

I use a slightly modified Endor 3 but still never seem to have the time to do some CAD work

 

[catkom3]

Anyone still wondering if they should get a 3D printer, I have just discovered Creality who produce the printer I have, have just updated my machine and now call it the Ender 2 Pro, Dead simple to assemble and now even easier to use and all for £150.

Regards

Joe.

 

[Tractorman810]

What i am surprised by is the lack of people doing figures and livestock with these printers, most people seem to do much the same with implements and stuff, gates and buckets, sure they would do very well selling a range of 1/32 figures in various poses for agri/construction layouts same with animals, 

[catkom3]

There is definitely a shortage of animals Sean and I expect the problem may well be to create a 3D (stl) file you would need an animal to hand so you could measure it accurately, James will know more than me as he has already done sheep etc, I did find a really good stl file of a Horse which I will try sometime tomorrow as I'm in the middle of a really big print right now which still has 20 hours to run,???

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2785163

Regards

Joe. 

PS If anyone has one of these brown Britains horses, Could you please do me a little favour and measure how high it is from the ground to the top of it's ears please.

Edited November 9, 2021 by catkom3

[Tractorman810]

same with people, you can find a few printed ones , in 1/32, but they are usually spectators for scalectrix , or drivers/ pit crew.and even then they are pretty poor quality/ detail wise .theres so many options driver wise and working stances wise ,you could do well.look at how quick the at collection ones went,and they were very limited, i would have no issues painting myself as long as the quality was good 

[catkom3]

There is a shortage of normal printable figures as well, Plenty weird ones for Wargamers, and something I found strange there is a huge selection of 1/32 naked ladies, ???, Once this print finishes somewhere around 12:30pm tomorrow I'll print off a couple of figures one 6 foot 2, and another at 5 foot 8 as you can scale any print to any size you need,

Regards

Joe.

[Stabliofarmer]

The main issue with 'organic' items, humans animals etc is the making of them. While your standard CAD programs are great for making machinery that you can print, because, well, that machinery was designed on CAD in the first place, they're no good at making organic curves. For that you want a CAD program like Zbrush which is basically a virtual ball of wax that you manipulate and sculpt, just like in real life. Its notoriously hard to use and doesn't have a free/beginner alternative so requires high investment just to learn.

There must be some different methods though as companies like Wasp Slot make huge numbers of 3D printed slotcar figurines. Unless they are laser scanning people to make the CAD I assume they are using something like Zbrush. It's not something I've looked overly far into though.

https://sites.google.com/view/waspslot/figures

[catkom3]

Thanks for that James very interesting but a million miles from anything I'd care to try, Hesston bales done in RS Designsparks about my limit.

Regards

Joe.

[catkom3]

On 11/9/2021 at 5:37 PM, Tractorman810 said:

same with people, you can find a few printed ones , in 1/32, but they are usually spectators for scalectrix , or drivers/ pit crew.and even then they are pretty poor quality/ detail wise .theres so many options driver wise and working stances wise ,you could do well.look at how quick the at collection ones went,and they were very limited, i would have no issues painting myself as long as the quality was good 

I've had a look around 3D hosting site and as James explained not a lot of animals out there, There are a few figures, So I've printed off a few and a fairly decent horse and some nice 12 foot gates, The tall chap is 6 foot and his " son " is 4 foot, The horse is actually printed in three parts that is why there are line across the body and up the neck.

Regards

Joe.

[catkom3]

I've just remembered I meant to print this kitten figure to include in the above images to show that FDM printers can do small objects 

Regards

Joe.

[844john]

Thanks to everyone for their input on this, it has been a very informative topic. I must give special thanks to Joe for bothering on and taking the time to explain further, you’ll be pleased to hear Joe that we’ve taken your advice and bought on for our daughter’s Christmas present....well there was no point me getting one, I struggle to work the remote control for the TV!🤣

[catkom3]

I would reckon within half an hour of getting it set up you will be all over it, and thanks for the thanks, And remember six years ago I knew absolutely nothing about anything related to 3D printing.

Regards

Joe Oh PS did you get glue sticks,??

 

[844john]

10 minutes ago, catkom3 said:

I would reckon within half an hour of getting it set up you will be all over it, and thanks for the thanks, And remember six years ago I knew absolutely nothing about anything related to 3D printing.

Regards

Joe Oh PS did you get glue sticks,??

 

She’s really keen Joe, so I’m sure she’ll pick it up in no time, I just need to keep in her good books now!😉Yes, we ordered the ones that you recommended thank you👍

[Stabliofarmer]

5 hours ago, 844john said:

Thanks to everyone for their input on this, it has been a very informative topic. I must give special thanks to Joe for bothering on and taking the time to explain further, you’ll be pleased to hear Joe that we’ve taken your advice and bought on for our daughter’s Christmas present....well there was no point me getting one, I struggle to work the remote control for the TV!🤣

The Craft Knifes retirement looms ever closer 😉

[844john]

7 hours ago, Stabliofarmer said:

The Craft Knifes retirement looms ever closer 😉

Definitely................. not James!😉 She’s been showing me some videos on you tube, and it’s all way over my head. No doubt there may be the odd thing that she could help me with, but I’ll stick to being an old anachronism listening to Radio 2 in my shed with my knife in hand!😆

[Stabliofarmer]

6 hours ago, 844john said:

Definitely................. not James!😉 She’s been showing me some videos on you tube, and it’s all way over my head. No doubt there may be the odd thing that she could help me with, but I’ll stick to being an old anachronism listening to Radio 2 in my shed with my knife in hand!😆

Radio 2! this is where you're going all wrong John, imagine the speed you could be building models if you had Friday night Radio 1 on, or Rene LaVice's Drum and Bass show on a Monday, really would be rivalling Bathgate's production speeds then 😁

[catkom3]

On 11/16/2021 at 10:17 PM, Stabliofarmer said:

The Craft Knifes retirement looms ever closer 😉

That may very well be true James, I've been playing around with RS Designspark again and built in CAD the Zunhammer slurry tank I scratch built a while back, Built it useing CAD plus methods you can use in your slicer to reposition and merge two seperate items,That's how I got the pipes on top and on the sides, I used low settings for speed and just to see how it came out, It came out fine for me, but there's an awful lot more I need to learn, Like how to cut out the angled parts front and rear, Now the Craft Knife retirement bit, Yesterday I discovered you can create 3D printable part from a one dimensional PHOTOGRAPH, ???, I produced this front cab frame for a Flexi Cab again in low resolution just as a proof of concept print,

https://farmtoysforum.com/topic/24457-whats-your-latest-farmconstruction-buy-2017/page/40/#comment-614582

Regards

Joe.