This 'ere 3D printer is a great lark

I spoke too soon.

Got about 97% of the way through and the printer feed mechanism fell apart.

Plus one of the corners has lifted from the build plate.

I guess that's what prototyping is all about - Those issues aside I am well pleased with the result

Maybe if I delete half the surface triangles I can get it to print faster

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@jimcox?ÿ

what kind of printer?

Getting a good (but not too good) a bond on the build surface is sometimes difficult. Have you tried playing with the slicer to increase speed??ÿ

@dmyhill?ÿ

It is an "Ender 5 Plus"

I've been using Cura for slicing - it has a huge number of settings you can play with.

The main travel speed restriction is imposed by the plastic type. But I'm sure there is room for some travel path optimisation - which would help.

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Enjoying thus thread. ?ÿMy 18-yo bought himself a 3D printer for fun.

@brad-ott?ÿ

Hey Brad,

maybe we can make one of your place:)

what 3D data do you know of somewhere cool near you?

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@jimcox nothing cool here, really, geographically. ?ÿBut, over time I could see the boy wanting to convert one of our job site topos, maybe.

So far, he has done many figurines, a jigsaw puzzle type chess board and chess set. ?ÿHe and I played chess on it. ?ÿWe are equally terrible chess players.

I think his longest prints so far are maybe 3 hours. ?ÿSo he felt your pain with your 48-hour print that failed at ~97%.

His older brother at university uses 3D printers for research projects he is working on as well as for fun. ?ÿTwo years ago as a freshman he rebuilt an electric guitar with 3D printed parts.

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I started 3D printing a while back. I find it a very pleasing creative outlet. You can see some of my work here - https://www.cartesiancreations.com.au

My recent show-off piece is this beast. A fossil giant wombat, now (or soon to be) assembled at the SA museum (or possible Naracoorte Caves, I'm not too sure).?ÿ

@martin_au?ÿ

Your wombat is AWESOME.

Presumably you had to print and join parts - the printer in the background seems rather small in comparison.

What was the original data set like - and how was it captured?

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@jimcox Only one piece needed to be split into 3. I have a third printer that's a fair bit larger (350x330x420) than the little Prusa. The original data was from CT scans and needed a fair bit of work to make print ready. There's a few posts in my blog about it.?ÿ

@jimcox, here is a link to the process I use to 3D print terrain files. The most relevant part for you may be the section discussing STL file reduction using the free Meshmixer software. There are probably many other STL filtering apps out there as well. As for printer plate adhesion, the best glue that I have found is this brand from Amazon.

Here is a picture of the 42"x60" model that I cut for the state of Colorado. In all, there were 28 separate tiles, each averaging 8-15 hours to cut.?ÿ

Nice. I reckon I'm going to have to try that for Tasmania.

@rudystricklan?ÿ Impressive.?ÿ What printer did you use and what was approximate cost of materials??ÿ Also, what file format and size did you start with and how large and format of the 28 tiles?

thanks,

@hpalmer, I used three rolls of Hatchbox black PLA filament, so materials cost was ~$75. My printer is a QIDI X-Plus, with a build volume of 270mm (X) by 200mm (Y) by 200mm (Z). The processed STL files were all around 62MB-- I reduced them 50% using MeshMixer:

Posted by: @rudystricklan

@jimcox, here is a link to the process I use to 3D print terrain files.

That really is impressive. The underlying geology is fascinating 🙂

I tried your link - it leads to a docx file - don't suppose you have it in pdf format (please)?

Thanks

@jimcox, here you go.

@rudystricklan?ÿ

Thanks for that.

You've given me at least three sottware rabbit holes to wander down.

Am I right in thinking that you were making one tile for each rectangle of original terrain data? I was wondering how you got them to fit together so well.

Here's Tasmania. 300x300mm

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our colleagues print rotary stamps, I printed a phone stand for myself

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