Schwarz-Brot

While on the electrical engineering side the Linux world is quite well equipped with KiCAD and several other very good tools I'm afraid the mechanical CAD side is only just beginning to grow... Blender works perfectly, but is no CAD system. Still very useful for modelling! OpenSCAD and FreeCAD are your choices. Probably anything else in a VM, just like it always was. I know the problem and indeed CAD- and Photo work made me setup a powerful Windows machine again. After several years on Linux it is still feeling wrong.

85€ it was because "the box is damaged". Well it was. But the only damage I could find was the shipping labels and stuff taped onto it when sent to the first customer. They should know better by now. But in the end I don't care about boxes and am very happy with the price I paid. The parts are large, casting quality is not what I'd expect on first glance with such an expensive plastic kit, but I know Franzis quality never was worth its money, so I was prepared for that. It will get stowed away and probably will be built when my son is old enough and interested. Being a working model this should be quite educative. Ah right, haven't postet much here since I'm a dad. I only upgraded my family status in January 😄

Splines are usually 3d curves. I have encountered this issue as well. I don't know how to stop fusion using the wrong plane when beginning a spline. Had that issue with other geometries as well in complex models. Whenever editing a spline make sure your view is locked to one of the base planes or to the plane you're working on. This way you move the points only on the plane you're seeing.

If the material is metal take it as is and re-tap as M3. If it is plastic drill out quite large, glue in a round, carefully redrill this. Or fill up with 2k epoxie and redrill. You might even epoxie the screw in place. Or epoxie a threaded rod in place and secure the part with a nut. Many more ways possible.

I have one little thing that disturbs me (just a little, to be honest): The heat shrink tubing on the fuel lines is lettered. Coming from an electrical background it is just too obvious to me this is "just" heat shrink. I personally would have gone for a piece without markings. You know, I just needed a reason to post, and I hate to post without offering some critique. I had to search for something... 😉 Outstanding work, and as always so much to learn. I am very glad you share your tricks in such detail. I bookmark all your builds for reference for a reason. Stay safe, Jan

Pure gold. I really miss white metal miniatures.

AFAIK these are ceramic coated. I have seen some real ones on the bug eye which are usually white on the real rally cars.

Most of these pieces are exact Copies of Lego parts. Even the electronics...

I successfully polished white metal wargame miniatures in the past with a brass wire brush on a Dremel. The rough and matte surface became very smooth and shiny. Not sure if this is good enough for your required surface, but probably worth a try on an unseen piece.

Offered my service, but didn't want to advertise too much as I'm not a business. If you need something printed in resin I can probably help out.

What did you polish the clear parts with?

No idea what this is about, but interesting start and nice thinking / stragegy. I'll follow.

Or you can get a poster-print of your picture. Not too expensive these days. Some printshops offer large scale prints around here for reasonable prices, and places that offer photobooks usually also offer poster prints.

I only know their chrome, but I do know that the underground matters very much. You can spray it over any high shine surface and get a chrome effect, the underlying colour will effect the outcome in a subtle way. Don't see why this wouldn't work with aluminium. But I highly recommend doing some test pieces first!

In that size you'll probably be better off working with a paint that gives a slightly rough finish. I don't know the real parts, but from my work experience with casted parts they are not extraordinary rough - the surface is as rough as sand on a 1:1 part. Because that's what's usually used to make the form.

That is probably not going to happen, at least not legally. Most designers do not permit selling of their printed product! So it is not legal to offer this as a service. The printer would need to buy a commercial license to print and sell the miniatures. Some designers do offer these licenses, most don't. I never saw a shop that bought such a license to make some money. If you provide the file and pay for the printing as a service you circumvent this problem.

It is also a good practice part for 3d modelling. Simple geometry, can be done with very few operations and is a nice usecase for the pattern tool.

the knob should 3d print pretty well. Only some levers left to work your magic on 😉

One thing is sure - I'll get me a Saturn if money allows. Which shouldn't be a problem.

There you go. A few little brave moves gave you a nice and way more realistic model. I think you can be proud of your work.

Mike, why would you remove the thread? Here's quite a bit of valuable information in the posts above. Maybe just rename it.

Yes, it is kind of a consumable and at least on the mars is a sparepart that can be bought seperately. I'd think this is the same with the photon. With the mars the cost is at about 40€. They might even be interchangeable. I don't really know how long they last, mine has probably about 100 hours of printing time and is fine.

Mark, Ali - no rocketscience going on there. If you have an STL file on hand the next step is slicing and preparing your model. What you need to do is fire up the software coming with your printer or chitubox. Load the model and place it on the virtual buildplatform. Then let automagically create supports or do them yourself when you become more experienced. Safe (!), then let it slice. Slicing is the process that translates the 3d model into layers and is basically the same process that happens with shapeways. Only this time there might be no warnings and autocorrections if you have too small or badly placed parts. Think of it as shapeways "print it anyway" option. Save the sliced file as well - this is the one that goes to your printer. Mark, I don't know if the mentioned slicers have a Mac version available, but might very well be. I've compiled a list of software from user input, there are some slicing options in there: Jan

I can see where they are coming from but to be honest the two methods are pretty much the same. Both involve lowering the bed so that it is just pinching a sheet of paper evenly across the surface. The Mars is slightly easy as it appears to have a bed levelling function which drives the bed onto the paper. It still has grub screws (two in fact) which you loosen then hit bed level then tighten. It seems the bed is sprung so will settle evenly if the grub screws are loose. So a bit easier, I agree but they are essentially the same method. The Photon has a little more room for error. if the photon is not spring levelled it IS harder to do and comes a lot down to experience. On the Mars it is trivial. You losen the 2 screws, place the paper, lower the platform automatically and tighten the screw again. No fiddling with a tad more pressure here, a tad more there. I now can see where the adhesion problems on the photon could come from. Still - both are great machines for very little money. With the current photon offering I'd be tempted to get me a second one...

Elegoo Mars and standard Photon are basically the same machines. Main difference is in packaged slicing software and cover. The cover of the Mars is very basic but functional. The benefit is you can reach into the printer from all sides without being constrained by sidewalls like on the photon. To me this is a huge plus. The slicer for the photon is probably a variant of chitubox and can be used with chitubox, while the mars uses chitubox right away. The glove information needs to be clarified. No matter the color or the price - DON'T USE LATEX. This is the message. Use Nitrile gloves.