ratsmitglied

@Romeo Alpha Yankee and anyone else, feel free to share your photos in this thread, as far as I'm concerned it can be an open thread

No worries Ray It was a very good event, I was glad I could make it (even with 3 children under 8 in tow!)

And a couple more, Temora Formation 3 by Ratsmitglied, on Flickr Temora formation 4 by Ratsmitglied, on Flickr And I couldn't help myself titling this one The cow jumped over the moon by Ratsmitglied, on Flickr

I do prefer the Dragonfly... Dragonfly Temora 6Mar2021 by Ratsmitglied, on Flickr

Sorry for the poor photos, there are 3 reasons for it 1) Me, I'm a marginal to terrible photographer; 2) Camera wasn't quick enough and 3) I was trying to manage 3 children at the time Only a few photos that I managed to capture, so here goes (not necessarily in order that the aircraft were viewed) Because I can't just post from my normal storage options I'll be posting photos up as I get to them; so for the first two, spot the odd one out Temora 6 March Formation by Ratsmitglied, on Flickr Temora 6 March Formation 2 by Ratsmitglied, on Flickr

More aimed at wargamers, but http://wargaming3d.com has a lot of options for all sorts of scales

I'm pretty sure it's blow the excess off with the airbrush - as per the resinaway instructions: https://monocure3d.com.au/product-category/resinaway-cleaner/ the 'directions' section says I didn't follow these exact instructions with my print, hence the cloudiness Actually, those instructions are probably good ones to follow with IPA

@Bangseat That was post-cured under a 36W nail curing lamp purchased from Amazon, I can look up exactly which model it was if you're interested. but yes, it is a bit cloudy, I suspect it was because I forgot the wash step after cleaning in resinaway, so if I throw it in the ultrasonic cleaner with soapy water it will probably clear up nicely.

@BangseatFinally had a chance to find an item and get a photo - not the best in terms of showing clarity (nature of the object printed), but it does show the colour that the resin comes out at And I due to the nature of the object (intended to be painted) I may have forgotten a step to clear up the cloudiness...

Electricity costs for FDM printers are negligible - as in $0.15 for 4 hours worth of printing. I have had two FDM printers and a Resin printer all running on a single 10A circuit with no problems at all.

I actually disagree with that - you find the best file for your purposes and if it happens to be a paid file you pay for it. 3d files still take a lot of work to create, so for the quality that we are looking for with modelling it is more than reasonable to pay for a good quality rendition (like @Bangseat's above).

Monocure3d clear resin does tend to yellow slightly when exposed to UV wavelengths of <405nm - it is particularly noticable if you post-cure in the sun. If you have exactly the right settings for post cure and get the properly cleaned and cured then it doesn't tend to yellow (and yes this resin does print perfectly clear) Getting completely clear parts out of a printer is a pain, I personally have found with the monocure resin that using their ResinAway with an ultrasonic cleaner, then rinsing in water and drying off prior to post-cure does get a much clearer result than using IPA I'll have to see if I have any clear prints to photograph (I was printing in clear because someone wanted ghosts, I normally print in colours) to show the results I've had with my method

not really - most printers run at 12 or 24 volts, so actually significantly less power draw than an electric kettle or microwave. My ender 3 has a 360W power supply - 24 volts at 15A. People have measure it as using 0.5kWh for 4 hours worth of printing, which in most places is a fairly negligeable cost.

Depending on what it is, some designers have very simple license terms for printing - e.g. 10% of revenue from sales of prints from their items. I have picked up a couple of licenses for print ranges because they were either that arrangement, or the price to pay for the license was not significantly greater than buying the models myself. Trick is that even if the designer does offer this ability you have to find someone who has the license. In a lot of cases the MMF designers don't offer licenses, or if they do it's hard to find out the cost and/or requirements So in that sense, you are best to buy the model and then find someone who'll print as a service.

10 pounds seems a bit excessive for that item - material costs do vary between whether it is resin printed or FDM printed, but most commission printers would charge based on time take as well as material costs. I know that this is the model that I use. I'd be happy to provide you an estimate of what I would charge to print (I basically charge cost recovery for items that I haven't designed myself), but any savings you may get would probably be eaten up by customs and postage from AU. At a very basic estimate I would say material costs for an FDM print would be somewhere <$1, however your printer time is likely to be fairly high. On an resin printer I would say exactly the same, the material costs would be minimal per item (I've printed a full bed of 28mm - about 43mm overall height - figures and the material costs came to about $5AUD), but at 75mm high the print time will be fairly significant (depending on settings it could be about 6+ hours), the main difference being, as @Stu_davros mentioned is that in resin adding more simply increases material costs (up to the point where the bed is full), whereas in FDM it also increases time. If the best price you can get is 10 pounds per item and you're needing 30 of them you're actually at the point where you can get a printer, print them yourself, throw away the printer once completed and still be ahead. The reason for this is that on an FDM machine each item has to be printed separately, even if you are printing at the same time, with the nozzle moving for every single layer in every single item. On a resin printer like the Photon the entire layer is printed at once, regardless of how many items are on the build plate.

I personally would say that it depends on the resin you're using as much as anything. I run an air purifier with an activated carbon filter next to my printer at all times that it has resin in it to filter out as many of the fumes as possible, but I know that other people have set up extraction fans and run them in an enclosure to vent the off-gasses outside. My experience compared to casting resin is that they are similar in terms of the fumes, but the casting resin isn't usually left sitting out like you do with photosensitive resins. I would agree with @LostCosmonauts that modellers tend to be a bit lax about safety on all the chemicals that we use - and would say that the photosensitive resins are no worse than many of the other chemicals that we use, the main difference being that instead of being a tiny little nozzle you're using larger amounts, not only of the resins themselves, but also IPA or an alternative cleaner for the resin. Based on the MSDS of the mould casting Resin I've used and the MSDS of the photosensitive resin that I use I would say they're about on par with each other in terms of safety, with most of the advice being the same.

Best of luck with that - If you're interested I know that HumbleBundle currently has a bundle which includes a book on Blender (aimed at animators, but many of the principles will be the same) As to the printer, from everything I've heard about the Elegoo Mars I don't think you can go wrong with the Mars Pro!

Not really, just to my business's page on Facebook where there are a few more photos of that particular model and a few other things I've printed in resin - facebook.com/FlyingGoat3d if you're interested.

Yes it is - I'm pretty happy with it now I've worked out it's quirks and found a resin and cleaning process that I'm happy with using. Overall it's now my go-to printer for most things because there is less to check before each print and when failed prints occur it's mostly my fault rather than the printer's. There is a learning process involved with finding the correct layer times for a resin, how to set your supports (basically required for resin printing) On another forum I'm a member of there are a number of 'non-tech' people (their words) who have the Elegoo Mars and they have had no problems getting them up and running.

brain fart, fixed 😉

I'll agree on both of these statements - damn good show on the Ender3, and yes, the layer line issues do mostly disappear with a resin printer. Elegoo Mars (regular or Pro) or Anycubic Photon (or Photon S, NOT the photon Zero) seem to be the go-to choices for wargamers (with the Elegoo Saturn which has a larger print bed being due later this year). I may represent this comment. I found the same as you, the A8 wasn't worth the shipping materials - sure you can get a good print out of them, if you want to spend significant amounts of time and effort getting it tuned - unlike the Ender which gets pretty good prints out of the box, and almost perfect prints with only a relatively small amount of tuning. Smaller layers definitely helps with getting better prints, I know I've printed at 0.08mm on my Ender3, and I've heard of people going down to 0.04mm, but at the same time there is a trade off in speed For larger items (and terrain) FDM really is the only way to go, and a 28mm longship definitely counts as that! But for smaller items (such as people) I find the resin printer is significantly better (and easier even with the post-print cleanup etc) - this photo is of a 28mm wargaming figure printed on an Anycubic photon at 0.05mm layer heights, primed and drybrushed so you can see the details. Larger copy on these forums at I used to default to the FDM machine for printing, but now I've used the Resin printer a lot more I only really use the FDM printer for things that won't fit on the printbed!

I've been through exactly the same two FDM printers (plus a third), the A8 I just gave away because I couldn't put up with the crap it produced any more Then I bought the Photon because I was looking more into wargaming figures and layer lines really aren't an issue with that. There are also some primers being marketed with the specific claim that they fill layer lines, but I 1) Can't remember the brands and 2) suspect you'll lose some detail.

Another site (if you're interested in health-related models (e.g. anatomical, chemical compounds etc)) is the NIH 3d Print Exchange - https://3dprint.nih.gov/

you can print in clear resin, however to get the clarity you get from injection moulded plastics etc you do have to take a lot more care with the post cure process. The UV resin does tend to yellow a little bit if the wavelength isn't completely correct. I haven't done too much experimentation with trying to print items in clear except where they are being tinted through inks etc. anyway. There are some places that produce clear filament, but I'm not sure how well they print.

I'm more traditional in my base as well - when it comes to 3d modelling I'll do tweaking to get exactly what I want, but not so much sculpting from scratch Definitely horses for courses. As a wargamer the FDM machine is great for terrain and larger items, but for detail the resin is better. It is possible to get excellent details on an FDM machine, but as @LostCosmonauts says, it's not worth the effort to get them to that level of accuracy