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3d printed Discovery (2001 A Space Odyssey)


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I've had my current 3d printer for around 6 months & have now got it tuned to the point that I feel confident to tackle a large project. I'm going to try to build a model of Discovery - the deeps space ship that appears in 2001 A Space Odyssey. I found the 3d model on thingiverse https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:950664

The scale is approximately 160:1 & when built is should measure just over a metre long.

The printer is a Geeetech A10 & I'm using Eryone PLA filament. The first parts I've printed are the engines & a handful of the pods that make up the long section of the body. I guess that it's going to take me to the end of next month to print all the parts & I hope to have the whole thing complete before the end of the year. Here's a picture of the first few bits:

1st parts for discovery

 

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That's an interesting proposition. :hmmm: What sort of cost (ignoring the capital cost of the printer) will that run to in the end?  Filament, electricity and anything else that I have no idea you need to run a 3D printer.  I picked up a little gizmo that you plug in between a device and the socket to monitor the power usage, and I could imagine that keeping that print head above melting point will use up a few bob's worth of power.  I wonder how it compares with the Moebius kit, which is about a metre long when it's done.

 

Those stringy bits that link some of the detail greeblies on the panels - will those rub or cut off?

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WeIl expect.to use about 1kg of filament - I pay £19 per kg. Power consumption is around 50watts - and it's going to (roughly) be 90 hrs of printing. The stringy bits are removeable, most of them can be pulled off with a pair of tweezers. I'll try to record here how long the printing takes.

Biggest cost will be the 1m steel rod that I'll use to strengthen it.

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  • 1 month later...

I had to put this on hold for a while as I had some issues with the printer & it took me a month to fathom out what I was doing wrong. Anyway, printing has resumed now, the rear section is complete & I'm slowly working my way along the centre sections...

 

IMG_20191028_214714

 

the rear is made up of four main sections - then covered with two square plates on the top & two on the underside..

 

IMG_20191028_214723

 

each of the centre sections is made up of three modules joined together with three 3-sided 'nuts & then each of these sections is joined to the next one with a small separating collar.

 

IMG_20191107_202219

 

I'm hoping to get these pieces tidied up over the weekend & get an initial coat of Vallejo primer sprayed over it all. Looking at the movie, the original appears to be all the same colour except for a few panels on the front sphere - I'll probably shade a few more sections just to highlight the detail.

 

IMG_20191107_201401

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
On 12/4/2019 at 7:29 PM, 32buds said:

It's been nearly a month, how's she coming along?

All parts now printed - I need to do a lot of work on the sphere, it looks dreadful at the moment, everything has a coat of primer now - so lots of painting & the tidy up of the sphere left to do.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/11/2020 at 5:24 PM, mabbog said:

Excellent work.  I did one from the same printing files a while ago.  About 1.7m long.  I don't seem to able to link in any images at present.

 

 

 

 

i'd be interested to see your pics when you can link them. The sphere is nowhere near as good as I want it at the moment, but I will assemble & complete the model with the current sphere & maybe reprint it in a few months time when I'm convinced I have the printer tuned better.

 

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Finally got the images working.

 

The sphere was pretty hard, I used XTC-3D and lots of filler and re-craved lots of detail.  If was doing it again I would be tempted to adjust the model to take off the raised panels, print and smooth that and then add the panels back with plasticard.

 

kJG1NR1.jpg

dY40BTP.jpg

qQN39Ni.jpg

 

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On 13/01/2020 at 19:28, Pete in Lincs said:

Very nice indeed. It's still a great film. I like the ceiling display method.

Most kind, thank you.

5 hours ago, Kirk said:

Looks great!

I think the radar dish may be about to fail though. ;)

 

Thank you.  Honestly, those AE-35 units are useless.

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Mind is thoroughly blown on this.  🤯 ... If i ever had the chance to do one of these, i think I’d have to give a try at opening a hanger door. Possibly putting a probe ship or two inside. Maybe even one prepping for launch on the extended platform ? But thats waaaay in the future. And only if i win a lottery and find a long lost mega rich ancestor. 

Edited by Corsairfoxfouruncle
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18 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Mind is thoroughly blown on this.  🤯 ... If i ever had the chance to do one of these, i think I’d have to give a try at opening a hanger door. Possibly putting a probe ship or two inside. Maybe even onprepping for launch on the extended platform ? But thats waaaay in the future. And only if i win a lottery and find a long lost mega rich ancestor. 

There is a guy on thingiverse working on a remodelled front end, with a pod bay door open & all the interior. My model is all on a single steel rod & the main parts are not glued together, so there is a good possibility that I will remodel the front end with a pod bay door open (no matter what HAL says). I will be adding an EVA pod at some point too.

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On 1/14/2020 at 10:47 PM, Kirk said:

Yes, I have a bad feeling about this Mabbog.

I reckon the AE35 units have an unfairly bad reputation - I've never known one to fail....

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  • 1 year later...

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