3d Printers?

nicholassagan · Post by **nicholassagan** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:35 am

I saw a thread a while back about different 3D printing services. Someone mentioned Moddler (.com) and they seem to have good prices for what I am looking to get done.

But has anyone taken a file used in video game design and converted it to an .stl file? Or made it a solid model? Or know any good free or cheap 3D programs for Mac? Or know any other single project 3D printing services that run cheap?

WarpeD · Post by **WarpeD** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 1:07 am

About the viddy game file....the polygon count would be way too low to print anything smooth. Most of the smoothness you see in-game comes from mathematical manipulation of the welded sides of the polygons resulting in a visual trick produced by the video card.

As for the Mac question....sorry, no idea. I'm not that cool.

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 11:05 am

Cheap is as cheap gets. The higher the cos the smoother the print.

As to low cost apps for the Mac, try Carrara.

JadedMonk · Post by **JadedMonk** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 6:29 pm

Blender (free) and skienforge if you're serious about stl printing.

JadedMonk · Post by **JadedMonk** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 6:30 pm

Blender (free) and skienforge if you're serious about stl printing.

night_tea0 · Post by **night_tea0** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:16 am

Shapeways (provides sales service)
http://www.shapeways.com
Ninja Magic (fine detail metal master)
http://www.ninjamagic.com/cgi-bin/gt/tpl.h,content=23&
Print a part (high resolution)
http://www.printapart.com/

Hope that helps

Maethius · Post by **Maethius** » Thu Nov 18, 2010 1:33 pm

Egad... I think this company could bankrupt me! What a fantastic resource... especially if you have 3D modeling skills. Thank you VERY much for this link!

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naoto · Post by **naoto** » Thu Nov 18, 2010 4:51 pm

You want afforadble?
http://www.makerbot.com/

tetsujin · Post by **tetsujin** » Thu Nov 18, 2010 5:00 pm

naoto wrote:You want affordable?
http://www.makerbot.com/

I'm actually thinking about building something along these lines (but probably RepRap, 'cause the print bed is significantly larger) - but it's an expensive proposition ($1000 or more, most likely) - and if the results from professional fabrication machines is a bit crude, results from hobbyist printers are downright primitive...

ajmadison · Post by **ajmadison** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 12:00 pm

JadedMonk wrote:Blender (free) and skienforge if you're serious about stl printing.

Especially if you're going to use a Mac (and I'm not intentionally bad mouthing the mac... I own one) do a fly before buy option with any CAD software you intend to use. I am absolutely stunned that IMSI took my money for the software they gave me. Takes me back to the bad old days of computing. I'll be drawing, and get the spinning wheel of death. Or I'll be drawing, and suddenly, poof-gone! Not even the option of a force close. There has even been one system crash. OK. Enough bashing that package.

Blender is good, can't comment on its stability, though, didn't use it enough, maybe I should.

Another alternative here, which is different from 3D printing, is getting a desk top laser engraver. It has a bunch of names, but laser engraver will find what I'm talking about on evil bay. And yes, it only cuts sheets, but alot of what we make are boxy shapes with appliques. If you had something that did all of the grunt work, assembly may take longer, but is more "affordable" than a high-precision 3D printer. My current estimates are still around $2K to reaching the point of producing usable parts, but the price has been steadily declining. If the high end machines are coming down in price, our hobbiest cousins over in the scrapbooking aisle may reach our needs from below. The current stencil & cut-out machines do not have the sub-millimeter accuracy we need for scratchbuilding, but they're improving. Some are two orders of magnitude out, some are only one. So a scrap booking machine may never be able to churn out detailed pieces for a 1/1000 starship model, its reasonable to think a future machine may be able to produce the bulkheads, profiles, and exterior panels for a model project. At which point a custom scratchbuild may start looking an awful lot like a Guillow's balsa wood model.

tetsujin · Post by **tetsujin** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 2:01 pm

ajmadison wrote: Blender is good, can't comment on its stability, though, didn't use it enough, maybe I should.

I've used Blender for a while: here is the full list of defects I have personally encountered with it:

There was a bug on Mac for a while which would cause text rendering to fail (i.e. buttons and everything with no labels!) This was a consequence of Blender's UI being implemented in OpenGL (which it isn't in current versions) and a video driver issue from several years back. There was a work-around, but it required you to blind-navigate the configuration panel.
Boolean operations on two meshes would generate bad results - some of this is just a consequence of how Booleans work. I don't know if they've improved the implementation of Booleans, but Booleans aren't really the best way to make things in Blender anyway.
Some other mesh modifiers like "bevel" and so on would produce bad effects in certain cases
If you render a mesh that has a twisted or concave quad in it, you can get weird rendering artifacts as a result. (Quads are a rendering optimization... If you have three points in space, they're always coplanar. If you have four points in space, this isn't necessarily true. But if you assume they are, you can render the quad more efficiently than if the quad were split into two triangles.) The answer, of course, is make sure your quads are planar and convex (or at least very close) - though I've always wondered if one could enter into a situation where a mesh deform (like skinning to an armature, etc.) could wind up twisting a quad and producing a visible distortion... 'Course, how would you solve that, really? Abandon the quads optimization? Perform planarity checks on all quads at each frame of an animation?

So, yeah. Blender's good stuff. :)

travisc · Post by **travisc** » Wed Dec 08, 2010 11:49 am

Sketchup can export stl files with the correct plug-in
there is also plug-in by the Phlatboyz.com that is called the Phlatscript, that turns sketchup into a CAD/CAM by assinging g code and if you have access to a 3 axis cnc, you can cut out your parts.
They are verry close to making it cut 3d shapes as well the plug-in is free to download and use.

MEATLOAFr · Post by **MEATLOAFr** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 11:46 pm

Blender is what I use, it can load files from 3dMax, lightwave, and export into many diffrent file types, will also let you increase poly counts to smooth out your model

I'm working on saving some money to do some 3D printing, I've found a 3D printer that you couild build yourself for just $1,225... has a 7 week lead time to get it... hopefully enouph time for me to save the cash

http://store.makerbot.com/makerbot-thing-o-matic.html

It used PVC to make thinkgs, also hace glow-in-the-dark materal

Materal is $65 fo 5 pounds of PVC

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 12:52 am

MEATLOAFr wrote:Blender is what I use, it can load files from 3dMax, lightwave, and export into many diffrent file types, will also let you increase poly counts to smooth out your model

I'm working on saving some money to do some 3D printing, I've found a 3D printer that you couild build yourself for just $1,225... has a 7 week lead time to get it... hopefully enouph time for me to save the cash

http://store.makerbot.com/makerbot-thing-o-matic.html

It used PVC to make thinkgs, also hace glow-in-the-dark materal

Materal is $65 fo 5 pounds of PVC

Just beware the resolution is pretty coarse.

MEATLOAFr · Post by **MEATLOAFr** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 2:02 am

Kylwell wrote:Just beware the resolution is pretty coarse.

That's when the fun begins

zaphod · Post by **zaphod** » Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:46 pm

The Makerbot Thing-o-matic got quite a reception at the CES.

KLINGON CAV · Post by **KLINGON CAV** » Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:15 pm

Need a sword?
http://www.admiralsteel.com/products/laser.html

Dieghigno · Post by **Dieghigno** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:05 am

I was thinking to go for a 3d printing to make a Defiant in scale with ERTL DS9, since I couldn't find one...

Dieghigno · Post by **Dieghigno** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 5:36 am

My 1/3300 scale defiant are coming...

erospawn · Post by **erospawn** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:05 pm

MEATLOAFr wrote:Blender is what I use, it can load files from 3dMax, lightwave, and export into many diffrent file types, will also let you increase poly counts to smooth out your model

I'm working on saving some money to do some 3D printing, I've found a 3D printer that you couild build yourself for just $1,225... has a 7 week lead time to get it... hopefully enouph time for me to save the cash

http://store.makerbot.com/makerbot-thing-o-matic.html

It used PVC to make thinkgs, also hace glow-in-the-dark materal

Materal is $65 fo 5 pounds of PVC

I'm a little scared of something called a Thing-o-Matic..But, the price is something I would very much consider. I don't know how coarse the actual output would be, but it could be sanded or whatever to smooth it out right? Aside from that, you could make smaller parts to be assembled later.

Are there better options out there than this?

Oroka · Post by **Oroka** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 1:50 pm

I have ordered a sample keychain from the 3D printer mentioned in THIS thread, I will test the quality of the print detail and how it responds to sanding, scribing, painting.

I have a few ideas that this would make extremely more simple if I can just have the part printed.

linesiders · Post by **linesiders** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 9:04 pm

erospawn wrote:
MEATLOAFr wrote: I'm a little scared of something called a Thing-o-Matic..But, the price is something I would very much consider. I don't know how coarse the actual output would be, but it could be sanded or whatever to smooth it out right? Aside from that, you could make smaller parts to be assembled later.

Are there better options out there than this?
As stated earlier, quality quickly drives the price up but the RepRap community is build quality and driving the price down. I'm in the very early part of a build but I'm expecting to be between 550-750. Of course like everything else, once you start it never ends unless it ends badly a/d/or the wife's involved.