Olaf's Adventures In 3D Print Land

[Glitterwolf]

1 hour ago, Olaf the Stout said:

 

Yes and yes!

 

Summer holidays at home combined with a new printer = lots of time to learn how to print and get stuff printed out.

 

I imagine I'll slow down once I get past this initial burst. It's just that I currently have a tonne of different minis I want to try printing.

 

Well I printed so much that at a certain point I told myself to paint stuff first before I would print again.

Now I print batches, paint most of it and then print again.

It's very tempting to print more especially when I pledged for some awesome stuff from Patreons again..

[Olaf the Stout]

57 minutes ago, Glitterwolf said:

 

Well I printed so much that at a certain point I told myself to paint stuff first before I would print again.

Now I print batches, paint most of it and then print again.

It's very tempting to print more especially when I pledged for some awesome stuff from Patreons again..

I was probably at that point before I got my 3D printer with Bones and other Kickstarters and Blood Bowl minis. But I couldn’t get a 3D printer and have it just sit there! 😂

 

On a slightly more serious note, I am going to have to set some time aside in my schedule to get some painting done. If I don’t structure some time in to paint I know it will get pushed aside for other activities and I’ll just have endless piles of unpainted resin.

 

I’m also at the point where I need to sort out the STLs from my various Kickstarters and Patreons. Otherwise I’ll never be able to find anything.

 

Even a spreadsheet detailing all the Kickstarters and Patreons and what each Kickstarter or Patreon month’s theme is would be a good start so I have some minor idea of where to start looking for what I’m after. Ideally tagging each STL with the race, monster and/or class would be ideal.

[Olaf the Stout]

Next up on the printer is 2 Mountain Giants from White Werewolf Tavern and T’Ral, a Dragonborn Monk from Papsikels Miniatures.

 

 

Firstly, hats off to whoever did the pre-supports for the Mountain Giants. I had to fix a few islands, but all the supports worked perfectly and came off so easily when it was time to remove them, as though they knew their purpose was served and it was time for them to go. There were a tonne of supports and some were right next to some fine details, yet the supports came right off, while the fine details remained. Even with the more flexible Tenacious in the resin mix, the supports still came away easily. So great job there.

On the down side, both Mountain Giants come in 6 pieces, which seems a little excessive for STLs, and there will definitely need to be a bit of gap filling done on some of the joins as the fit isn’t perfect.

 

Overall though, very happy with both of them.

 

The Dragonborn monk suffered the first bit of damage I’ve experienced during the support removal process, with part of one of his ears being torn off. I’m not surprised though as the ear is so small and thin that the resin is transparent on the ears, despite me not using a transparent resin!

 

On the plus side, this mini shows the advantage of adding some Tenacious resin into my mix. Both his tail and staff are really thin and fragile, but have a lot of give in them due to the adding of Tenacious to the resin mix. So this mini benefits tremendously from being cast with Tenacious in the resin mix.

 

If this mini was cast in 100% ABS-Like Fast resin I wouldn’t be surprised if the tail or staff broke off the first time the mini was used.

So another successful build plate of prints in the book.

[Olaf the Stout]

 

Printed a couple of dice holders from Dice Heads, the base for the Dragonborn monk that I printed yesterday and a golden snitch from Crosslances.

 

Partial fail with the beholder as I didn’t support the base well enough and it warped during printing.

 

My fault as it was an auto-supported mini in Chitubox. Lesson learned for next time. It still stands up by itself as is, but I’ll give the base a sand to level it a bit more.

Also, really loving my wash and cure stations.

 

The wash station makes cleaning super simple. I haven’t had to clean resin off my build plate once as it goes right into the wash station and comes out clean.

 

Plus I just used my cure station to give all my used paper towel a cure, just to be extra safe. I had left them in the sun for half a day, but I’d rather be safe.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Olaf the Stout

[Olaf the Stout]

I'm going away camping for a week, so thought I should empty out and clean my resin tank before I go. Made another rookie mistake.

 

I filtered out the leftover resin back into the bottle and then used the clean tank function on my Mars 3. Except, as I'd emptied out the resin, there wasn't a complete layer of resin left on the bottom of the tank. It was spotty in some bits. That meant that, while most of the resin cured in one whole sheet, there were a few bits that weren't connected and stuck to the FEP.

 

So I inadvertently caused some resin to become stuck to the sheet. Plus, even after doing the clean tank function, there is still uncured resin left around the outside of the tank anyway as the tank is about half a cm larger all the way around the LED screen. So even if it would have cured the resin in one big sheet, I would have still been left with uncured resin in the tank anyway. Plus I was then left with a big sheet of half cured resin that I had to then cure for 20+ minutes in my cure station. I also possibly slightly scratched the FEP getting some of the stuck resin off the FEP (not sure, it's hard to tell).

 

Oh well, lesson learned for next time. Don't use the clean tank function unless you can see there is definitely cured resin stuck to the FEP and do it with a reasonable amount of resin still in the tank. Otherwise just pour the resin out and wipe up any bits leftover with a non-abrasive cloth.

[Olaf the Stout]

Well, after 5 months of no printing (on purpose as I've made a rule for myself not to print more than I paint, and I printed quite a few minis when I first got the printer), I've fired it back up again tonight to print some Blood Bowl minis. I'm running a tournament next weekend and needed a dozen of each of 3 specific minis.

 

Gotta love that 3D printing allows me to easily create a dozen of the same mini. Even better is that I can print about 30 minis for the grand cost of about $15 AUD in resin, including all the supports.

 

I'll see in just under 3 hours if they printed ok and if I was able to retain the printing lessons I learned from 5 months ago.

 

I'm happy that I at least remembered to screw the build plate on properly this time. No repeat of the second ever time I printed and I left it completely unscrewed and just balancing on the printing arm. I still don't know how it didn't fall off at some point during the printing and smash my screen.

[Olaf the Stout]

Well, I'd call it success with an unexpected bump in the road.

I used pre-supported and, despite Chitubox telling me there were lots of islands, the minis seem to have printed fine. No obvious failures, even on the supports. It's hard to see all the details clearly on glossy prints, especially with the resin I'm currently using being white. However even fine details, like the ears on the Goblins, seem to be all there.

The bump in the road is that my Elegoo wash station isn't spinning properly. As it hasn't been used for several months, the resin sediment that gets washed off the printed minis has settled to the bottom of the tub and gunked up the blade that churns the water. There's enough sediment in there to stop it from spinning around freely like it should. The blades operate via magnets in the base of the unit, so I don't imagine it needs much resistance to stop it from spinning.

 

So I'll need to empty it out and give it a clean on the weekend to get it moving again. Shouldn't be too hard to do though.

[Olaf the Stout]

Well, I got the my Elegoo Mercury X Wash Station cleaned out and spinning freely again. Set it back up again and discovered a new problem.

 

Looks like the power adapter for it has died. Even better, is the same power adapter is used for both the wash station and the cure station (it's a single plug, which splits to 2 cords for the wash and cure stations), so neither my wash or cure unit will currently operate.

 

I tried plugging the cable into different power points, swapped the cords between the units and also tried powering only the cure station or wash station by themselves. Nothing worked. Plus the blue light on the power pack won't light up.

 

Fortunately I bought my unit through Amazon AU, rather than direct from Elegoo, just in case something went wrong. The unit is less than 7 months old, so still covered under warranty and Australian consumer laws. So I'm entitled to a refund or replacement. One phone call to Amazon AU and a new Wash and Cure Station is on it's way to me and should arrive by the middle of next week. Then I need to pack up the old one and send it back to Amazon AU.

 

Not ideal, but at least it should be a quick turnaround.

 

My printer still works, so I might cure a couple of build plates worth of prints in the sun while I wait for the new unit to arrive.

[Olaf the Stout]

Thank you Amazon AU. 3 days later and I'm back up and running.

 

My replacement Mercury X Wash and Cure Station was delivered and the Wash Station worked perfectly out of the box. The blue light on the power pack lights up on this replacement unit, so I suspect that is what failed, rather than either of the units themselves. However, I'm not game to try out the new power pack with the old units, just in case that isn't the case and I blow the replacement power pack.

 

I'll set up the replacement Cure Station a little later, then box up the dead Wash and Cure Stations in the same packaging to ship back to Amazon.

[Olaf the Stout]

Replacement wash and cure units working well. Happy with how they minis came out. The undercoat is spotty as my can of white was empty. I only undercoated them like that to take pics as my current resin is creamy white and terrible for seeing any detail.

 

The hot water method worked a treat for removing the supports. The only thing I broke was the chain on Fanatics as I was a bit too rough removing the supports. The Bomber even resisted me trying to remove the tassels from his hat (I didn’t realise they weren’t supports at first).

Also, it still blows my mind that I can print minis that look this good in my own home. Me from 10 years ago would think that would be impossible.

[Olaf the Stout]

5 Pokémon minis printed and one very happy 8yo. The prints were a bit rough in some spots as I just did medium autosupports all over, which was definitely overkill. That's ok though as my main concern was to not have anything fail, more so that have a perfect finished print.

 

My 8yo was so excited to get them printed, that a failed would have definitely been worse than a slightly imperfect one. Now that I know the prints work, I can always reprint them with light supports later. Given how much fun he's been having playing with them this afternoon, I don't think he minds too much.

[Olaf the Stout]

Charmeleon needs an upsize, so will be reprinted. Lucky too as my 8yo unfortunately dropped him not long after this family happy snap and his flame tail broke off.

 

At least my son has a mini to practice his painting. He wanted to have a to at painting them, but was worried about messing it up.

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Olaf the Stout

[Olaf the Stout]

More Pokémon printed. Charmeleon got an upsize and Charmander got reprinted with light supports, which worked much better.

 

I was using up the last of my white resin, so topped up with grey half way through the print, hence why half the models are white and half are grey.

[Olaf the Stout]

Printed some spell effects from Crippled God Foundry. Mr Bones for scale. The straight walls are roughly 2 squares or 10ft wide.

 

The lightning bolt has a second part I still need to print that sits on top of of the one pictured.

 

The non-wall effects probably don’t have any real game use, but I’m pretty sure my son has claimed them all for his Pokémon anyway! 😂

 

The pre-supports on these were great. Not a single island and all came off easily and with almost no scarring.

 

I think they would look even better printed in clear resin and painted with inks or contrast paints though.

[Olaf the Stout]

Also improved and reorganised my printing space. Got some nice thick plastic to replace the cheap thin drop sheet that I was using to protect the wooden cupboard the printer is sitting. Also got some flexible mats to sit in front of everything in case I spill resin.

 

The container in between the printer and wash unit will be used to give minis an initial dunk in isopropyl after printing. Hopefully that keeps my wash station isopropyl clearer.

 

Also got a magnetic glove box and paper towel holder so they’re always within reach, but not taking up bench space.

 

I still need to buy a couple of lunch trays to carry minis on, as well as screw the power board on to the side of the cupboard so it’s out of the way.