New builder has a few questions

Hey everyone,

My dad and I decided that it would be fun for us to try and build our own 3D Printer. I plan on mostly using it to make models and terrain for wargaming. Before diving in, we wanted to ask a few questions:

1) What determines the size of the object you can create? Is there a limitation by the software or are you just limited on how big the machine is?

2) Can you use the files you find from the google 3D warehouse? Neither of us are great artists and have never done any CAD. However, the 3D Warehouse already has about 90% of the things I want to make.

3) Is it possible to build a machine with two extruders? It is my understanding (please correct me if I am wrong) that the smaller the size of the fillament, the more detail you can create. However, to speed up printing of larger objects it would be nice to have a large fillament head two. Therefore I wanted to know if you could have the software switch between heads during the build process (ie, I'm printing out a soldier. A 3mm head is used for the body but a 1.75mm head is used for the face). I don't really care for multi-color since I'll be painting the stuff; I just want to make sure I can get some quality detail along with a good printing speed.

4) If we want to build a printer that can make larger objects and can have two different sized heads, what design would you suggest we look at?

Thank you. Any and all help would be appreciated.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2012 03:33PM by Gearjock.

Gearjock Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey everyone,
>
> My dad and I decided that it would be fun for us
> to try and build our own 3D Printer. I plan on
> mostly using it to make models and terrain for
> wargaming.

Awesome.

>
> 1) What determines the size of the object you can
> create? Is there a limitation by the software or
> are you just limited on how big the machine is?

That's a hardware limitation; the size of your build platform.


> 2) Can you use the files you find from the google
> 3D warehouse? Neither of us are great artists and
> have never done any CAD. However, the 3D
> Warehouse already has about 90% of the things I
> want to make.

Yes. You just need to create STL files out of them. Sketchup can do this with some plugins.


> 3) Is it possible to build a machine with two
> extruders? It is my understanding (please correct
> me if I am wrong) that the smaller the size of the
> fillament, the more detail you can create.
> However, to speed up printing of larger objects it
> would be nice to have a large fillament head two.
> Therefore I wanted to know if you could have the
> software switch between heads during the build
> process (ie, I'm printing out a soldier. A 3mm
> head is used for the body but a 1.75mm head is
> used for the face). I don't really care for
> multi-color since I'll be painting the stuff; I
> just want to make sure I can get some quality
> detail along with a good printing speed.

The filament diameter is actually irrelevant to the final detail level. Technically anything is possible, but what you describe is thankfully not necessary. Detail is determined primarily by your layer height, and secondarily by your nozzle diameter. Using a 0.35mm nozzle and a 0.05mm layer height will allow you to get amazing detail, and you can print with a higher layer height and still go very fast. I don't have any speed problems with my 0.35mm nozzle; I regularly do infill at 140 mm/sec with it. Larger items you might want to print, such as hills and structures, can use higher layer heights.

To give you a sense of the detail you can get, this bust was printed with 0.1 mm layers; pretty high for a detail print, but you can still see the quality:




> 4) If we want to build a printer that can make
> larger objects and can have two different sized
> heads, what design would you suggest we look at?

As mentioned above, you don't actually need that. If you want to print BIG, I suggest a MendelMax. Large, rigid, and fast-printing.

Your project is very intriguing. I originally intended to get into 3D printing for the same reason as you, but the hobby itself quickly took over and I never actually printed any wargaming stuff. I'd love to see what you and your father come up with.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2012 05:16PM by Pointedstick.

Hey thank you for the info. It definently helped point me in the right direction.

I’ve printed a number of models from the sketchup warehouse and feel like we should point out it’s not always a simple thing to do. Most of these models were not intended to be printable and have numerous problems with them. You should plan on it taking some effort to get complex wargame style models from there to print well. It’s typically not too difficult but may be time consuming depending on the specific model and your experience with modeling programs.

Oh yeah, I'm not really looking for printing small minis and such. I'm mostly going to be printing terrain, modern military vehicles, and maybe some flying things.