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Fantastic print! Glad it worked out for you. As for the estimated print time, I found this video on Youtube about how to adjust the slicer to properly calculate the print times but I haven't had a chance to run through it and see if his solution works. 

 

 

 

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I am still on the learning curve about 3D printing. This week-end I wanted to print the SM aft heat shield. That is a large piece for the Anycubic photon but I managed to fit it in the working space. Unfortunately after many hours I had to stop, the support bottom splitted and some supports didn't print. Although the parts that printed correctly were nice, there were missing sections here and there. I read in the printer instructions that layer separation could be the result of a bad FEP film, so I decided to change it, I also discovered that I forgot to stir the tank (the resin bottle) believing that doing the opposite of Apollo 13 was the reason for the failure. I tried to print the part two more times with each time the same kind of failure. Furthermore when I cleaned the vat I found pieces of hard resin from the support that sticked to the FEP film which explains why there were missing on the final model.

 

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What I did next was to modify the Z=0 position by 0.1 mm i.e. not when I felt the resistance with my sheet of paper but 0.1 mm above as I thought this would maybe eliminate the risk of being too close to the FEP film and stick to it. I was also wandering whether the skin color resin had a different behaviour than the clear green resin sold with the printer so I changed the resin as well, and then success.

 

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Well not a complete success since I continued to have the splitting problem. I realized then that the support rods were all all perpendicular to the flat lower surface, the upper surface was also flat but with an angle to the lower surface (when printing the support surface facing you was thicker than the aft part). Looking at the platform I then realized it was levelled on the X axis but not the Y axis as shown in the picture below. How that happened, I think that when I installed the platform onto the platform bracket I didn't push it to the end of it and since the bracket has a shape of a truncated pyramid rather than a cuboid it is possible the platform misaligned. Anyway something I will be checking more thoroughly in the future.

 

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Anyway the good news is that I eventually succeeded in printing the complete aft heat shield and that the two parts fit perfectly together. I will put these two parts on Shapeways soon but also decided to make them available on Thingiverse. I created a group called 1/32 scale Apollo spacecraft

 

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Edited by Lunokhod 2
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There is a photon group on facebook. Very helpful bunch of guys.
Here are my settings for now and it works well so far.

Also I'm not a fan of the auto supports. Sometimes they will interfere with the model. 

A mod many are doing inc myself after a troublesome weekend is to sand the build plate.
Some sand off all the anodizing. I basically just levelled it with 1200grit wet dry. Just enough to smooth the plate and take any raised areas off.
Mine feels like the bottom of a iron now.
 

 

Edited by Aussie-Pete
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Your settings are pretty much the same as mine except I used 0.03 mm for the layer thickness and 60 s and 5 for the bottom layer. I subcribed already to the photon group on facebook. I am more confident now that I have found the explanation for the splitting . Speaking sanding the build plate, so far the bottom layer with the unsanded plate works quite fine for me, I have a good adherence so far. 

 

I use auto support first and then remove or add supports trying to avoid parts where details could be compromized by a support rod.

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Formlabs has those instructional videos about SLA printing:   https://formlabs.com/learning-pathways/education/

In step 5 there is a part Optimizing print orientation. They describe the process for SLA but I think it is similar to DLP. They explain that cavities during the peeling process lead to a suction effect which might result in a failed print. Basically the suction effect can rip off the parts from the build plate. More so that the Photon uses the FEP film which is more flexible than the Form 2 base.

 

Anyway after I've returned from my holidays I've had another go the Photon. First I had to improve my process pipeline. I've used inspiration from the Formlabs Wash & Cure station and made my own. At a fraction of the cost.

For cleaning the part in IPA I've bought a plastic container and quickly designed a small strainer with Fusion 360 and printed it on my FDM printer.

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The next step in my process pipeline is the curing station. I've bought bucket with a lid für 1 € and some reflective aluminum tape for 10 €. The UV LED strip i've ordered from Amazon. Making sure that they had 405 nm wavelenght. I've then lined the inside of the bucket with the aluminum tape and drilled a hole for the LED strips. After that I lined the inside with the LED strip and was ready to go.

 

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The bucket in bright red.

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The inside. I wasn't  too careful with the tape but it does the job.

 

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And with the LED strips all lit up. With all set up I was ready to go.

 

I've used a small chess piece as test object for checking out the settings and the setup.

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The whole process was a complete success. The quality of this small piece is really great. It's very smooth to the touch and the print lines aren't really noticable. I've then soaked the piece in the IPA and cleaned it a bit and put it in the UV curing bucket for 1 and 1/2 hours. 

All in all I would say that if you are prepared to deal with the cleaning this DPL printing it is totally worth it. It's not too expensive and compared to the SLA printers the output is not too far off. And a Form 2 cost almost 4000 €s. 

The Anycubic resin is the only thing that needs to be replaced. While the print result is great, there is a smell to it. Not extremely unpleasant but also nothing that is nice. I've ordered some new resin from Monocure which I hope don't smell very much.    

 

Cheers Ralf

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Carrying on with the SM aft heat shield. I thought it would be a success the first time but since I decided to have a big hole in the middle, the lower part that was not sustained creeped a bit

 

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I eventually filled the hole and the part printed correctly, still on the learning curve but learning more and more.


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This is what I did but the support were not strong enough to support the weight of the resin. Filling the hole was the solution. For the equivalent part on Shapeways there is a hole because what is important there is the amount of matter. For a home printed part that is not so important, the part is really less expensive than on Shapeways. Furthermore on a DLP printer the printing time depends on the number of layers, so for a given Z accuracy it depends on the Z dimension of the part which means having a hole or not will not modify the printing time (it is not true with a SLA printer like a formlab).

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Beautiful print! What brand of resin and settings are you using for that last one? I like the look of the tan (or is that white?). I tried the Anycubic grey but haven't had luck with the test print. but I suspended printing for the time being until the weather cools. You're doing great with this.

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I used the skin color from Anycubic with a layer thickness of 0.03 mm and an exposure time of 8 s. For the off-time the 6.5s is just perfect and gives you an approximate time of printing very close to the real time. I suppose it would be the same if the off-time is longer. The fact is that the off-time on this printer cannot be less than 6.5 s.

 

My next part will be what I call the unprintable part, these are the RCS panels since the one on the model and the one from NewWare do not have the right dimension (lenght is about 5 mm shorter on the model or NewWare). Originaly I thought about doing it with 3 layers of 0.25 mm styrene sheet but I will try printing it. I call it the the unprintable part because with such a low thickness it cannot be printed on Shapeways.

 

I will see what happens this week-end

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On 8/13/2018 at 11:35 AM, MoFo said:

Also worth noting, Prusa are widely reported to be working on some form of resin printer.  If it's anywhere near production, there should be some announcements at NY maker faire in late September.

 

Like clockwork!  They've just announced the SL1 DLP printer.

 

https://www.prusaprinters.org/introducing-original-prusa-sl1-open-source-sla-3d-printer-by-josef-prusa/

 

My initial reaction is... not really impressed.  It's way more expensive than I would have imagined and doesn't seem to offer much over the Chinese printers.  Build envelope is about the same as a Photon.  X/Y resolution is the same.  If they were substantially better, it might be worth it, but at this price, you'd be better off with a Moai, IMO.  Most of the features are either standard for the type (removable build plate!  fine resolution!), easily (and cheaply) added to any printer (fan, Wi-Fi/LAN), or of minimal real-world use (level sensor, power panic, ball screw Z).  And pricing on their washing/curing station seems *nuts*.

 

Automatic calibration is a quality of life improvement, but I think most people would happily do it manually to save $1000. The tilt bed is nice.  It'll reduce suction forces and help printing, so it's a definite benefit.  But it's also pretty cheap and easy to implement, so I'd expect the next generation of Chinese printers to include it, too.  

 

The single best thing, IMO, is that a big name that drives a lot of open-source development is entering the market.  Their version of Slic3r will blow Anycubic's and Wanhao's out of the water.  People will hack and update their SL1s, which will filter down to Photons and D7s.  More people will get into DLP printers now, which will help drive innovation - we should see more resins, more widely available.  So while I'd rather buy 3 or 4 Photons than one of these, I'm still really happy to see it get announced.

 

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On 9/23/2018 at 12:40 AM, MoFo said:

 

Like clockwork!  They've just announced the SL1 DLP printer.

 

https://www.prusaprinters.org/introducing-original-prusa-sl1-open-source-sla-3d-printer-by-josef-prusa/

 

My initial reaction is... not really impressed.  It's way more expensive than I would have imagined and doesn't seem to offer much over the Chinese printers.  Build envelope is about the same as a Photon.  X/Y resolution is the same.  If they were substantially better, it might be worth it, but at this price, you'd be better off with a Moai, IMO.  Most of the features are either standard for the type (removable build plate!  fine resolution!), easily (and cheaply) added to any printer (fan, Wi-Fi/LAN), or of minimal real-world use (level sensor, power panic, ball screw Z).  And pricing on their washing/curing station seems *nuts*.

 

Automatic calibration is a quality of life improvement, but I think most people would happily do it manually to save $1000. The tilt bed is nice.  It'll reduce suction forces and help printing, so it's a definite benefit.  But it's also pretty cheap and easy to implement, so I'd expect the next generation of Chinese printers to include it, too.  

 

The single best thing, IMO, is that a big name that drives a lot of open-source development is entering the market.  Their version of Slic3r will blow Anycubic's and Wanhao's out of the water.  People will hack and update their SL1s, which will filter down to Photons and D7s.  More people will get into DLP printers now, which will help drive innovation - we should see more resins, more widely available.  So while I'd rather buy 3 or 4 Photons than one of these, I'm still really happy to see it get announced.

 

Ditto. their claims to be better than the flimsy Photon are an exaggeration. Nothing flimsy about the Photon at all.
On the weekend people were talking about how often the clean up/re level etc. The numbers were staggering for continuous print without cleanup or re leveling. It seems once dialed in on a particular resin the Photon just goes and goes. Like the ever ready rabbit.

Save a 1000 and buy a Photon. 
Remembering they all have consumables. If I was to buy another printer at that price it would be the Peoply Moai.

Support for DLP/SLA in Slic3r might be the only good thing to come from this

Edited by Aussie-Pete
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Hello everybody,

 

a friend of mine in our Raumcon forum (Sascha1990) has started a gigantic project NASA Crawler + LUT and Saturn V as 3D printing.

 

He has bought several Anycubic I3 Mega printers and is currently printing the Apollo crawler in 1:48 scale even with interior decoration. eek.gif

 

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Source: raumfahrer.net/forum (Sascha1990)

 

Here are some great photos.  cool.gif

 

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So far everything looks fantastic, really very impressive. up040577.gif

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WOW! This is gonna look GREAT!

There was a guy on the Nasa Spaceflight forum that was building a 1/72 Crawler from scratch ... he seems to have stopped his build.

 

But, is this modelling? The skill set, certainly is in the 3D software and how you all are creating the images. It gets printed and then, it gets glued together.

Is the fun just in seeing the final assembled pieces sitting on a shelf, or in the build itself? 

 

This isn't the thread to debate this, but I am curious to hear your opinions ... 

 

I must say, however, that I AM most impressed with the 1/48 Crawler though ... Thanx for the pix Manfred!

Pete

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3 hours ago, K2Pete said:

WOW! This is gonna look GREAT!

There was a guy on the Nasa Spaceflight forum that was building a 1/72 Crawler from scratch ... he seems to have stopped his build.

 

But, is this modelling? The skill set, certainly is in the 3D software and how you all are creating the images. It gets printed and then, it gets glued together.

Is the fun just in seeing the final assembled pieces sitting on a shelf, or in the build itself? 

 

This isn't the thread to debate this, but I am curious to hear your opinions ... 

 

I must say, however, that I AM most impressed with the 1/48 Crawler though ... Thanx for the pix Manfred!

Pete

 

Hi Pete,

 

the guy in NSF is my friend Rich O'Donnell, who had built his first crawler from the Paper kit (1:96) by LUT Guru Mischa Klement (microartwork.com).

However, since he got big problems with the paper model (warping, delamination ...) due to the high humidity in his area (Olympia, Washington:o he then had built another awesome 1/72 scale NASA Crawler from Styrene, for which he used Mischa's "decolored" and up-scaled kit templates, which is simply Modeling madness ... eek.gif

 

Maybe one could say this is not building Out-of-the-box (OOB), but Out-of-the- printer (OOP), but first you have to be able to create the 3D models for the printer with your 3D software, I would be glad if I could do it ... hmmm.gif

BTW, I just wanted to show another example how printers are handled elsewhere, no one has to debate this here ... up040577.gif

The size of the Crawler model (1:48) is impressive in any case, which I once estimated:

Length: 131' = 40 m = 83 cm,
Width: 114' = 34,7 m = 72 cm,
Height: 20' = 6,1 m = 13 cm.

 

And if one now still put the Mobile Launcher with a height of 25' = 7,6 m = 16 cm on top of it, then the vehicle is at least 29 cm high, which is why I would say, it's stunning!!! omgsign.gif

And then just imagine still on top the approx. 2,30 m high Saturn V (111 m), that yields a total height of almost 2,6 m, really deafening ... ... erschrocken3.gif

 

Edited by spaceman
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Hi Vincent,

 

I had also asked him right away if he had, in wise foresight, extended his house by an own museum. analintruder.gif

 

But my friend has an open staircase and would find it brilliant if one could see the Saturn V from both floors. smiley250.gif

 

When he will have finished his monster project, he will certainly post pictures from both floors, I think. up040577.gif

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5 hours ago, K2Pete said:

 

But, is this modelling? The skill set, certainly is in the 3D software and how you all are creating the images. It gets printed and then, it gets glued together.

Is the fun just in seeing the final assembled pieces sitting on a shelf, or in the build itself? 

 

This isn't the thread to debate this, but I am curious to hear your opinions ... 

 

I must say, however, that I AM most impressed with the 1/48 Crawler though ... Thanx for the pix Manfred!

Pete

I'd say that this falls somewhere between completely scratch-building model builders and kit model builders. It definately takes more skill sets than just the average builder that take a kit from a box and builds it. The kit didn't exists before it was 3D designed and printed. Any pitfalls in design and construction are completely on the builder. So in that regard I think it's "harder" than most models. 

 

The other side of the coin is it's not as challenging as a completely scratch-built model. That takes the same skill set in design and construction, BUT there's no test fitting before a part is real. So to guys like you who REALLY excel in scratch builds, it's perhaps not as "hard" as what you guys do. But it still ain't easy. 

 

The other option is just printing a completed model and painting. That's to me akin to buying a pre-build model and doing a re-paint. But still maybe harder than that in the finishing aspect due to the odd materials and roughness that has to be taken in to account sometimes.

 

That's just my 2 cents on the subject.

 

Bill 

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