Oreet's Adventures in 3D Printing

[oreet 396]

So I figured I'd start a new thread for this.

I got a 3D Printer. I got the Ender 5 Pro ( https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X9R1TWS/ ). It showed up yesterday, and this morning I did my first prints. I used Ultimaker Cura for my slicer program, and I'm using white PLA filament that came packaged with the printer.

First off, here is the printer, mostly assembled, with an RPG book in front for size reference:

 

My first print was a Gonk Droid, using an STL found here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2831817

Unfortunately, I went a little heavy on the raft and support settings, and was unable to remove the supports without snapping off the legs, so now I have a trashcan. The Gonk Droid took about 35 minutes to print.

I will revisit this model once I have a better grasp on slicer settings.

 

Second up is a Portal Companion Cube, I mean a Star Wars Crate. 

Here's where I got the file:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2841076
This download also includes a double crate.

This crate took about 36 minutes to print.

I played around with the Ironing settings in the slicer to smooth out the top layer a little bit, and I'm pretty happy with how this crate turned out. There's a few imperfections, but overall, it turned out great.

 

So far, the biggest issue I've run into is bed leveling. I had to stop a few prints of both of these models because they wouldn't adhere to the print bed. I fixed this by continuing to work on leveling the bed, and by increasing the bed temperature. The slicer wanted the bed set to 50 degrees celcius, but I upped that to 70 and that seems to have done the trick.

Edited June 28 by oreet

[buckero0 1,956]

Looks awesome. Do you have to treat the material before painting it? 

 

[oreet 396]

I haven't tried yet, bit I'm fairly certain I'd just need to hit it with spray paint style primer and then paint it. It should just be straight plastic without any sort of coating or anything similar to a release agent when doing molds.

The surfaces are a little rough because of the layers of plastic printed, so maybe hit it with some fine grit sandpaper first to smooth out the flat areas?

[DL-44 47]

Good job

For your bed adherence, normally you shouldnt have to increase temperature (as long as you print PLA), the white PLA provided with the printer is a poor quality so this could be the reason of poor adherence

Maybe just clean your bed with alchool solution to "dry" it (could be a little bit "greasy")

Personally I did change the magnetic bed by a glass bed and it made both adherence and levelling much easier

For your Gonk droid maybe you should slice and print  into 2 seperate parts (Body and legs), this should reduce support issues

[oreet 396]

3 hours ago, DL-44 said:

Good job

For your bed adherence, normally you shouldnt have to increase temperature (as long as you print PLA), the white PLA provided with the printer is a poor quality so this could be the reason of poor adherence

Maybe just clean your bed with alchool solution to "dry" it (could be a little bit "greasy")

Personally I did change the magnetic bed by a glass bed and it made both adherence and levelling much easier

For your Gonk droid maybe you should slice and print  into 2 seperate parts (Body and legs), this should reduce support issues

Thanks for all the tips.

Right not I am using the magnetic bed, which has a little bit of texture to it. One one hand it feels like that should make it more "grippy" for the plastic, but on the other hand, a smooth surface should work better for leveling.

I am using the PLA that came with the printer. I do have a spool of other filament, so maybe I'll give that a try.

I like the idea of the Gonk droid split into parts and glued together. I'll give that a try.

[oreet 396]

Another idea I had for the Gonk Droid would be to print it upside down. Then I just need minimal supports to connect the feet to the bottom of the body instead of needing supports for the entire body, which encase the legs and feet.

Today while working from home, I'm printing a non-Legion related thing.

Specifically, I'm printing this. I have about an hour left on the final part's print, and so far it's looking great.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3906053

Edited June 29 by oreet

[DL-44 47]

1 hour ago, oreet said:

Another idea I had for the Gonk Droid would be to print it upside down. Then I just need minimal supports to connect the feet to the bottom of the body instead of needing supports for the entire body, which encase the legs and feet.

Today while working from home, I'm printing a non-Legion related thing.

Specifically, I'm printing this. I have about an hour left on the final part's print, and so far it's looking great.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3906053

A rebellion goose !!!!!

For the gonk droid I got a kitbash model which I modified to avoid supports (Cura may add some, simply disable generate support option)

I notice the model you are printing got very brittle legs

printed at 0.1 no supports and slower speed to 40 (roughly an hour printing time)

I join the Stl's in case you are interested

gonk.zip

[oreet 396]

Thanks. There's a ton more detail in this Gonk. I just sliced both parts, and I'm going to print one out tonight. I'll report back later with photos.

Tomorrow I'm going to start printing out some of the Imperial Terrain files that I bought. But tonight...GONK!

 

Also, HONK!!!

He doesn't stand up on his own 2 feet. Too heavy in the back. Going to wait until I glue a magnet in the beak to see if that counterbalances the weight, but I might need to make a little base/stand/pedestal for him.

Edited June 29 by oreet

[oreet 396]

New Gonk Droid thanks to @DL-44.

There was a loose filament string where the overhang started on the body, that you can see in the pictures, but I was able to cut that part off. 

[buckero0 1,956]

4 hours ago, oreet said:

Thanks. There's a ton more detail in this Gonk. I just sliced both parts, and I'm going to print one out tonight. I'll report back later with photos.

Tomorrow I'm going to start printing out some of the Imperial Terrain files that I bought. But tonight...GONK!

 

Also, HONK!!!

He doesn't stand up on his own 2 feet. Too heavy in the back. Going to wait until I glue a magnet in the beak to see if that counterbalances the weight, but I might need to make a little base/stand/pedestal for him.

If you could shrink that by 25%, I can mount some rebel scum on that bird and you can proxy it as tauntan

[oreet 396]

10 hours ago, buckero0 said:

If you could shrink that by 25%, I can mount some rebel scum on that bird and you can proxy it as tauntan

Get yourself some Gungan miniatures, and this could make for a unit of Kaadu riders.

[oreet 396]

So here's what I've printed over the last 2 days:

Small Mechanic's Shop (from Imperial Terrain's Imperial Base Builder Bundle https://imperialterrain.com/collections/stls-for-star-wars-legion-terrain/products/imperial-base-builder-digital-stl-files😞

The roof warped a little, you can see it above Bossk's head, but from a distance it look great. The roof is removable.

 

Then there's an Imperial Shipping Container from Imperial Terrain's Everything Cargo Bundle https://imperialterrain.com/collections/stls-for-star-wars-legion-terrain/products/cargo-pallets-for-star-wars-legion-terrain-boards-digital-files

I ran out of white filament mid-print, so I paused the print as it ran out, swapped in a fresh spool of black filament, and resumed the print. It turned out great. No weird issues where the 2 colors meet.

There's also a sneak preview of my 3 squads of Shoretroopers in the background.

 

Today I am starting to print out the Imperial Walls 2.0 set that came with the Base Builder Bundle:
https://imperialterrain.com/collections/imperial-theme-1/products/imperial-walls-2-0-digital-stl-files

Edited July 2 by oreet

[DL-44 47]

Both items looks really good

did you print at 0.2?

Imperial terrain are really worthy designs

[oreet 396]

2 hours ago, DL-44 said:

Both items looks really good

did you print at 0.2?

Imperial terrain are really worthy designs

So this is my typical print settings for Imperial Terrain items. Some items I'll add a brim to, because I've had a few items pull off the print bed.

[DL-44 47]

I got similar settings

except bed temperature at 50

and using a Skirt for adhesion check

I also sometimes increase speed to 70 for bigger parts

a Brim should help for adhesion.

In case you still have problems try to print on different area of the bed (if your model is not too big), your bed had maybe a slight warp , you can check with a mettalic ruler and a light beam to confirm 

[oreet 396]

I've been adding a brim a lot lately and that's been a big help. I'm printing a set of wall pieces from a module Imperial wall set from Imperial Terrain now. 

[oreet 396]

So this was the last 24~ hours of printing non-stop. Eventually I want to have enough of this modular wall system printed out to build out a full Imperial Base for Rebels to invade.

[buckero0 1,956]

6 hours ago, oreet said:

So this was the last 24~ hours of printing non-stop. Eventually I want to have enough of this modular wall system printed out to build out a full Imperial Base for Rebels to invade.

How many pieces is that?

[oreet 396]

8 hours ago, buckero0 said:

How many pieces is that?

4 pieces plus the small antena part on the bridge.

[oreet 396]

Here is my table for today's game:

[DL-44 47]

Poor Gonk droid in he middle of a battlefield, he wont last a long time for sure

Very nice table

[oreet 396]

Still printing my way through the Imperial Walls set from Imperial Terrain. Ran into a little snag with my printer. I think there was a problem with the black filament i was using, because the nozzle got clogged pretty bad. Had to do a few "cold pulls" or "atomic pulls" to clear that out. Now it seems to be printing as normal again. The files for these all come with slots to glue in magnets to hold everything together.

[buckero0 1,956]

Looks really good.  I can't wait to see them painted up.

[oreet 396]

2 hours ago, buckero0 said:

Looks really good.  I can't wait to see them painted up.

I need to go out and buy a few cans of grey primer sometime. My red filament is gone, so now I'm printing things in green. I bought a 200g each multipack of 4 different colors.

[buckero0 1,956]

1 hour ago, oreet said:

I need to go out and buy a few cans of grey primer sometime. My red filament is gone, so now I'm printing things in green. I bought a 200g each multipack of 4 different colors.

Are the filaments hard to replace or can you get those from Amazon as well?