Jaitea
Master Member
& the handy thing is,..even parts when on the plate in the slicing program, can easily be mirrored,...ideal for detailing both sides of the craft you're working on
J
Sci-Fi modeling on Elegoo Mars -- Community support/tips
- Thread starter Hunk a Junk
- Start date
& the handy thing is,..even parts when on the plate in the slicing program, can easily be mirrored,...ideal for detailing both sides of the craft you're working on
J
Hunk a Junk
Sr Member
So when I want to mirror those mandible sidewalls on the Falcon I'm good to go??? Technology HAS caught up to Bandai.
harryhoudini
Active Member
This is a great place to learn a lot of stuff about this and get up to speed. We can basically build our own 1:1 diorama now [emoji15][emoji23][emoji24][emoji15][emoji23] so excited for slightly bigger printers than the basic ones. But for greebs its perfect
I’m thinking diorama falcon cross sections version! [emoji15]
I’m thinking diorama falcon cross sections version! [emoji15]
Hunk a Junk
Sr Member
Spent 4 hours constructing my "kit" FDM printer yesterday... and its about 3/4 done
Jedi Dade
Which FDM printer did you get?
Tronxy 5xsa pro. 300x300x400mm with a max resolution of .1mm should be good for print bigger things, then use the Elegoo Mars for small detailed stuff.. I figure between the 2 and my scratch building I should be able to build some cool stuff once I figure out how to actually print with good results... still a noob there.
Its funny I was surfing youtube yesterday and I saw a large volume resin printer for around $2000... but the "large print volume was still a little small.... 276mm x 155mm x 400mm (10.9" x 6.1" x 15.7") a couple of more years and these will be affordable!
Jedi Dade
Its funny I was surfing youtube yesterday and I saw a large volume resin printer for around $2000... but the "large print volume was still a little small.... 276mm x 155mm x 400mm (10.9" x 6.1" x 15.7") a couple of more years and these will be affordable!
Jedi Dade
basementdweller
Active Member
The only reason the current crop of small printers are affordable is because it's based on parts from the biggest market there is - mobile phones. The screen masks used for exposing the photo resin are all from mobile phone screens at 2K resolution. The bigger models have to have a higher resolution screen to keep up with same pixel density as the smaller ones. There is no big market currently that calls for 4K screens that are the size of a "smaller" tablet or pad. Hence there is no reason the price would come down very much unless there is a sudden boom in need of high res small screens. The rest of mechanics and rails and all that are in essence the same and don't really account for much in the difference in price. It's mostly the light array and the screen in DLP tech. SLR is different and doesn't really fit in the bracket of affordable printer tech like DLP.
Now what is really interesting is monochrome DLP printers like the Phrozen Mini that cuts the layer time to 0,5 secs. That means it's at least 10 times faster at printing as compared to the Elegoo Mars. Technically the same price, but for me in EU it's more than double the price with shipping and taxes. I'm on the fence about holding out for a while longer or getting a Mars.
Hunk a Junk
Sr Member
I just saw this video for the Peopoly Phenom L that can resin print full-sized helmets! It also costs $4K and guzzles Resin. A failed print could cost $100 in unusable resin. Yikes. But still, it just shows how rapidly the tech is developing. Maybe printing an Enterprise saucer isn't that far off after all.
TazMan2000
Master Member
$2000 is a pretty fair price for something that large that can print something large. It looks about the size of a bar fridge, which is what you can tell your wife it is...until she starts putting stuff in it.
TazMan2000
TazMan2000
Utinni
Sr Member
I've had my Elegoo for 2 weeks now and LOVE IT!!! Today I finally killed the first 1000ml bottle, built 55 individual items of all sizes, printed the Mandalorian's pistol, Obi-wan's ANH saber, Indy Staff of Ra and bunch of mini's, only 2 failed prints so far, but I think it was due to weight on the build plate.
For slicing and supports, I found Chitubox 64 (not the update) works great using it with the Photon File Validator. You slice it and save it in Chitubox, then import it into Photon which will check for any unsupported islands, layer by layer. Just go through it with both windows open and snag any missing floating layers and then reslice it in Chitubox and you're good to go!
Once the Saturn comes out, I'm getting it! It's a 4K monochrome screen so longer running hours for equipment and faster and sharper, and build plate is about 3x longer!
- Jeff
For slicing and supports, I found Chitubox 64 (not the update) works great using it with the Photon File Validator. You slice it and save it in Chitubox, then import it into Photon which will check for any unsupported islands, layer by layer. Just go through it with both windows open and snag any missing floating layers and then reslice it in Chitubox and you're good to go!
Once the Saturn comes out, I'm getting it! It's a 4K monochrome screen so longer running hours for equipment and faster and sharper, and build plate is about 3x longer!
- Jeff
harryhoudini
Active Member
In the near future Imagine just pressing print and out comes an unassembled 1/72 Millennium Falcon [emoji16]
Hunk a Junk
Sr Member
That's what I was originally speculating over on the Bandai release thread. Give this technology another ten years (maybe less) and we'll be able to print out something comparable to the perfect grade Falcon. I'd like to see companies with excellent kit experience, like Bandai, push aggressively into the 3D business. They apply their research skills and eyes for detail on content creation to allow people upload and print kits in addition to making the kits directly. This technology is coming whether they like it or not and the companies that embrace it and figure out a way to monetize it are going to own the future.
Hunk a Junk
Sr Member
Thanks Jeff! Really helpful for when I finally open mine. Less than two weeks to go....
I use chitu but i manually place support...
Im not going to repeat what most have already said here as all are good points...
one thing to remember as well handing wet prints from the printer... remember also keep them away from sunlight till after the cleaning process as dripping or pooled resin will also cure and could cause extra areas to clean and correct....
And dont do what i did once where i was handling a messy print got a fair amount of resin on my gloves, and then accidently put my hand in direct sunlight.... ouchy that gets hot, curing resin is exothermic.... and it can get very hot VERY quickly...
I have a photon, and i recently sandted my alu bed with some rough glass paper... i first went with some finer grits around 200 300 and then a bit with some rough 80... this adds extra grip and in my case not enough to make prints impossible to pull... but certainly good enough to come off a slightly worn fep with no problems.
Also resins, youll find youll be going through tons of different brands till you find your go to... Im currently trying monocure under recommendation for its very low shrinkage... but i must addmit elegoo abs like is my main go to. Though apparently it has a rather large shrinkage %, ive not really seen it but for my current project as im casting anyway, i went with the more brittle monocure.
And yes get good thick nytril gloves, vinyl or latex break easly and i think IPA eats them through quickly... When i used them i got tons of IPA and resin on my hands :/ not cool................ will see if i grow any extra fingers.
Oh one last thing to take into consideration. The orientation of the part being printed on the print bed. off angles usually print best, but also less likely to flappy warp. Also suports can be sanded and removed but usually leave little pimple scars. These can be filled with fine filler but try and aim to get those supports attached to unimportant parts of the model where possible.
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Broke out the Mars and started printing today... I printed the mandatory Rooks with no issue at all - it was very simple really.
Now I'm attempting to use chitubox to add supports and slice my first real model. its from "Studio Kitbash" of his first scanned part. its actually too large for the Mars to print, but I'm just doing it as a test to see how it looks form the scanner, and if his models are really printable from the scanner. Tomorrow I think I'll try to figure out the FDM printer and see if I can start dialing in the settings on that one. The Mars was pretty simple to figure out - not that I'm claiming any real expertise at this point... but getting started was 1/2 a day of fiddling around.
Jedi Dade
Now I'm attempting to use chitubox to add supports and slice my first real model. its from "Studio Kitbash" of his first scanned part. its actually too large for the Mars to print, but I'm just doing it as a test to see how it looks form the scanner, and if his models are really printable from the scanner. Tomorrow I think I'll try to figure out the FDM printer and see if I can start dialing in the settings on that one. The Mars was pretty simple to figure out - not that I'm claiming any real expertise at this point... but getting started was 1/2 a day of fiddling around.
Jedi Dade
Darn, it's too big
xeno
Sr Member
In Meshmixer you can cut that up easily
In Meshmixer you can cut that up easily
Oh it's cut up into 176 pieces. Just wanted to see what the whole thing would look like.
Print away!
SB
Well - a bit of an update. took the model and added supports and sliced it... started on the printer and it said it was going to take 84 hours to print... I 'm like OK - I did set it to the max resolution I could etc... I'll let it roll overnight and see where it is. I really wanted to see if the scanned model would print. well today- nothing. The print bed was raised like it would while printing but nothing was attached to the build plate... so take 2. I obviously did something wrong.
Its a learning process...
Jedi Dade
Its a learning process...
Jedi Dade
NS4
Well-Known Member
Some good advise there MD.
I use Monocure resin on my Photon S. To make it a bit less brittle just add 10% of the Flex resin to it. Makes no change to the exposure setting required, either.
Every one of the 600 + kit parts for my Narcissus studio scale replica were printed on the Photon - amazing technology really.
Another tip is to paint resin on any dimples to build them up instead of using filler. Just dip a paint brush in the vat and paint on. Cure in seconds and then sand off the excess. Also works to glue parts together too. Some of the kit parts I didn't want supports on, so I printed them in two halves and glued them together with resin!.
