TOS Communicator Build
- Thread starter turner3d
- Start date
This is fantastic your a treasure.
turner3d
Active Member
I think I may have just gotten a little closer to a passable haircell texture from a P1S FDM 3d printer.
The texture of my current build on the left looks pretty good at a distance, but sort of like a grippy rubberized texture up close. I think it's getting a lot closer with the one on the right that I just printed - I think the scale of the texture is much closer in all dimensions.
These the key settings to get this texture in Orca Slicer on my P1S - must be Orca 2.3.0 to do multi-layer textures.
The texture of my current build on the left looks pretty good at a distance, but sort of like a grippy rubberized texture up close. I think it's getting a lot closer with the one on the right that I just printed - I think the scale of the texture is much closer in all dimensions.
These the key settings to get this texture in Orca Slicer on my P1S - must be Orca 2.3.0 to do multi-layer textures.
- System Preset: 0.08mm High Quality @BBLX1C
- Fuzzy skin: Contour
- Fuzzy skin noise type: Voronoi
- Fuzzy skin point distance: 0.02mm
- Fuzzy skin thickness: 0.05mm
- Fuzzy skin feature size: 0.3mm
turner3d
Active Member
If you're waiting for the release, I am working on it - the stand and this texture refinement are part of it. Most of the images in this thread are of my own hollowed out version, filled with a motorized moire, battery, sound board, speaker, magnetic reed switch, etc. This image, which will be in the assembly guide, is of the solid version which I will be releasing initially. I may eventually come out with a sound/animation version with a parts list, but it will use different components than I'm currently using in mine.
Anyway, here's a little sneak peek!
Anyway, here's a little sneak peek!
turner3d
Active Member
Drumroll please... It has been released on cgtrader!
cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/art/scans-replicas/star-trek-tos-communicator
cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/art/scans-replicas/star-trek-tos-communicator
turner3d
Active Member
Thanks! I highly recommend you use the included 3mf file in Orca 2.3 - it has all the fuzzy skin modifiers in place and a bunch of other tweaks. The shells will take 5+ hours each to print with those settings, but it's worth it, IMHO
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turner3d
Active Member
Cool - yeah, that 3mf won't work in Bambu slicer - it only has one plate. Also, the fuzzy skin settings in the assembly manual are better than the earlier ones from this thread, but they'll only work in Orca. If you know how to use Bambu slicer, you already know Orca - it's free and exactly the same thing but better in many ways. You can have Bambu & Orca both installed at the same time without messing anything up, too. Old-school completely random fuzzy skin will work too, but not quite as well. - there are fuzzy-skin modifier meshes in the zips that let you put the fuzzy skin only where it belongs.Thanks. I couldn't get the 3mf file to load into Bambu Slicer (it said that the file was newer than the latest version of Bambu). So, I imported the shells and applied the fuzzy settings that you published on the page.
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If you're feeling adventurous, you should try it - Orca Slicer » 3D Printing Slicer - Download Now [Official] - the communicator 3mf has TONS of stuff pre-tweaked, layer heights, seams, supports, etc.
I was able to finally load the .3mf file by installing the beta version of Bambu Studio after having received several errors while trying to update and install the newer version of Orca Slicer. I was surprised by the print time though for Plate 01, at 1d4h24m38s print time for the shells with the fuzzy texture using Bambu black ABS filament.
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turner3d
Active Member
That's a bummer - I've never had any issues with Orca installation. But yes - if you can get the Voronoi fuzzy skin noise type to work and use a .08mm high quality preset, it will take 10+ hours on a P1S to print the black plate with both shells and the stand base. The key to quality prints is definitely patience.
turner3d
Active Member
It may be a while - I'm not happy with the behavior of the DFPlayer board on its own, and I need to take a different approach. It sounds great, but its firmware design and the way it handles long-pressed inputs makes it a poor fit. Long pressing a switch connected to the chip starts a repeating loop of the sound, but only after a 1-second delay (used to determine if it's going to be a long press) The switch that is closed by the antenna opening always registers as a long press, so the communicator chirp is first delayed by a full second and then plays on a loop.
As a hack, I edited in a bunch of silence on the end of the communicator audio file, but it's still delayed way too long before playback starts and will keep chirping on its own every 30 seconds or so even after the antenna is closed. To get it to stop, you have to open it and then close it really fast - this makes it chirp again, but then it stops. There's no charitable way to put it: that sucks.
I may make another version using a Proffieboard, an open source sound board designed for light sabers that has a built-in microcontroller. With that, I could write my own firmware to make it behave like it should. Long story short (too late), I won't release plans for an electronic version until it works much better than this one. If it's any consolation, I did include STEP files in the release so that the communicator 3d files can be easily edited and hollowed out in Onshape, Fusion, etc.
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turner3d
Active Member
The communicator on the left is the product of running through all of the plates in the 3mf of my freshly-released communicator model to make sure that I didn't miss anything - supports, custom seams, layer heights, textures, etc. It's printed in red because I have lots of red filament, but there's something oddly satisfying about it. I think it looks like maybe it just got hit by a phaser and has only a few milliseconds left of existence
Force Commander
Sr Member
It is the MEGO version of the Klingon communicator.
turner3d
Active Member
turner3d
Active Member
I picked up some gold leaf Rub 'n Buff today to try and make the antenna look less like the 3d-printed plastic that it is and more like brass, and I gotta say - I don't hate it. It looks good enough that I think I'm going to print a new antenna and do it right with multiple filler primer/sanding passes. This one was only sanded a little.
turner3d
Active Member
Could the metal Communicator parts available on Ebay be adapted to your design?
