Firefox MIG-31 movie aircraft

Well, the Photocentic HR printer arrived with a damaged cover and the screen not working, Parcelfarce (misspelling intended) obviously treated it with care...

Cover not the end of the world as the seller can claim and refund me, and the screen cable had been jolted loose so was an easy fix. Very well built machine, large touch screen and easy to use web interface which allows pause and raise mid-print - which proved to be necessary.

Then the pain of getting used to a new printer. Many failures, which turned out to be a combination of factors, as they usually are with these things. The Firm resin I was using that came with the printer might be bad, or has deteriorated. Had random infuriating failures, which I worked out seems to be a bug if you re-use the same file name and don't clear the previous print job, so it essentially runs the same job again!

Switched to the Hard resin yesterday which has a bit more shrink (Firm has virtually zero) and with 10% more exposure time came down to a finished 1/24th rear engine print this morning, seriously I nearly cried with joy.

IMG_20171127_110901.jpgIMG_20171127_110927.jpg

Pre-cleanup still with excess resin dripping, close to the full build platform size about 18cm wide.

There are a couple of glitches, the top edge I realised is very thin at about 0.6mm and missing a tiny bit due printing flat and at 0.1mm layer resolution. Also a couple of missed parts in the crease of the parsons nose bit, think it needs an extra support or the wall has a thin spot. The inner small engine details and 1mm thick wall came out well.

Now just have to prise it off the build platform in one piece...
 
Thanks Robert,

Turns out hard is too hard, nearly broke it in half getting it off the build plate, shrinkage was quite small although it's not fully cured yet. Now I know the exposure needs to be higher I think the firm resin might well be ok.

Discovered my main body parts printed in ABS are a bit undersized, must be shrinkage, so need to under-size the resin parts 0.5% to match for this one. Also realised I forgot to include the rear defence pods into the print.

As the Photocentric resin is sensibly priced it's tempting to resin print the whole thing, would be a lot less sanding and re-scribing panel lines, lol!
 
I really like seeing your build.I'm looking for info on the front cockpit area. Hopefully cockpit dimensions.I'm planning on building a hovercraft and like the design.I'm also a model builder.Thanks Johnny5
 
So this is what 3D printing should look like, 2nd attempt in Firm rather than Hard resin. Extended the base an made V cuts for pressure relief, so need to sand off about 3mm. I think I could get away with multiple thin supports as it might be better as there is some shrinkage, as long as the tension doesn't fracture the supports.

IMG_20171203_153346.jpgIMG_20171203_153407.jpgIMG_20171203_153514.jpgIMG_20171203_153622.jpg

Almost perfect after an 8 hour print at 0.1mm layers, the layers hardly show up at all, in fact only visible on the circular lower part. Defence pods look good, holes fractionally undersize, but hard to tell. I realised I should have scrubbed the part a bit more before UV curing, there was a bit of residue which set to the part - hence the sanding marks.

There is a tiny bit of warping even with the Firm resin, hardly detectable, about 0.4mm from the midline to the long outside edge.

IMG_20171203_153728.jpg

Small failure where the panel line took the wall thickness down to around 0.6mm, not the end of the world, I can fill it with resin an UV zap to set it. Due to the open nature of the software I can manually drop the peel speed for those layers, and maybe reduce the depth of that panel line.

IMG_20171203_145327.jpgIMG_20171203_152536.jpg

20 hour print currently in progress, nose, 2 canards and 2 tailplanes at 1/24th. As the layer time is long, around 40 seconds, it makes sense to fill the build platform.

I cut off the sections of the tailplanes with thin horizontal details to print separately in optimum vertical orientation, can't see the relevant bits in the pics but it looks like this.
Firefox 1-12 Tailplanes.jpg

Tried the near impossible print, super fine detail of the 1/48th exhaust on the Formlabs.....nearly worked

IMG_20171203_163324.jpgIMG_20171203_163658.jpg

I think it will work with a different resin, the Funtodo resin pigment separates so fast that it causes the over-cure ripples. The tips are just too thin so will almost double them I think.

I am fairly confident that 1/48th is possible again, using Photocentric resin on both printers.
 
Johnny5 said:
I really like seeing your build.I'm looking for info on the front cockpit area. Hopefully cockpit dimensions.I'm planning on building a hovercraft and like the design.I'm also a model builder.Thanks Johnny5
Click to expand...

Do you mean real hovercraft or model?

Either way I can give you some dimensional plans.
 
A real hovercraft. I belong to the hovercraft club of america. I have a set of plans of a UH-15P hovercraft from Universal hovercraft.It's speedboat shaped.Most of the craft aren't enclosed and i thought the Firefox might give it a cool look to.I've pretty much exhausted my search online.Thanks, Johnny5
 
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IMG_20171204_011553.jpgIMG_20171204_011605.jpg

Quick pics as the other parts are curing and it's late here.

Really can't fault the Photocentric printer, the defence pod parts printed with no support with virtually horizontal start surfaces, brilliant.
 
Johnny5 said:
A real hovercraft. I belong to the hovercraft club of america. I have a set of plans of a UH-15P hovercraft from Universal hovercraft.It's speedboat shaped.Most of the craft aren't enclosed and i thought the Firefox might give it a cool look to.I've pretty much exhausted my search online.Thanks, Johnny5
Click to expand...

Will certainly look cool. I can do plan views direct from Sketchup with measurements.

Send me a PM.

Jon
 
PM - Private message

I will need to send you files so - click on my username (Firefox3D) on any post, then click send email
 
IMG_20171204_234932.jpgIMG_20171204_234829.jpgIMG_20171204_234746.jpg

Totally overdid the support sizes so had to do some very careful dremelling, I think even the thin canopy frame parts will print without supports ok, maybe just one small contact patch one. The details is not quite as crisp as on the Formlabs, but much cleaner, the rivets on the dash panel aren't bad though.

IMG_20171204_235147.jpg

Nice! totally square and virtually zero warp after curing and this is the hard resin which shrinks the most. There is a slight over-cure happening as the tip should be 1.5mm thick and it's around 1.7mm but it gives a bit of leeway for a light sand.

The glitch near the bottom, also present on the other parts is where I paused the print and raised it out of the tank to check all was going well. Found out it happens as the resin continues to cure it takes more power to make it stick together, so you get a bit of undercure for a few layers afterwards.

Running a test print of another canard with the flexible resin, see how flexible it is compared to hard.

Kept looking at colours as the Peugeot blue is a bit too blue for a base colour. On a trip to visit my Mum in hospital a couple of months ago I saw a Volvo that looked a better match. After some detective work found out it's called Barents Blue, fitting name as the Barents sea is close to the flightpath it took. Picked a can today and tried a quick test, looks good.

**Update**

IMG_20171205_113610.jpg

Barents blue is top left, Peugeot blue top right, and Peugeot blue with silver and black base bottom row. The Barents blue looks very close, possibly too metallic and could look overdone at 1/48th scale, so will look for a standard colour alternative in Tamiya or Humbrol now I have a good colour reference in my hand so to speak.

Flexible resin is REALLY flexible, as in the canard end droops under it's own weight flexible, lol.
 
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Thanks guys, it's nice when things come out as you expect them to.

Doing some quick calculations and I think it actually makes sense to do 1/48th kits as direct prints. With 1.5mm walls the amount of resin needed is not that much and can do most of a 1/48th model in one print as below.

CreationWorkshop.jpg

That's everything apart from the wings at 0.05mm layers, a 17 hour print is fine, set it off before I go to bed and it will be done when I get back home. Clean, setup, go again.

It means there will be a bit of a wait to get kits out, (I guess a few more weeks after how ever long it's been is irrelevant, lol) but you will get super clean parts no resin bubbles to deal with, etc. Also not that I want to make myself more work, but I could be talked into missile bays and landing gear options, I might really regret typing that...

I am definitely going full resin print for my 1/24th now, will take around a week of printing, actually around the same time it took in ABS.

Tracked down some 0.75mm clear acrylic for the cockpit windows which should look scale correct at 1/24th and maybe not too much for 1/48th, and hopefully it will superglue to the resin.

I was toying with the idea of printing the 1/48th nose in clear resin, but not sure it would look clear enough and not yellow with time. Photocentric do a clear resin for the Formlabs that they say is optically clear and hardly yellows over time.

The flexible resin is mad, I can literally bend the canard I printed back on itself then straighten it out with no harm done. It's like rubbery gasket material. No idea what you could actually use it for, stress toys maybe...;)
 
1/48 canard test, think it needs a second or two less exposure per layer, but pretty darn good. The Firm resin is strong enough even this thin which is good as it has virtually no shrinkage.
IMG_20171207_170005.jpg

The surface texture/noise looks worse in the pic than person. I think it's an effect of the anti-aliasing differences layer to layer. I have worked out you can get a blip when the bottom of the build surface clears the resin. I need to build a boxing barrier to stop the resin flowing over/off the build platform. Photocentric have added it to the later versions of the printer.

Printed at an angle to maximise the resolution of the vertical panel lines, I did one straight first (only 8 hours, lol) and the verticals were a bit soft vs the horizontals.

Spent last night fixing a bit on the tailplanes I had forgot about and increasing the panel line depth, think I miscalculated originally. Now altering the exhaust model as I think I might be able to get it to print at 1/48th on the Photocentric.
 

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