OK - Something I Printed

I've been rather less than generous with pictures of the 3D printed stuff, which is a rip since the idea is to see what I've been doing. Right?

Here's something I printed for a friend. He bought into their Kickstarter and then started sending me files and lists of what he wanted. I picked this one as the first print because it was going to take the longest.

I painted the miniature that's on there for a sense of scale. He's on a one inch square base.

This was four separate prints - first floor, second floor, roof, and doors. The total print time was 156 hours and it took over a kilo (one spool) of filament hence the purple snow on the roof.

Yes. You read that right. 156 hours to print this. That's what 3D printing is about. It's about waiting. The layers on this were 0.2mm each so it took five passes to make 1mm of print. I'll let you try to do the math on how many layers there were.

Here's the link to the file so you can see their painted pictures and the detail inside. It's pretty intense on the first floor.

https://www.printablescenery.com/product/library-of-ithillia/

I used up that orange-ish filament I'd had sitting around for a while and now I'm working on the purple. Due to getting a monthly subscription box I end up with spools of filament in colors I wouldn't have chosen for myself. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it isn't. He's getting prints out of the colors I don't like.

It's all right! He's going to paint it and I confirmed that he was fine with odd color prints. The printer makes it easy to change filament so that's a plus. I haven't enabled the sensor to pause the printer when it runs out of filament because I've heard about too many failures both ways - false positives and not working as it's supposed to work. I time the prints so I can be around when the filament will run out and I can swap in the next roll.

I posted this picture on Facebook - in some 3D printing for tabletop/gaming groups, in the printer group, and on my own page. I wanted to show it off. The sheer size of it is impressive. I take no credit for the design but it's a darn good print.

If that's all you want to know then you can stop here. I'm going to proceed with everything that's wrong with it and why. No. I don't and won't have pictures of that.

1 - Stringing. Inside the smaller curves the plastic didn't adhere well enough and it pulled out into strings. It happened because of the way the print cooling fan directs air. I haven't found a replacement fan shroud that minimizes this and I may take a crack at designing one myself. But there's very little if anything I can do in the print settings to help this one.

2 - Drooping. This is the opposite of what happens when the print gets cool too fast. When it doesn't cool fast enough the plastic can sag away from the previous layer. So you get little loops of filament. This happened on the sides where the print fan can't get an adequate amount of air in time. Again it comes down to something I can't change.

These problems happened due to the way the print fan shroud directs air and the size of the print. I couldn't move it around so that it was minimized or eliminated. I feel bad with the amount of cleanup he's doing to have to do but a lot of it isn't immediately visible or is in parts (like the inside of the roof) where it doesn't matter as much.

It's not perfect but it's darn pretty.