Looks like that rook was caught in a transporter malfunction. What came back didn't live long...
Looks like that rook was caught in a transporter malfunction. What came back didn't live long...
fortunately.Originally Posted by The Barrelman
It was the exact same process with me! I am also watching this 3d documentary.
Great stuff.
I imagine you would be able to make great fortresses and other shore accessories, and islands, and ...
As Japheth just stated, you are providing a very interesting 3d documentary.
I'm off on another business trip, but I was able to add gunports to the 3D model.
I threw a bit of color on the surfaces as well so the model wasn't just grey, but the gunports are modeled geometry.
I have started thinking in terms of what level of geometry detail will be accurately reproducable at this scale.
The muzzle diameter of a 24 pounder at 1:1000 scale will be about 0.3 mm.
Operation of the 3D Printer is through a small touch pad on the lower front.
This is used effect all commands to the printer.
I thought I would wrap up this tour by demonstrating the use of the touch pad for the standard printer operations.
The touch pad "home screen" includes choices to print a file or setup where you load/change filament.
I'll choose SETUP
At the next screen, I will select LOAD CARTRIDGE and press the NEXT button.
The system asks me if there is filament currently loaded in the system (which there usually is).
press the X in the lower left if NOr the check in the lower right if YES.
I press the check.
The screen advises me to pull the plastic feed tube away from the prpint head.
This is not extremely necessary, but lets you better see what is going on.
What is really happening at this point is that the system is heating the print head to melt the filament that is inside the head so that it can be expelled.
The filament is then fed by the head.
The melted filament is pushed out the bottom of the head by the unmelted filament above it.
Once the system deems the melted filament to be out, the feed reverses to back the unmelted filament up out of the head.
Once the system deems that the unmelted filament is up and clear of the feed machanism,
the touch panel instructs the user to remove the filament from the head.
The filament is extracted. The end of the filament should pull easily revealing a transition section to the filament that was melted and some feed transport marks on the side of the filament (too small to be seen).
The system next instructs you to remove the filament cartridge from the printer.
And admonishes you to recycle the filament that was ejected as part of the head clearing operation.
Printing generates a lot of this, but so far I have givin all of it away as souveniers.
The final instruction of the filament removal process is to replace the setscrew in the side of the cartridge so that the filament does not unravel or become fouled in the cartridge.
In the next installment, we will load the new cartridge.
With the printer clear of filament, it is time to load a new cartridge.
The touch panel advises you to remove the setscrew from the new cartridge.
This is pretty much a fail safe operation as the cartridge can not physically be installed in the printer with the set screw in place.
When finished, press the next button.
The touch panel next instructs that the end of the filament from the cartridge be trimmed.
This is to remove the melted end of a previously extracted cartridge to present a clean filament end to the print head.
I usually do this at the time I remove the cartridge.
When finished, press the next button.
The system instructs that the cartridge be installed in the receptacle on the left side of the machine.
Once the cartridge is detected, a NEXT button appears on the screen .
Push the button to proceed to the next step.
Thread the filament through the long thin filament guide tube and press the NEXT button.
Insert the filament into the machine.
The head will reach temperature and the melted filament will begin to flow.
If there is going to be a load problem, this is the most likely step for it to occur.
Filament feeding into head.
You should extend the filament about 2 inches beyond the tube.
As the filament feeds into the head, this gap is drawn into the machine.
You can use the shrinking gap to monitor the uptake of the filament into the head.
The system advises you to press the filament until the feed mechanism catches it.
This is generally not all that necessary and can be overdone causing filament load issues.
The filament should begin to extrude from the bottom of the head.
You are advised to recycle the extruded filament (more souveniers)
And then advised that the loading operation is complete and that the printer is theoretically ready to produce a perfect printed part.
With the new filament cartridge loaded, we are ready to print an object!
While the system will print from a WiFi connection, it is far easier and stratght forward to print from an attached USB thumb drive.
This time at the start screen, press the PRINT button.
Click throught the files present on the thumb drive.
Files should be located at the drive root and not inside another directory.
When you find the file you want, click on the file name to select it.
The build progress screen will appear.
On the left, the screen tells us that the object we have selected is 58.00 mm tall and that the printer is currently (or about to be) working on the bit of the object that is 0.00 mm up from the bottom of the object.
On the right, the screen tells us that this build will take 1 hour 31 minutes and that there are 1 hour 31 minutes to go in the build.
Should something go wrong with the build (and someone is around to notice), the stop sign button at the center of the screen can be pressed to abort the build.
As the build progresses, the current build level value (top left) will increase in quarter millimeter increments until it reaches the full object height.
The time remaining value (top right) will decrease to zero.
And the build goes on...
It is fairly normal for the very first bit of plastic laid down to have a bit of a gap and possibly the first couple of centimeters not to seat right.
This is not too big a problem as long as the build rights itself quickly. You can always include a raft structure at the bottom of the build so that this start issue, if it happens, happens on a section designed to be discarded.
If all goes well, the object will be completed.
The build platform will drop away from the print head and the printer noise (which sounds a lot like Jetsons sound effects) will stop.
The small notch at the bottom front can be sanded or filed if you wish.
The touch panel will advise that the print has completed, but that will be obvious.
With this post I will wrap up the generic discussion of the 3D printer operation.
Operation of the new print head was running so smoothly that I decided to try printing with the dreaded neon green filament.
The load went well...
The start of the build was a bit shaky (as can be seen at the bottom front) but continued...
But about 20 minutes or so into the build, the wheels came off.
At this point, the neon green filament cartridge has been retired.
Along the way, I had also purchased three additional filament cartridges.
One each in black, brown, and teal blue.
All of these created successful builds.
The teal blue builds were of the shakiest quality.
That color was also the closest to the neon green.
With this small amount of data points, who knows if there is any actual correlation bewteen bright color filament and poorer print quality.
I deem that this brings to a close my initial 3D printer familiarization process.
It is time for me to move on to objects of my own design.
Well done. I will be linking this for future reference.
Those things are just amazing. I wish I had an excuse (and funds!) to get one. Some day....
It is an extravigance, but the prices are coming down rapidly.
I remember when I saw previews for the Macintosh computer for the first time in late 1983 (yeah that dates me a bit) and thinking "I have no practical use for this but I HAVE to have one".
I bought one the first day it was available for order (Jan 1984).
A year later Apple introduced the Laserwriter laser printer.
The Mac and the Laserwriter instantly became the preproduction heart of my family's printing and publishing business.
I believe that the Mac and Laswerwriter each retailed for $2495.
(and that's $2495 in 1984/1985 dollars)
I wasn't able to swing buying a 3D Printer when they first became available.
At that time they were 6 to 7 figures.
Now as the entry point has reached the range of a nice laptop I couldn't resist.
This had much the same feel as buying that original Mac.
When I bought it, it was not with some well thought out logical plan,
it was just too cool not to.
I hear you! Of course, when friends (technically their families) were jumping on Macs I was blissfully happy with my 8088 XT IBM clone, 10MB hard drive (oh baby!) and 2400b modem (one of the hottest in town among all the 300/1200 local users). I only had Mac envy when I saw one of my friends playing Autoduel.
Now...3D Printer Envy...that's a whole different thing and I have it bad.
As someone who is pretty much on the tailing end of technology, having been called a Luddite on many occasions, I must admit that the thought of a 3D printer capable of making on-demand game pieces is pretty awesome. Of course by the time I learn how to use one, we'll have put a man on the moon.
That is my balk point as well. The articles I have read definitely make it seem that producing the file needed to print that thing is not a layperson's endeavor. Whereas using a printer only required my typing skills with a few modifications for using ms word (not much if you are just typing up a simple document) instead of an electric typewriter. It seems that the skill set needed here in not inline with carpentry, but more engineering/drafting AND programming or graphic design (and I am a novice with illustrator).
Japheth, you just gave me an idea. My wife studied engineering and computer science, worked in software and systems for 20 years, and now does graphic design. This is her birthday present. Of course, the only real use she will have for it is war-game minis.
We were at a friend's this weekend, and his daughter just made a small sailing ship via a 3D printer. Sue thought it was really cool. Thanks to Bruce, I knew more about the process than anyone at the table. Thank you Bruce!
Yes, mastering the 3D Modeling software is the big hurdle here and it doesn't happen overnight.
Luckily for me, I got bedazzled by and drawn into that world a long time ago (although in this galaxy).
Very, very interesting thread
Makes consider the aquisition of one 3D printer... someday in the far, far future
Theres no way I could justify the expense to "She, who sees all"
Anyway, a very good read, thanks for the effort !
There has got to be SOMETHING you could print up she wants that would suddenly justify it.Very, very interesting thread
Makes consider the aquisition of one 3D printer... someday in the far, far future
Theres no way I could justify the expense to "She, who sees all"
Anyway, a very good read, thanks for the effort !
Hehehe, I will think of something
You have put in a lot of time and effort (not to metion money) on this! You are the path finder for all of us that have considered this.
Indeed, if not for this thread, I would not be considering it, not even remotely
Following this thread I have just put my son, who is an aeronautical engineer onto building me one. Hey that's what kids are for. So he is huddled over books, writing on mysterious prices of paper and coming up with a design. Now to get his brother to foot the bill
Indeed, if not for this thread, I would not be considering it, not even remotelyThis is a very exciting time in the 3D printer world.Following this thread I have just put my son, who is an aeronautical engineer onto building me one. Hey that's what kids are for. So he is huddled over books, writing on mysterious prices of paper and coming up with a design. Now to get his brother to foot the bill
The landsape is changing daily and the prices are dropping!
There are also new companies entering the market all the time as well.
The waiting times on the Makerbot machine I was looking at originally are dropping quickly as well (I would have gotten one of those but at the time the wait was multiple months).
Other technologies are also faster and more precise, but also much more costly.
Moore's Law is, however, very actively at work on all of this so the longer you can hold out the more bang you get for your buck.
(Yes, I'm one to talk... but I have held out for months without buying an upmarket machine! Though there may have been a purchase of mass quantities of small ship models that impacted that timeline.)
All the pictures in this thread seems to be damaged, can they pls be reuploaded?
Bruce (RichardPF) was posting the pictures and working with 3D printers. Unfortunately, he has not been logged on or posting since April.
Thats very sad as the posts look to be very interresting but are nearly useless without the pictures.
I hope he is well when he didn't log in for such long time.
I believe Eric tried to contact him by e-mail, but I don't know if he ever had a return.Thats very sad as the posts look to be very interresting but are nearly useless without the pictures.
I hope he is well when he didn't log in for such long time.
Unfortunately, I don't think Bruce will be back anytime soon. I will let him know he is missed.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
I too miss Richard's thread, and as a newcomer I never even got the benefit of seeing his pics when they were still viewable.
Having said that -- I'm still actively working on a 3D print project to make 1/1000 minis. Learning my way through the design software has been a complex process, but progress continues....
I have one ship I'm doing as a trial run and proof of concept. It's the brig Niagara, from the Lake Erie campaign of 1813. I modeled the port hull from the naval drawings in Freeship, a program that people use to make real ships. That went well. Using Meshmixer, I mirrored the port side to make a full hollow hull. Then it took a while to clean up the mesh and figure out the best way to put a deck on it. Eventually I realized the best way is to make it a solid hull, which means all, I have to do is sculpt or push down the top face to sink the deck down below the sheerline. That's my current headache and I haven't managed to accomplish it yet. But each new challenge teaches me something.
I think 3D prints and community-made accessories are they keys to SOG having a future. It's just not going to be enough for players to wait for the official Ares models to trickle out. Gamers are impatient and will move on to other things. So things like the Anchorage, player-made scenarios, and player made models are essential to creating the necessary community around the game for it to gain audience and keep evolving.
Maybe don't print it as one piece.
The hull of the models from ares games are made of about 7 pieces and then glued together.
1 stern, 2 buttom parts, 2 sides, 1 deck, 1 bow piece.
That's really interesting to know -- thanks.
I can try splitting the model in more ways, if necessary.
At the moment, I'm flummoxed because 123D Design seems unwilling to recognize my flush deck as a face of the object. It may be considering the entire hull and deck as one face, so I can't select the deck face to transform it.
The software CAD tools are really the obstacle now that keep 3D printing from becoming a household technology. The pro tools cost a lot and are complex. The freeware tools are great, but have spotty documentation and still have a long way to go to become user -friendly or get all the needed capabilities into one package. The "killer app" is still waiting to be made, IMHO.
Gina, have you tried SolidWorks? I dabbled a little with it when I was starting to look into CNC-machining my own gun parts, and while I found it a little beyond my entry-level skillset it may help you.
I'm trying to get Roberto to put together an article about how these ships are made, too...
If they have two bottom parts, does that mean they also have Buttcrack? >;)
I guess that pun tuchus by surprise. ;)
*puts boot up French's arse*
If you manage to print parts of the ship i think many are interrested in getting some parts for modding/painting, also masts and sails would be a good thing for modders.
What i would ask for is also some of this blue plastic bases as my ships will be stored with sea bases and i will for gaming take the ship and put it in another base.
I don't think ares will sell this bases alone, so it will be difficult to get some.
Gina, it might help to look around for other free software. I wouldn't be much help, currently sitting on a few years of free AutoCAD 2014 (the perks of being a student ^w^), but there is likely many programs to use, Blender is a very popular modeling program, I have a friend who does great things with it. I heard Freeship mentioned, a quick search found me delftship, which has a free version that claims to work with 3D printers, might create the main hull there and use your modeling/CAD software for the parts it can't do, like masts, sails, cannons, all that.
My point I guess is since you haven't paid any money for software, don't be afraid to keep looking for a program you like better, there's plenty out there, some decent, some not worth the electrons they're written on, and others that are great at what they do.
I'd love to see some of your progress shots!
Purely out of curiosity, what type of cost would setting up a 3-D printer entail? What would the cost be of printing ships?
I find this 3-D printing fascinating, even if it is well beyond my technological capabilities.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
Thanks for the suggestions. OK, here are two shots:
Below, the hull modeled in Freeship from the ship's plans:
Freeship exports one side of the hollow hull to STL format. So I mirrored it using Blender to make the complete hollow hull, then exported into Netfabb to check for and fix flaws in thickness and the mesh. In Meshmixer I also use a lot of sculpt brushes to smooth the model and get better edges along the sheerline. Netfabb didn't like the empty shape, so it also automatically capped the hull at the sheerline. This wasn't a bad thing, however, because it gave me a surface I could use in Meshmixer to select, smooth and extrude along the negative Y axis to make a deck at the proper level below the bulwarks:
Next I'll use more little extrusions to pull square, creased shapes up from the deck to make the deck fixtures -- the companionways, skylights, etc., that keep the deck from looking too naked. Or, I might use 123D Design instead to place premade blocks and square shapes down on the deck and join them to the model.
It's important to remember that at 1/1000 scale, this hull of 123 feet would be only about 1.5 inches long, and with the bowsprit would be only 2.4 inches total. So I'm keeping deck detail to a minimum -- just the basic shapes and a series of little bumps along the gunports that I can paint black to suggest the carronades. Gunports, of course, will be painted on and not actually cut.
After the deck detail is done I just need to sculpt out a little U shape at the prow where the bowsprit will emerge from the bulwark. Then the hull is done.
The masts come next. Since someone is already selling a reasonable-looking 3D printed Sails of Glory first-rate foremast with battle sails on Shapeways ($4.00), it shouldn't be too hard to figure out a 3D design for the masts/sails I need.
As a final step, the parts get imported into a program called Mattercontrol, which turns STL files into the kind of files that 3D printers actually print. By setting up a dummy printer and running a file, I can get Mattercontrol to tell me whether a part would actually print, how long it would take, and how many ccs of filament it would use.
I should know a lot more in the next month or so, when I print this ship out. I just want to see whether it can look close enough to the quality of the Ares models that with some paint, etc., 3D printed ships would be viable alternatives to get more variety into the game. This first ship is the hardest because I've had to learn the tools and figure out the best workflow as I go.
Subsequent ships could be made in a fairly short time. The Great Lakes fleets really interest me but they'd all be very small models like this. I'd also like to try a merchant ship, and a privateer, because they would expand SGN scenario possibilities. Filament is not expensive at all. It's the printing and assembly/painting time and logistics that daunt me -- that's what might keep me from being able to offer them commercially or in any quantity, since I'm sure I can't (and don't intend to) compete with those poor souls in China. But the real promise of 3D printing isn't mass production; it's custom production at home for one's own use and enjoyment, or to share and exchange with friends.
All the software tools I've mentioned here are freeware, by the way -- or basic free versions of tools that have higher-level, paid versions with additional features. I'm amazed that these exist, and I'm very grateful. They make all kinds of creative experiments and art projects feasible.
Eric, this little guy ran ~$100 on Kickstarter: http://www.peachyprinter.com/#!printer-specs/c1gk6
Or check this site: http://www.3ders.org/pricecompare/3dprinters/
Of course, you can always roll your own: http://www.instructables.com/id/Buil...ography-at-Ho/
I need to find one with a 3d-scanner capability to make some custom parts for a model I'm building... basically, chop off the entire right half of a CH-53E's "sail" structure and replace it with a mirror image of the left to turn a 3-engine chopper into a 4-engine one.
It would basically be the price of the printer and spool of plastic, and software if you aren't using the free stuff. There are services online where you can print out things and have them shipped to you, like shapeways, one of the nice things about them is you can use the really good stuff without having to pay for the printer, just the time and material. Most printers that are in a personal pricerange are limited by their definition and materials, but with the online services you can use higher definitions and better materials (including metals, in some cases) that would be out of your pricerange if you were going to buy a printer capable of that on your own.
Looks great, I've been very curious how freeship would handle the AoS hull lines, they look very nice.Thanks for the suggestions. OK, here are two shots:
Below, the hull modeled in Freeship from the ship's plans:
Freeship exports one side of the hollow hull to STL format. So I mirrored it using Blender to make the complete hollow hull, then exported into Netfabb to check for and fix flaws in thickness and the mesh. In Meshmixer I also use a lot of sculpt brushes to smooth the model and get better edges along the sheerline. Netfabb didn't like the empty shape, so it also automatically capped the hull at the sheerline. This wasn't a bad thing, however, because it gave me a surface I could use in Meshmixer to select, smooth and extrude along the negative Y axis to make a deck at the proper level below the bulwarks:
Next I'll use more little extrusions to pull square, creased shapes up from the deck to make the deck fixtures -- the companionways, skylights, etc., that keep the deck from looking too naked. Or, I might use 123D Design instead to place premade blocks and square shapes down on the deck and join them to the model.
It's important to remember that at 1/1000 scale, this hull of 123 feet would be only about 1.5 inches long, and with the bowsprit would be only 2.4 inches total. So I'm keeping deck detail to a minimum -- just the basic shapes and a series of little bumps along the gunports that I can paint black to suggest the carronades. Gunports, of course, will be painted on and not actually cut.
After the deck detail is done I just need to sculpt out a little U shape at the prow where the bowsprit will emerge from the bulwark. Then the hull is done.
The masts come next. Since someone is already selling a reasonable-looking 3D printed Sails of Glory first-rate foremast with battle sails on Shapeways ($4.00), it shouldn't be too hard to figure out a 3D design for the masts/sails I need.
As a final step, the parts get imported into a program called Mattercontrol, which turns STL files into the kind of files that 3D printers actually print. By setting up a dummy printer and running a file, I can get Mattercontrol to tell me whether a part would actually print, how long it would take, and how many ccs of filament it would use.
I should know a lot more in the next month or so, when I print this ship out. I just want to see whether it can look close enough to the quality of the Ares models that with some paint, etc., 3D printed ships would be viable alternatives to get more variety into the game. This first ship is the hardest because I've had to learn the tools and figure out the best workflow as I go.
Subsequent ships could be made in a fairly short time. The Great Lakes fleets really interest me but they'd all be very small models like this. I'd also like to try a merchant ship, and a privateer, because they would expand SGN scenario possibilities. Filament is not expensive at all. It's the printing and assembly/painting time and logistics that daunt me -- that's what might keep me from being able to offer them commercially or in any quantity, since I'm sure I can't (and don't intend to) compete with those poor souls in China. But the real promise of 3D printing isn't mass production; it's custom production at home for one's own use and enjoyment, or to share and exchange with friends.
All the software tools I've mentioned here are freeware, by the way -- or basic free versions of tools that have higher-level, paid versions with additional features. I'm amazed that these exist, and I'm very grateful. They make all kinds of creative experiments and art projects feasible.
Looking forward to seeing how she survives being shipped to you from shapeways, hope you can make the masts survive.
I wonder about the durability of printed models for something delicate like masts...?
Thanks for the replies, DB and Targe. Quite a range of prices on the one link.
I wondered if the "affordable" ones would be able to produce detailed and durable items.
I imagine like other technology, the price will continue to drop while the quality will continue to improve. If the price-quality mix ever reaches a certain point, I might buy Sue a present. With 15mm WWII armor, buildings, etc., such a thing could pay for itself.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
Fred, depends on what it's printed out of, many options to choose from.
Eric, where the tech is at now I don't think you would be able to get as much detail as we'd like at affordable prices, but you are very right with your last part, prices will go down and quality will go up as time goes on. At some point I easily see the biggest barrier to entry being the modeling/CAD software, not anything to do with the printer itself.
Gina, since you've downloaded Freeship, could you do some snooping for me? does it output to .dwg? That's what my AutoCAD uses, so if I can import straight to a program I already am familiar with, will be a very good program for me to pick up.
Yeah, as if it wasn't already readily apparent, I love 3d printers, used them in high school a bit, kept an eye on the tech ever since, I love what they're doing with them already, and am doing my best to keep abreast with the latest news.
So my other question is--where are we at with COLOR 3D printing? If I could avoid having to paint it, then it would really start getting interesting...
Targe, fortunately for me, I have a wife with a BS in EE, an MS in Computer Science, 20 years of software engineering experience, and the past 6 years doing graphic design. All I have to do is ask her to make some tanks, show her some pictures, and stand back watching the magic occur. She has the brains, beauty, and talent. I eat. It has been a great partnership.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
Color printing is tricky. There are very many ways to print in 3d, and some are better with color than others.
One of the older technologies is very good at it, but has it's downfalls. This version is you have two tubs with moveable bottoms, one filled with a fine powder, a small layer is moved onto the other tub, and a liquid adhesive is deposited onto the powder, the tub moves down, another layer is moved onto it, and the process repeats until the item is finished. Since it's basically a laserjet printer, you can easily get a wide range of colors at decent details, but the end result is an item that is very fragile, I don't think making game pieces using this type of printer is a good idea.
What most printers use now is also like a laserjet printer, but instead of ink it heats a spool of plastic to about 200 degrees F, and deposits it onto a tray that moves up and down. There are some versions of this that have a second spool of support plastic that is dissolved in a bath of very caustic acid once everything is cooled down, this is good for some of the more adventurous builds, and could come in handy with ships, but they cost more and the acid isn't cheap either, this is the kind I have the most experience with.
The downside of this is, while yes they do make colored spools, the options are fairly limited, I doubt you can mix them, and you lose a lot of definition at the scale we're using, you would likely end up painting over it anyways. Also, if you do use the acid one, the acid stains the plastic to a dull yellow often, I've seen it go to a shade of brown about the same as the "Thread Information" box below here.
Eric, another great thing about having it done in house, don't have to pay commission!
Last edited by RotS-Targe; 09-11-2014 at 12:23. Reason: This thread moves fast O.O
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