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Hi,
I wanted to share a work in progress for some printed tarantulas. They are supposed to join my mechanicum army and will be therefore done in redish over metal.
modeling took a few hours in inventor and the print quality is superb. The upper surfaces are as good or better than forgeworld. the lower surfaces are built during the print on a wax support material which leave a slightly different texture than upper surfaces. the main build material is a uv hardening acrylic resin. seems to be as hard as acrylic sheets - in other words ridiculous hard.
as this is just a test there are not little decorating pips representing rivets. but the print quality looks good enough to try that next.
print took nearly 8 hours but stays same with multiple copies. I also do CNC work and the surface finish of this printer is as good as you will get it with a ball nose cutter on a good hobby grade CNC machine.
As for material cost: each tarantula weights 15 gram and with the print material at around 700euro per 2kg, each models costs about 5euro in material alone. added to that is the cost of the support material which is a bit cheaper but mostly likely weights a bit more.

long story short: for mechanical models we have now reached the time when the prints are as good as forgeworld - but prices work out about the same.

here the pictures:



Edit: after a quick paintjob:

i want to stay with the general paintscheme but feel that the tarrantula is a bit too bland. with the big forgeworld models that paintscheme works (at least in my opinion) because there is much to see. with the much smaller tarantula it becomes a bit boring. not sure what to do about it.
best regards
alex

Looks great!

Interesting, and thanks for adding some info to the printing debate. What machine are you using?

Looks pretty dope bro.

So let me ask you something, if one had to slap a price on this, what would it be? Say a single unit, before shipping.

Just curious.

Very very cool. This bodes well for the future of mini's.

1. You are a badass modeller.
2. Inventor? You are also insane.
3. Printed? HELLS YES!

That does look really good... and I actually quite like the texture on the legs, for bare metal.

Its pretty fantastic. that's for sure.

What about durability though

Hardness is one thing, how brittle is it?

That isn't as detailed as the "original"; how does that material handle fine details?

Happy that you like it

answers from the last to the first comment:

The model is not as detailed as FW. that has to do with my laziness and inaptitude at model things like imperial aquilas ^^. the details, e.g. the sharpness of corners, the surface finish is as good as FW. you might get an idea from the cooling ribs on the lascannons. where these things suffer is where acrylic materials has to be layed down on the wax support. there you have the details a bit muddled or might even see layering. this might be mitigated with better print planing and possible model slicing to avoid overhangs. in short: fine details to the level of cooling ribs no problem at all, smallest possible ones preferably on the upper side of the model to avoid wax interface texture marks. or a more technical answer: the printer does a bit over 700 DPI in ultra high definition mode.

Durability: i havent managed to break a part yet. if you have ever worked with acrylic then i can say it seem to be nearly identical in density, hardness and brittleness. a friend printed a watch dial and printed the outer ring a fraction of a millimeter thick. the effect was that the inner ring can plopp back and forth like its connected with a living plastic hinge.

inventor = badass ^^ actually inventor pro is also available via the autodesk education program for free to anybody in a school or similar institution. i have tried the majority of cad programs (at least the common ones, and i have never gotten used to maya and max style modelling. their vertex based modelling might be awesome for organic things, but inventor is soooo much easier for mechanical models. try it out its totally awesome.

Price: first there is a little bit labor involved. the model has to be detached from the print support (chuck it in the freezer for 15min). and then the wax support material has to be removed (models for 20 min in dry oven and then 10 min in a hot soapy sonication bath). these things scale very well with the number of models you print at one time. Material (acrylic + support) works out to about 10euro per model. so labor and material about 15$ per model or for a unit of 3 that would be 45$ There would be no profit yet and no down payment for the printer. so the 17GBP, 23 euro or 26$ forgeworld is charging could be a feasible price overall. two problem though: design would have to be changed to avoid legal troubles. just leaving off the aquila wouldnt be enough. and second the price goes up nearly linearly with with the build weight (volume). a model twice as high would cost four times as much. and i dont think that's something people would like.

the printer is a 3DS Projet 5000.

regards
alex

Does inventor have a trial? I play both AdMech and nurgle, so choosing one is.. difficult :\

Doesnt have a trial. However if you have a university or any other school affiliation and the corresponding email address you can get the full version for free. This goes also for most of the other Autodesk products.
the only limitation is that in the model there is normally the watersign saying that this was created with a education licence.

You might notice that im a huge fan of Autodesk. best company ever ^^

I mean, as far as modelling and CAD go they are definitely among, if noy the best. So... many... options... Also: MUDBOX