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 Theophony wrote:
Well forum or no, my Ender 3 arrived a few hours ago, first test print is going now.


Had the Mortal Kombat song on loop while I assembled it (well YouTube playing a 10hour loop of the song )

It has begun.

For the moment, chuck up a thread in P&M - if we do go ahead with a separate subsection, any relevant threads can be moved.

I would enjoy such a forum.

Theophony, you're chucking a lot of info into this thread about your printing experiences, which is cool - but - you're maybe a little bit squandering an opportunity to create a new thread in P&M and create some 3D printing forum interest using the exact same material.

It's always a chicken and egg scenario for new forums - no new subforum because no interest, no interest potentially because no subforum - so lots of threads in N&R, or not, are the best way to see if there will ever see such a forum - or rightfully not if they don't happen.

Now I'm going to take my own advice and do just what I said as well.

Well, I just got a good deal on a Prusa i3, my brother in law is fixing it up for me and I just need to make a spot to put it in the shop area. So, any/all information is definitely welcome to me right now!

 Ouze wrote:
Theophony, you're chucking a lot of info into this thread about your printing experiences, which is cool - but - you're maybe a little bit squandering an opportunity to create a new thread in P&M and create some 3D printing forum interest using the exact same material.

It's always a chicken and egg scenario for new forums - no new subforum because no interest, no interest potentially because no subforum - so lots of threads in N&R, or not, are the best way to see if there will ever see such a forum - or rightfully not if they don't happen.

Now I'm going to take my own advice and do just what I said as well.

I retitled my thread in P&M with a page highlight going to where I got the printer. I've tried multiple threads before and I always feel bad about not keeping one up more than the others.

On the other hand i also see that I haven't bothered/ taken my furlough time to do any painting this week since I've been stuck at the printer building stuff. I'll kick the idea around of a new thread over the next couple hours. I might have time to manage it as I have run myself out of filament , the replacement i ordered which is due saturday is the wrong size (stupid website i asked to show me 1.75mm also gave me 3.00mm and i didn't notice for over a week ), I have now amazoned a new roll due friday, and have a three roll bundle deal coming in a couple weeks.

I guess this can be listed under "Don't be like Theo!"

I've had a really hard time finding filament lately :(

 Ouze wrote:
I've had a really hard time finding filament lately :(

Supply lines have been cut for months. I snagged possibly the last 5kg in Anycubic's EU warehouse in March and they haven't restocked anything. I can get ultra crappy Polish filament for the same price, or decent Slovenian filament for almost double.

Yeah, I get it. I am reduced to AmazonBasics filament which is a bit of a crapshoot - so far it's been good but they don't use a consistent manufacturer for it so I really never know for sure how it will be.

Another good topic for P&M in hopes of a 3D printing forum!

I’m really disliking Amazon. Just like Walmart.com app, I put in my preferences and when I start to scroll they keep putting in ABS, PET and the wrong diameters. I already have one return to Walmart I’ll have to make with the wrong diameter .

Was going to try and start a P&M thread today, but we are having my mother in law move in with us tonight. My wife just went to pick her up from the hospital where she is being released after falling for the third time in six months, this time breaking ribs and puncturing her lung . So today was spent rearranging the house to make room after we were told she’s too stable to go to an assisted rehab facility and would need to go home or with us.

Also since I’m whining. FedEx has possibly the worst shipping skills I’ve seen. My roll of wrong sized stuff is headed from California passed the regional hub here in St. Louis to go to Illinois, then back to the hub here in St. Louis, then to the US post office to finally be delivered 10 days later by the mail carrier. I’m sure it’s to save money by having it handled more times and use more gas.

I really just need an adult beverage RIGHT NOW.

Speaking of 3D printing, my son is looking to add more Drukhari Grotesques in his army (I gave him all my Eldar/DE minis sans my ork/Demon collections)

Are these 3D printers good enough to make tabletop minis? I keep telling my son that the Silent Hill Pyramid Man would make great Grotesques:
https://www.yeggi.com/q/pyramid+head/

I know these printers can make this pretty big, but can they be shrunk down to tabletop minis? If so, I may dip my toes into 3D printing for that, as well as making neat scenery pieces as inspired by Theo.

Also...I second the request for a subform of this topic.

There are 2 forms of 3D printer that your average hobbyist will use, filament plastic and light cured resin.

I'm of the opinion that filament printers do not reach the standards of require of a mini, because layer lines are too obvious. Depending on where your personal line in the sand is, quality wise, you might find it perfectly acceptable.

Resin printers do not have anything like the issue with layer lines and make much better minis.

Resin printers are much simpler machines to operate, but require more handling of potentially toxic materials and mess, whereas filament printers require a lot more finessing to get maximum quality and some parts get very hot if small hands are a consideration.

As far as changing the scale of a file goes, it's utterly elementary, in the software you use to prepare a 3D file (STL files typically) you can either change the size of the file by a percentage, set physical dimensions or grab the model on the screen and push and pull to change dimension.

Something to watch for though is if you alter a file too far from its original size you can end up with a very bland model (scaling up) or a very confused one (scaling down) where the machine and software do their best to squeeze detail into an area too small to accurately realise it. So it is best to try and use a source file that's on the neighborhood of your desired end size if you can.

Thanks for the response!

I think I'm going to pull the trigger on a 3D printer after doing a little more research on pricing. I'm leaning towards the resin models since we're planning on making our own models and scenery stuff.

OK, the feedback has been taken on board, and we're discussing it on the mod board... but this really isn't the place for the actual 3D printer discussion. If you want to promote the viability of such a subforum, take that discussion to P&M so it's actually visible.

To anyone following this thread, we took the feedback onboard and now have a new 3D printing subforum! Check it out

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/96.page