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That's mighty impressive. How much does it run at cost wise?

monkeytroll wrote:Well you're certainly increasing your terrain pile rapidly.

Are you running it pretty much 24/7?

Pretty much , except when I get frustrated by a print not sticking to the bed and walk away for an hour or two.

inmygravenimage wrote:That's mighty impressive. How much does it run at cost wise?

The printer was $199 shipped. Roll of PLA was $20. So far I’ve used about 1/2-1/3 of the Roll.

The two building parts sell on Etsy for $20 together(well two similar prints from the same file), the file is free to download and so it’s just costing me PLA and electricity at this point. I’m sure I’ll remake my $200 investment pretty quick by the savings of not buying items. Though I may be painting more stuff which will drive up the cost of paints .

Car battery died while at orthodontist with my son, waiting for a jumpstart. When I get home hopefully the newest print will be almost done and I have a few including an actual model I printed last night ready to post.

I use Ultimaker Cura as a slicer. It has an option where you can tell it what kind/how much/cost for the filament used, and it will give you a cost per print based off how much you use.

Theophony,

Good luck with the painting and reading.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks Nevelon, I’ll look to see if I can use that on my chromebook, there’s a few shortcomings to the slicer I’m using, but it’s free and simple.

Thanks CB, made it most of the way through Thaw of the Lich Lord while my son was at the orthodontist this morning.

Well, car battery is all sorted out. Home, had lunch, and 7 hours into a print.

Here’s what yesterday yielded, even with a couple hours of down time because of frustrations and sleep.

The first true figure I’ve printed is a Barrel Golem. He is just over two inches tall not counting the base in there. I saw the design and had been looking for some constructs for Frostgrave and he just fit the bill. He will fit the large Construct profile nicely and I’m thinking of calling him King Kegerator. I’ll probably scratch build a small Construct, or at least kit Bash one, I just need to find the right parts .

Other bits are a Dark Cauldron, which someone made specifically for one of the scenarios in Thaw of the Lich Lord . And some sewer tokens, too scifi for Frostgave, but decent none the less. Also a D20 dice holder for wound tracking.

Off to find some files to fill other gaming needs.

Picking up steam, now. Kegerator is a fun model. All the other little doodads look great.

Really nice watching you experimenting, the last pile has some good stuff!

very cool looking stuff dude

Thanks guys, one of the things that has bothered me from the beginning with the Ender was one of the four corners of the print bed would not tighten up enough so it was lower than the other three corners and that’s the side where the prints would slip and break free. So I did some tweaks to the machine and adjusted some set screws and now things are looking up. Starting to get better at leveling the plate, which gives smoother all around finished to the projects in general.

So after the last post I let the machine sleep overnight and take a break. Then I’ve put it through the ringer today.

So a stairway for these buildings to enter some of the upper floors. A ruined lower level of a building, hard to see, but one of the corners is really wedged up. I might have the heat too high and when the print is cooling and since it’s a large print I think the PLA filament is pulling. More tinkering to do with it. There’s also a pedestal, looks dwarvish, six sewer markers, two crates floating in water on round tokens and not pictured are four wagon wheels. So the buildings will be general scatter while the others like the sewer tokens, floating crates and pillars all are objects for scenarios in Thaw of the Lich Lord. I took the time my son was at the Ortho yesterday to read the scenarios and note what sort of tokens and terrain I need for each of the ten scenarios. I’ll go and do this for all the books so that I can have everything ready to go for games.

No painting today, too much other things happening.

Early morning painting.
5 pieces down

Another building almost done on the printer. 12 hours 20 minutes and the unruined version of the first floor is printed.

Interesting to watch your adventures in printing.

I have seen a comment about using a fan to cool the printed filament quicker, but I can't remember why this improved the prints or solved whoever's problem (or what problem they may have had).
May help with your string issue?
Something to look into.

 Dr H wrote:
Interesting to watch your adventures in printing.

I have seen a comment about using a fan to cool the printed filament quicker, but I can't remember why this improved the prints or solved whoever's problem (or what problem they may have had).
May help with your string issue?
Something to look into.

Thanks Dr. H, cooling is more of the problem than a need for more cooling. The bed hasn’t been perfectly level and I’m getting better at it for the most part. The side that wasn’t sticking is a fraction of a mm too low to where the extruder is, so the PLA is cooling before it hits the bed which keeps it warm long enough to stick to the bed. Since it cools there’s extra drag from the print bed and head moving, which pulls the part loose and causes the next layer to get messed up as well.

Where the fine tuning comes into play is that you have a bed that is moving forwards and backwards (x- axis I believe) with four corners in adjustable heights. Then the extruder is moving on a y- axis as the bed moves and then the whole print head moves up on a z-axis after each layer is completed. Just so many moving parts, and if you adjust one the. There’s fine tuning of all the other parts.

The Ender 3 (basic one not the Ender 3 Pro) is great for the money. I’ve still got 1/4 of a spool left I believe so all my prints have come from $15 worth of material. The building I have going down now looks like the best so far. Very smooth initial layers with only one minor blemish I saw compared to the others that had 3-4 not even counting the pulled up corner. The higher series of Enders have self leveling beds. Sounds great, but price wise for my initial foray this is definitely the way to go.

YTD 131

Just a thought, not sure if you can do it with how you are sliceing.

Can you set your slicer to plot the print off to the side? If you are having trouble getting your SE corner level, just cram the print as far to the NW as you can go?

 Nevelon wrote:
Just a thought, not sure if you can do it with how you are sliceing.

Can you set your slicer to plot the print off to the side? If you are having trouble getting your SE corner level, just cram the print as far to the NW as you can go?

That’s a great idea . Though the print I was having trouble with I’ve decided not to do and go a different route, but if I run into it again I’ll change that.

So I pissed myself off good this morning. Went to check on the print I started yesterday afternoon. 12 hours in and only half done . I sliced it at a better quality finish (it’s terrain so basic should do fine, and has so far), also forgot to drop the infil down to 5% from 20%, so wasting PLA and it’s going to take over 24 hours to finish .

Also when checking when my next spool of filament is due I noticed I accidentally ordered the 3mm thickness instead of 1.75mm, so it won’t work on my device stupid work Theo. I had put in 1.75mm diameter, but when I started to scroll for price and color I guess I went into the larger sizes without looking . All the usual places I checked were out of stock, but I managed to find 3 individual 1Kg spools as a bulk purchase for $50 total with shipping included, so I hopped on that. It’s the right size as well, double and triple checked. Unfortunately it might not show up for 3 weeks. I’ll be empty well before then , guess I’ll be painting again soon.

Oh and in other news, nothing donethe last couple days. Getting roof estimates, floor estimates and mother in law fell breaking three ribs and partially puncturing a lung . Due to the pandemic, we can’t even go see her in the hospital. I’ve been enlisted into going to install shower grab bars at her house this week, so we will see what productivity looks like.

Yikes, scary times for the older generation to get hurt. All thoughts with you and yours squire.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Yikes, scary times for the older generation to get hurt. All thoughts with you and yours squire.

Yes it is, great grandma can’t leave the nursing home. This grandma is one of those that even though she was a nurse and knows this is no joke, she still goes out more than she should.

Oh well. Early morning was at least productive. Painted the pastors office at church, came home and getting some projects printed. I think the remainder of my spool will be going towards these.

No it’s not a Necromunda missile silo, they are parts to an Army Painter storage rack. I’ll need 5-6 I think to store all my army painter/Vallejo/ other dropper bottles.

Each rack will hold 30 dropper bottles. Each rack needs 2 sides (the two parts on stage right) and 5 each of the other two parts (shelves back and shelf front left and right in the picture). Shelf back number 4 just finished as I’m typing and starting the fifth back immediately. My fiddling with settings and whatnot has been helpful and I’m getting pretty nice prints and not having to do to many adjustments between prints.

These might take up a bit of time as each back piece takes around 40 minutes. Each front piece about 25minutes and each leg about 100 minutes. So 8.75 hours per shelf without set up time, adjustments and taking them off the print bed.

Edit: first shelf section done. Printing the next leg now. The sections link together so the next 30 paints only need one leg and five each of the two cross beams. So that will shave off nearly two hours for the next whole section. Though I have a few other prints to try out before going further. Also I might change the infill to 20%, I think I had it at 10, and there’s just a little too much give on the shelves which made it a to glue together. But it’s standing and I need to clean my painting station. The rack I made out of PVC for all the army painter paints was too bulky and didn’t look as good as I would liked it to have been.

Also I think since I’ll be getting rolls of black PLA in next I might keep this one section silver for the inks/washes/metallics and do the rest in black which will match my desk trim.

All the best for your mother Theophony.

Mine is staying indoors as she has a permanent lung issue.

CB

 Captain Brown wrote:
All the best for your mother Theophony.

Mine is staying indoors as she has a permanent lung issue.

CB

Well I wish we could keep my mother-in-law inside, but she is very strong headed about being able to still get out and about. Plus she was taking care of her former mother-in-law all the time and driving her about before the pandemic, so she feels like it's her job and she won't be lazy and stay indoors .

Well, I'm just about out of filament , the first reorder i placed i didn't notice was the wrong diameter and won't work. The follow up order i placed wont show up for almost three weeks , seems everyone is at home printing non-stop. Then i rechecked Amazon, even with prime I'll be paying $29 for a 1 Kg roll (which is plenty...sort of), and a roll of black will be here Friday .

Until then I've been still using every last inch of spool I have left. I completed enough for a full second paint rack (in parts on the side) and my fat hands bumbled and dropped the first one fully loaded off my workspace. It only broke at the glue joint, so it's getting reglued (big bottle of craft paint holding the part in place). I might have enough filament left to finish the front of a third section of paint rack, which i guess will be the plan. I can print the backs in black and no one will be the wiser.

That will give me just enough space , 90 spots) for my 80+ bottles of Army Painter/Vallejo/Reaper MSP.

Hobby cleanup will be the name of the game in the short turn. That and helping my son with his final project for his engineering class.

I had suggested a 3D printer forum in the nuts & bolts sub-forum and it was suggested that i start a P&M thread to see if there's enough want/need. I don't like running multiple threads of my own, but it might clear up this thread of all my printer ramblings.

Any thoughts from you all?

Also posting from my chromebook lately. No autocorrect here. mixed blessing as autocorrect has done me some serious injustices in the past, but sometimes cleans up the fat finger situation more.

Good job knocking out the kinks so far. Best wishes to the MiL.

Terrible picture I know, but just wanted to give an overall shot of what $20 worth of filament did....besides all the scrap I threw away. Still a tiny bit left on the spool.

Table is 34” x 34” with the buildings being 4.5” x 6” or so in size.
The pieces on the table in front of the paint rack will make two more sections so will hold 90 Vallejo dropper bottles.

Today, playing around with the system I finally figured out the build plate option which will allow me to set up multiple items to all print at once. Really could have used that while printing out the paint rack parts .

Nice value what you can get out of one spool. Paint rack is neat.

You are weakening my resolve not to get one

Thankfully I don't really have anywhere to put it at the moment anyway, but when my new man-cave-shed is built, I may run out of excuses

Viterbi wrote:Nice value what you can get out of one spool. Paint rack is neat.

Ive admired the MDF ones I've seen, and these are just the PLA versions of those. It's the start of redoing my desk.

Slinky wrote:You are weakening my resolve not to get one

Thankfully I don't really have anywhere to put it at the moment anyway, but when my new man-cave-shed is built, I may run out of excuses

It only takes up a footprint of 2' deep, 20" wide and less than 30" tall with a 1Kg spool on top of it. Not trying to push anyone......it's just the sweetest of the plastic crack .


The spool keeps going. Seriously, I thought i was at the end a couple days ago. Trying to get a few last items out while i can.

On the good side, the three roll bundle deal I ordered that wasn't due till mid month will be here tuesday . It's grey instead of the silver i have been using, and my other roll should be here friday and that one is black. It all turns whatever color I paint it later anyway.

With that much material coming in, you'll be buried in prints by mid-summer. Sweet! This has been pretty awesome so far.

I like the Warband. Those posts were a while ago, but I'm just getting caught up. Larcenous Red Robbing Hood is my favorite. I also love the fluff between him and Trigger.
The potion bottles turned out nicely as well.

I've been debating whether to get a 3d printer, and which one. The Ender 3 is one at the top of the list, especially for the possible terrain output.
The Eleggo Mars is the other I've been considering, due to its smoothness with miniatures and bits. Since looking through your production, though, I think the ender has taken the lead. I have to finish cleaning out the garage before I can propose it to the wife, though. It's been more or less full of boxes and piles since we moved in and it's becoming a greater and greater source of tension.
But, it's also where I'm carving out hobby space, so cleaning it up is a win-win.

Great stuff in this blog. And what a stack of Frostgrave books! You'd better play a game to see if you even like it.

Thanks guys.

@DJ, I still don’t have it fully dialed in to do figures. I’ll try and take a pic of the one I tried to take the supports off of yesterday and he snapped. I guess figures I’ll need to do more fill in, especially ones with thin parts.

Trigs went on vacation from Frostgrave.

Larcenous Red is keeping his social distance since Trigs went somewhere tropical and was sipping on Corona in the shade of a palm tree.

I can see the actual spool core now. It’s going to be a hard time waiting for the new roll. Even if only 24 hours . I am contemplating what to do with the spool. Would make a great landing pad for 40K. 7.5” diameter and 2” tall. I think it should be something Frostgrave-y though.

From what I've seen online, the detail of all the fiddly-bits on a miniature are crisper and cleaner on the Mars. There is less separation and wobbling with the print. But, it can't handle the size of some of your terrain pieces. I think the Ender is probably good enough for some stuff, with a little bit of puddy, gs, and/or paint, you'll likely notice little difference.

Some close-ups would be useful. Might help push the final decision.

 DJJazzyJeff wrote:
From what I've seen online, the detail of all the fiddly-bits on a miniature are crisper and cleaner on the Mars. There is less separation and wobbling with the print. But, it can't handle the size of some of your terrain pieces. I think the Ender is probably good enough for some stuff, with a little bit of puddy, gs, and/or paint, you'll likely notice little difference.

Some close-ups would be useful. Might help push the final decision.

I’ll get you some close ups today. Have a lot of errands this morning to take care of. Also a pic of the last bits I printed before I ran out of the silver filament.
Edit: real quick pics. Sorry, the silver filament is hard to photograph. Also lots of hairiness that popped up in this print. It was the first time I’ve done a detailed print instead of just a draft or regular setting. I was also experimenting with different temperatures at the time of this print and used zigzag supports, which caused a few sprue tears when I separated him from the supports.

Since I printed him with only a 5% infill, which I will not do on figures anymore but will continue to do on large terrain, when I tried to break the supports off it snapped off both feet, his right hand a,d then another section of thigh is just barely held on. The supports for the staff were so rough I will most likely just cut it completely off and add a new staff in its place. I think the rest is salvageable. This was a free print download from a current KS. He isn’t listed as a 35mm model I believe.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/787810.page#10790439
8 days left in that Kickstarter.

Another figure, a large Barrel Golem, was also during experiments.

Pretty sure he was printed in Darft (low) quality. He also had both legs break off when I undid the supports. Heavy handed Theo . The layering I believe was because I had also played around with readjusting the deck height on the Ender and didn’t have it adjusted correctly. I’m not getting results like that anymore.

Using the small sample of white it came with I got one print for my son done. Really not even enough shipped with the Ender 3 to do a decent print.
So the sample white they sent was enough to make this one wall mount controller holder for his X-box and started a second one, but really not enough to start practicing with the system.


Edit: MINIATUREMARKET local retail shop is open . Yes, I went there. Really, I went there early because the mother in law had to get things from her house and I drove. It’s on the way back....really I don’t NEED a reason to stop and look about.

While there I picked up the New release Rangers of Shadow Deep Deluxe Edition.similar to Frostgrave, just band I saw lead by a ranger and not a wizard. Anyway I was going to order it from the UK, but shipping was almost $30. I spent less on the book retail than shipping it .

Also grabbed the cover damaged copy of Warcry for $16. I already had the cards for Nurgle, so it was a must.

I will be starting another thread devoted to 3D printing shortly. Everyone is invited to come check it out once I create it. It will be more of an open door thread for people to post about their experiences or questions regarding 3D printing. The MODS are debating starting a sub forum for the like and asked me to try a thread in P&M. I initially said no, but after kicking the thoughts around for a week I’m just going to do it. I’ll post here with a link when it’s up.

It's fun seeing that big pile of Frostgrave books. Enjoy the reading, as as you said, I hope you enjoy the game too.

Do you know the one problem with the Frostgrave books? The urge to create every model in the Bestiary.....

Syro_ wrote:It's fun seeing that big pile of Frostgrave books. Enjoy the reading, as as you said, I hope you enjoy the game too.

I have enjoyed the reading so far. It has a very nostalgic (in a good way) old D&D adventure feel to me.

Llamahead wrote:Do you know the one problem with the Frostgrave books? The urge to create every model in the Bestiary.....

Very much so, that’s why I’m digging into my Zombicide stuff, plenty of bits to choose from there, also glad the LGS is open so I can look through bones equivalents.

Well the 3D thread is started. Not much content yet. Wrote it up before dinner last night and have a lot to do toit today/ tomorrow.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/788814.page

Plus my filament didn’t show up yesterday. Amazon.