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Damn, that's magnificent! Great sculpt. and that print has come out lovely.

eSun's grey PLA really does seem a cut above the rest, in today's experiments I've not only found it prints sharper and cleaner than my other reel, but that the minis (and supports) feel a lot more sturdy and less brittle. Also much easier to see what needs cleaning versus the very reflective and slightly translucent white.

As promised, results and settings:

These were minis from Thingiveree and MyMiniFactory respectively, and sliced in Astroprint. I've removed the supports and given them a once over with the file, but that's all, no more than 5 minutes a model.

Settings (anything not mentioned is as per Cura/Astroprint's Normal Quality settings, or derived automatically from these)


Hope,that's of some use. Most of these settings are adapted from Tomb of 3d Printed Horrors/Fat Dragon Games on youtube, definitely the best advice I've,found for the technical side of this stuff.

Those prints are amazing .

Thanks for those settings. I’m going to give them a shot, just input them into my cura settings now.

In the mean time, I cleaned up the second set of Komainu archers.

If I use them in Kings of War, they will be an Elf Army. The Elf Elite rule seams appropriate to trained samurai warriors. With these guys as cavalry with bows they fit the Silverbreeze cavalry unit that can only be fielded as a troop 5 models on 25x50mm bases. Now I only have the second edition rules, so it might have changed, but if the rule of 1/2+1 models for multibasing still apply I think 3 would look better on the base I have laid out in front. I have a third batch in grey printing now so I can have two units.

Could you please link me to the gray eSun PLA+ you use? The stuff I see on amazon has a 0.05mm variance.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Could you please link me to the gray eSun PLA+ you use? The stuff I see on amazon has a 0.05mm variance.

I hadn’t noticed, but it is .o5mm. On my fourth spool and no problems with any of it.

Ah, thanks. And ordered.

I think I'm getting the hang of this... Though typically I now see some tiny loose ends on the photos



Dragonborn Paladin by Comet Lord Miniatures (who do some amazing stuff, go check them out). Printed upright with about a bazillion supports, but he's cleaned up lovely. Definitely feels like a mini designed to print in resin, but with results like this from FDM I'm very pleased nonetheless. Definitely finding that chunkier minis are printing far better on the Ender than more spindly true-scale stuff.

Tried the settings you had, still getting lots of stringing. I’ll try a couple adjustments today when I can.

That’s after plucking some strings off before I remembered to take a snap.

Huh, that's really odd, I've not had anything like that on those settings.

Have you checked your Z axis is completely straight and your bed is level? Could be the nozzle is catching the melted layers and dragging it as it moves?

 Paradigm wrote:
Huh, that's really odd, I've not had anything like that on those settings.

Have you checked your Z axis is completely straight and your bed is level? Could be the nozzle is catching the melted layers and dragging it as it moves?

I will check the z axis later this week, just started printing the Tailong dragon head 27hour print .the supports look great on the bottom layers so far, so I am not sure that it’s the nozzle hitting prior levels. I leveled the bed before I started, but other times when I level the bed It still doesn’t the stringing.

I put the eSun PLA+ on subscription with Amazon, right now it’s monthly, we will see if that gets upped to every other week.

One amendment to my earlier settings, something I assumed changed automatically based on the set temperature but I caught earlier that it didn't: initial and final print temps should also be at 198. Not sure if that'll solve any stringing, but just figured it worth mentioning if anyone else is trying that setup.

 Paradigm wrote:
One a,emd,ent to my earlier settings, something I assumed changed automatically based on the set temperature but I caught earlier that it didn't: initial and final print temps should also be at 198. Not sure if that'll solve any stringing, but just figured it worth mentioning if anyone else is trying that setup.

Pretty sure I adjusted that already, just made sense.

Spend the day at the hospital with my mom, she’ll be in at least 3 more days yet and then surgery later. Knowing I’d be there all day, I was the only one available today and they only allow 1 visitor per patient per day, can’t even be relieved by someone else, I was up there the full 8 hours allowed. Also since the timing was working out I started the 27hour print of the dragons head yesterday so it completed ten minutes before I returned home . Unfortunately at the 7 hour mark I was packing up the computer from my printing desk to take with me and I pulled the wrong cord out of the socket and unplugged the Ender by mistake . It has a power loss feature and resumed as soon as I plugged it back in and looked like it didn’t skip a beat.

Came out a big hairy mess still , and when I started to take the supports off it was apparent that when the power loss happened the top didn’t fully bond to the bottom and it split clean apart along that line. With the angle it was cut at I could have used the top of the print to have the dragon coming through a portal of some kind, but I was able to cleanly remove the supports from both top and bottom and the cut was clean enough to reassemble with superglue. If anything it will look like a slightly off join line when all done.

The strings/hairs are super fine and are more of a nuisance to clean than damage to the details which are amazingly crisp.

You can see the line near the top right of the picture.

Thanks for the details on the adjustments you made. I’ve resliced all the parts again with the new setting. I have one set of horns printing now and I’ll start the next part of the torso before bed so it’s ready when I get back from church tomorrow.

Copied from my thread:
I have been working on and finally finished another figure.

Sgt. Slaughter from G.I Joe. (WIP Sculpt)

Also, this happened while I slept last night:


The details on Sgt. Slaughter came out really quite well. Its hard to see that here but I think it will show them much better once painted.

Pretty excited.

I also started trying to dial in my Moai, and I can't wait to print the Sgt. on it. The detail level will be similar to the Photon, but the prints should be much crisper.

That is AWESOME,

Now to scale him to GW catchcan size

 Theophony wrote:
That is AWESOME,

Now to scale him to GW catchcan size

I'd need to scale him up a little bit but that is an excellent idea.

Needs a bigger chin, but otherwise, you can retire whatever army you run. You have everything you need right there.

Well, still having the hairy stringing issue, causes lots of extra cleanup,but the details are amazing anyway. The Tianlong dragon is growing large enough to swallow the WGF ashigaru in one bite.

And he can join friends inside as there seems to be space.

Tried to take a nap, thunderstorms are great for that, guess we had a power surge as the Ender was stuck silent. I powered it off then on again and brought it back.the other set of horns I was printing is wasted. I didn’t want to try and restart in the middle again and it’s onlt a 2+ hour print. Once that’s done I might try and print one of the tail sections.....there are two more sections. This is a big dragon.

Two more!? And here's me still getting put off when a print previews at more than 6-7 hours! It's looking fantastic though.

Weirdly, I had stringing on these settings earlier when I tried printing two minis at once; both held the detail, but there was a bit of a mess between them. Going to try upping the retraction just a tad more tomorrow, will let you know if that fixes it.

Uh oh... I just checked out the stats on the Elegoo Saturn...OMG I want this. Resin printing with a build area of 7.55 x 4.72 x 7.87 in and a monochrome LCD meaning layer exposures of about 2-3 seconds. My poor Ender 3 may never see action again if I can print this big and fast in resin!

Pre-orders at $400 are already sold out, so will wait for next batch.

Yeah, I'm going to upgrade my Mars to a Saturn once it gets a little bit more available as the larger print bed will come in *really* handy for tanks

I can’t even look at resin printers till I get the Ender3 completely sorted. I guess my standards are lower because I’m getting just as good of quality from these prints as some HIPS kits out there. The only real issue I’m having that I can tell is the weapons and really narrow parts.

Cats woke me up at 3 a.m. I’m sure it’s to let me know they would like more food, but I hope at least one of them was trying to tell me my print was done.

Tail section A, stringing is a lot less than before. I’m wondering if it’s due to humidity. St. Louis is notorious for high humidity, and it’s been bad the last few days. The thing is I have a dehumidifier about four feet from this desk and it’s running constantly, so if that’s the case then I think I’m just screwed.

Though in the end, the outcome is still really nice.


Feeding little monsters and then back to bed.

Great work!! Yes, the Ender is an awesome machine. I found some filament brands definitely string more than others and the exact combo setting tweaks to the speed, retraction and temperature should get it taken care of.

I really think humidity is wrecking it with stringing. I’m going to look at building or buying a filament box to deal with that. This print was nearly flawless. Only two or three small hairs and I had emptied the dehumidifier before I started this print. Forgot to snap a pre cleanup picture, but with the final tail section added he is almost 10” snout to tail. Just think if someone stretched him out straight .

My planning got thrown off this morning so nothing printed all day while I was at the hospital. I just merged all the arms and legs onto one print. 13 hours till they are done, so around lunch time tomorrow.

Got a nice B-day gift from my mom (cash, best present for a 46year old ). Instantly I thought. “ I can buy two more Enders and more filament and start my printing farm “

not happening, but I thought about it .

More trouble with stringing, but now I have a much more serious problem. Someone messed with the settings on the supports, and now they are fused into the print. I am clipping off big pieces, losing fine details along the way, and wil still have to spend hours with an exacto knife.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
How do I set it to have supports that snap off easily?

On the support side, mine have been just like that, but I use the snips that came with the Ender. If you get in and twist as close to the model as possible it will peel off. The whole dragon had that issue and I had a tiny loss of detail, but nothing significant. I am absolutely convinced that the stringing is due to moisture/humidity. It gets worse when there are multiple objects getting printed at one time, but happens to me on each print unless I am basically printing a solid item.

This video covers basically everything you need to know about supports for minis:



The main thing there is how to set up Support Interfaces. These put a layer at the top and bottom of the supports that then attaches to the model, which manes that you can cut or pull them away in chunks rather than one at a time; leaving a much smoother surface underneath that's way easier to clean up. I also found that dropping support density and overhang from 15%/50 degrees to 10%/65 degrees resulted in far fewer supports to clean with no loss of quality or print failure? Just check in the slicer that everything that needs supports has them, and increase either setting accordingly.

As for stringing, I'm afraid I can't help with the weather, but cranking retraction up to 6.5mm gas helped my prints a lot, albeit we haven't had much humidity or heat over here since.

 Barzam wrote:
Needs a bigger chin, but otherwise, you can retire whatever army you run. You have everything you need right there.

Done! lol

Thinking about resizing him to fit with Catachans, and doing a couple more prints to dial in resin settings, made me reevaluate his proportions.

Here is a shot of the 3 test prints next to a figure from Star Wars Legion:


As you can see, his proportions were much more "true scale" than "heroic scale". He looks tiny next to the Legion figure, even at the same height. I went back into zBrush and adjusted his proportions a bit.



In addition to that, I widened his body, and thickened it. Plus a few other little changes, mainly for print purposes.

Also, I decided to try to make an animated GIF of him. I had played around with this previously with other sculpts. Still not entirely sure I like the results. Needs more tweaking, I think.

I definitely think the 39mm one would be the route to go with. He is bigger than the average human and should be proportionally bigger than the guard models too.

Now he needs a big old Machette.

Edit:
These may be alien Maggots! But they know hi to fight Cobra!

Slaughter came out great in my opinion. His back suffered a bit from me taking the supports off,but not because of the design.

Great job

Yeah, that looks better. Slaughter should be bigger than everyone, anyway.

I've actually been experimenting with printing some BFG ships, myself. After playing Dropfleet Commander with BobtheInquisitor, I felt very inadequate not having a proper space fleet, so I've been looking to rectify that. Printing seems to be a cheaper alternative.

Behold, my terrible pictures! Gaze in awe at just how tiny that destroyer is! I actually can't believe I managed to print that thing on my fdm printer. So, as of right now, I've printed x2 cruiser, x1 escort frigate, x2 Sword class frigates, and x2 destroyers.

For now, they'll get the job done, but I think I'm going to need Highlord Tamburlaine to reprint the frigates in resin for me. I'm just not happy with how they came out.

Is that the Italianmoose cruiser, but printed as assembled? I forget who did that, MKHand? Beware that some of the BFG ships are not set to print at the correct size (although that one looks fine). Someone on FB printed some SM escorts off Thingiverse, and they came out larger than strike cruisers...which, of course means I have to try that.

Also, to print a BFG ship at DFC scale, the multiplier is 4.4 times the original size, linearly. I’ve been using 4 times for simplicity, though. A 20cm Sword Frigate seems ominous enough.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And Barzam, what’s wrong with the Cobra escort you printed?