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[3D Printing] A toy to build toys...New to the hobby....

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Posts

  • SteevLSteevL What can I do for you? Registered User regular
    Our 3D printer at work has been out of service since last Tuesday. I tried running a print, but it was extruding very unevenly. Initial thoughts were that it was a partial clog, but I swapped over to another heatsink + nozzle that we had and the same issues presented themselves. And eventually it stopped extruding entirely, but I could still easily push filament through by hand.

    My attention turned towards the extruder motor, but after further troubleshooting, it turned out to be an issue with the extruder motor's wires. Now I have to wait on replacements from the owner of the 3D printer company. Hopefully I can get it back up and running by next weekend.

  • ElbasunuElbasunu Registered User regular
    Got an IKEA skadis board and started printing pegs and holders for it using a .8mm nozzle and it's so much fun.

    g1xfUKU.png?10zfegkyoor3b.png
    Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    edited September 2021
    Haven't done any Resin printing in a few months. Right before I sort of stopped I bought some new processing fluid from a nearby company called 3D Resin Solutions called Hero Wash.

    Not firstly, the seem to no longer sell it, which isn't a great sign. Secondly, it ate the finish off the aluminum inside my wash tub and more seriously, ate THROUGH the magnets on the bottom.

    So uh...maybe not as non-toxic as they claim.

    Edit: and to make it worse, in the 5 minutes it took a dip when I tied to do a wash it also ate the finish off my build plate holy crap

    http://imgur.com/a/fEwkScf

    Bucketman on
  • NipsNips He/Him Luxuriating in existential crisis.Registered User regular
    Holy shit!

    This is why I'm strictly a user of Eco Resin with Simple Green and soapy water for print cleaning, that's terrifying.

    JXUBxMxP0QndjQUEnTwTxOkfKmx8kWNvuc-FUtbSz_23_DAhGKe7W9spFKLXAtkpTBqM8Dt6kQrv-rS69Hi3FheL3fays2xTeVUvWR7g5UyLHnFA0frGk1BC12GYdOSRn9lbaJB-uH0htiLPJMrc9cSRsIgk5Dx7jg9K8rJVfG43lkeAWxTgcolNscW9KO2UZjKT8GMbYAFgFvu2TaMoLH8LBA5p2pm6VNYRsQK3QGjCsze1TOv2yIbCazmDwCHmjiQxNDf6LHP35msyiXo3CxuWs9Y8DQvJjvj10kWaspRNlWHKjS5w9Y0KLuIkhQKOxgaDziG290v4zBmTi-i7OfDz-foqIqKzC9wTbn9i_uU87GRitmrNAJdzRRsaTW5VQu_XX_5gCN8XCoNyu5RWWVGTsjJuyezz1_NpFa903Uj2TnFqnL1wJ-RZiFAAd2Bdut-G1pdQtdQihsq2dx_BjtmtGC3KZRyylO1t2c12dhfb0rStq4v8pg46ciOcdtT_1qm85IgUmGd7AmgLxCFPb0xnxWZvr26G-oXSqrQdjKA1zNIInSowiHcbUO2O8S5LRJVR6vQiEg0fbGXw4vqJYEn917tnzHMh8r0xom8BLKMvoFDelk6wbEeNq8w8Eyu2ouGjEMIvvJcb2az2AKQ1uE_7gdatfKG2QdvfdSBRSc35MQ=w498-h80-no
  • Mr_RoseMr_Rose 83 Blue Ridge Protects the Holy Registered User regular
    So were they just selling straight sodium hydroxide as a wash fluid then?
    Or something that breaks down into it…

    ...because dragons are AWESOME! That's why.
    Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
    DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    Their webpage does say it may strip paint or cause damage to anodized aluminum, but so far their response to me reaching out is "Yeah you should use a sonic cleaner with stainless steel." But like the product description mentions using a vortex cleaner even? And according to them they do still sell it but the product page is down because they sold out.

    https://www.3dresinsolutions.com/products/hero-wash?_pos=1&_sid=e9acb53fd&_ss=r

    The sds doesn't mention anything about reaction either.

  • djmitchelladjmitchella Registered User regular
    The MSDS says it contains 3% of the first three of these, and 1% of the fourth one (didn't paste nicely):, but googling them very quickly comes up against my lack of knowledge of chemistry.
    Decabromodiphenyl Oxide
    Alcohols
    Sodium xylenesulphonate
    Dodecyldimethylamine oxide

  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    edited September 2021
    Yeah my limited knowledge of chemistry leaves me at "Well none of these appear toxic"

    I've asked directly for a refund, since this damaged/destroyed my tools. I'm not even asking for them to replace those (although I don't think that would be outside the reasonable), I just don't want to be out $40 for a product that's useless to me and will physically cause damage to my gear

    Bucketman on
  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    I will say the company has been great. They admitted they have never used any of these sorts of machines and issued me a full refund, and will be putting a warning on the product page about this. And hey, the build plate might look like crap but at least it's not actually damaged

  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    The thing I like most about Hatchbox silk PLA is that the brims peel right off, super cleanly, when it's done printing and cooled down.

    Also that it's so shinyyyyyyyy.

  • ChiselphaneChiselphane Registered User regular
    Finally got that Weedo M2 I got for free working. It's pretty much what I expected, ie not great. But it should be fine for simple stuff. And it plays a little song when the print's done!

  • RadiationRadiation Registered User regular
    Anyone in the market for an older version of a cnc? I have a nomad 883 pro (workspace of 8*8*3 inches). I have a box and can ship it stateside. Pm me for details.

    PSN: jfrofl
  • durandal4532durandal4532 Registered User regular
    My partner and I finally got back to printing stuff after having some of our filament go off due to improper storage, and it's been really fun! Mostly making little storage devices for various items around the house. A Ring Fit holder is surprisingly handy.

    I'm thinking of making some more weird little action figures/toys like the big articulated cuttlefish I made a while back. I've mostly been looking on Thingiverse, any other good sites for models that folks are using?

    Take a moment to donate what you can to Critical Resistance and Black Lives Matter.
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    edited October 2021
    Other good sites for 3d models are Thangs and Cults3d; the latter has some free and some paid models.

    Elvenshae on
  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    edited October 2021
    There's also MyMiniFactory, but it has a very heavy focus on miniatures for wargaming and/or painting.

    Echo on
  • ChiselphaneChiselphane Registered User regular
    Thinking of shrinking this gravestone down then printing a bunch to leave them around town. We have a bunch of farm type stores, maybe the ivermectin shelf would be a good spot.

    x7ayqqjxee0b.jpg

  • SiliconStewSiliconStew Registered User regular
    Thinking of shrinking this gravestone down then printing a bunch to leave them around town. We have a bunch of farm type stores, maybe the ivermectin shelf would be a good spot.

    x7ayqqjxee0b.jpg

    Needs something like "Karen Smith 1974-2021" added at the top or these morons may think it's a recommendation ad, not a gravestone.

    Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
  • djmitchelladjmitchella Registered User regular
    edited October 2021
    That sort of thing makes me a:very glad that I've been using a password manager for long enough that my thingiverse password looks like line noise because I never have to remember it myself, and b:realise I should go back and retroactively make all my passwords be random-looking everywhere else.

    djmitchella on
  • Mr_RoseMr_Rose 83 Blue Ridge Protects the Holy Registered User regular
    edited October 2021
    Sorry, unrelated tangent; why does that croc appear to have a turbocharger installed?

    Mr_Rose on
    ...because dragons are AWESOME! That's why.
    Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
    DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
  • djmitchelladjmitchella Registered User regular
    because your crocs won't go fast enough otherwise. Also from the same model:

    featured_preview_IMG_6951_4.JPG

  • NipsNips He/Him Luxuriating in existential crisis.Registered User regular
    Ok printer friends, help needed.

    My ultrasonic cleaner crapped out, and I'm in the market for a new one. Anyone have recs for a durable, not over-expensive model?

    JXUBxMxP0QndjQUEnTwTxOkfKmx8kWNvuc-FUtbSz_23_DAhGKe7W9spFKLXAtkpTBqM8Dt6kQrv-rS69Hi3FheL3fays2xTeVUvWR7g5UyLHnFA0frGk1BC12GYdOSRn9lbaJB-uH0htiLPJMrc9cSRsIgk5Dx7jg9K8rJVfG43lkeAWxTgcolNscW9KO2UZjKT8GMbYAFgFvu2TaMoLH8LBA5p2pm6VNYRsQK3QGjCsze1TOv2yIbCazmDwCHmjiQxNDf6LHP35msyiXo3CxuWs9Y8DQvJjvj10kWaspRNlWHKjS5w9Y0KLuIkhQKOxgaDziG290v4zBmTi-i7OfDz-foqIqKzC9wTbn9i_uU87GRitmrNAJdzRRsaTW5VQu_XX_5gCN8XCoNyu5RWWVGTsjJuyezz1_NpFa903Uj2TnFqnL1wJ-RZiFAAd2Bdut-G1pdQtdQihsq2dx_BjtmtGC3KZRyylO1t2c12dhfb0rStq4v8pg46ciOcdtT_1qm85IgUmGd7AmgLxCFPb0xnxWZvr26G-oXSqrQdjKA1zNIInSowiHcbUO2O8S5LRJVR6vQiEg0fbGXw4vqJYEn917tnzHMh8r0xom8BLKMvoFDelk6wbEeNq8w8Eyu2ouGjEMIvvJcb2az2AKQ1uE_7gdatfKG2QdvfdSBRSc35MQ=w498-h80-no
  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    I found Barry the Beholder at the office! He lost a few eye stalks in the move though. Good thing I know a guy with a 3D printer.

    I think this is seriously the best FDM print I ever got from my Ender 3.

    wz3kegtfep5n.jpg

  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    Elvenshae’s Mostly-Printed Halloween is almost complete!

  • SteevLSteevL What can I do for you? Registered User regular
    Realized this ghost model I found on thingiverse perfectly fits an LED tea light from Target.

    a849air4ytif.png

    0ojo3s4vsx6e.png


    Video:
    https://imgur.com/TFcZzkz

  • SchadenfreudeSchadenfreude Mean Mister Mustard Registered User regular
    I'm having a crafty Hallowe'en, but this and a grotesque are the only things of note I've printed. First proper spin of the airbrush too, so real happy with it. Especially considering my toddler turfed it across the kitchen this morning so I had to glue some fingers back on. :/
    hq9c9xe3dsp8.jpg

    I have a smaller one in resin that I'll probably paint up too just for the chuckles of it.

    Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    edited October 2021
    Print-in-place belt-loop-and-axe-handle-ring for my sons' costumes successfully designed in Fusion 360!

    nzdku81oi264.png

    Test model successfully printed! (After exporting and starting the print, I added a couple more fillets to the design.) (Hatchbox brown PLA, because that's what I had loaded after printing a SCARY TREE.)

    t35uof33oky6.jpg

    The print-in-place joint works! (Shown!) In both directions! (Not shown!)

    mprs91e1taao.jpg

    Elvenshae on
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    So I've got this craft project that uses a lot of small lines of rope (2mm paracord). I can put a stopper knot on one end and pull it tight on that side, but I also need it to pull tight (after some adjustment) on the other side.

    I've been doing this on a temporary basis by tying essentially a noose in the end of the rope, pulling out all the slack through the project, sliding the noose knot up the rope against the project on the unstopped side (putting the slack in the loop), and then tying off the noose loop around the working end of the rope to keep it from slipping too much. Here's my highly scientific diagram of what I'm doing:

    t8bn573n1uvj.png

    The problem is that the rope is nylon, and so pretty slippery, and so the "locking" knot I've put on the noose keeps coming undone and the noose slides a bit on its own, anyway, even with the locking knot.

    I designed a small cleat in Fusion 360 that I can 3D print:

    mx447z4suuda.png

    And while that'll work, probably, I'd rather not add, like, 50 of them to the project. The goal is that it needs to be adjustable (though untying it, adjusting it, and retying it, or whatever, would be fine). In terms of functionality, if I were on a sailboat, I'd be using something like the cam cleat that the sheets use: it tightens down in one direction but can be easily undone and adjusted. Also, the solution needs to be really small - like the printed size of the cleat design is 2cm x 1cm x 2mm (thick).

    So, 1) anyone know a better one-way sliding stopper knot that'll work in my use case?
    2) Anyone have a better idea than a small cleat?

  • SiliconStewSiliconStew Registered User regular
    edited October 2021
    I don't have an extensive knowledge of knots, but I don't believe a slip knot will work there. You want the rope to slide through the knot, but the object is pushing directly on the side of the knot and you don't have any tension on the other end to keep the knot tight and jammed up. It's going to loosen and slide eventually without some sort of anchor or cleat.

    For example, cellular blinds use a little button-like disc with a friction slot on the end of the lifting strings, similar application to yours, pulling in only one direction. Self jamming when it's looped through correctly to hold tight but easy to undo and readjust. Can't find a close up of one though. May not be better than your cleat for your particular use though.

    SiliconStew on
    Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
  • SiliconStewSiliconStew Registered User regular
    Here's another thought. Are the two holes "near" each other to use a loop on the stopper knot end as an anchor point for the slip knot end? You could then use a taught line knot or similar for tightening/adjustment. Long term it might depend on if the tension will be relatively constant or not.

    Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    Here's another thought. Are the two holes "near" each other to use a loop on the stopper knot end as an anchor point for the slip knot end? You could then use a taught line knot or similar for tightening/adjustment. Long term it might depend on if the tension will be relatively constant or not.

    Only occasionally. Most of the time they're up to a couple of feet apart.

  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    Crossposting:

    Hah. So, as it turns out, my 3d-printed minimalistic cleat works really damn well.

    And I was able to print 50 of them at once last night.

    Woot.

    (ED: I also realized what it was I was kinda looking for in the real world: drawstring toggles!!! I ordered some, but I think I'll end up using them for another project later on.)

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    Today's practical problem solving: the thread on the adjustable mace I ordered won't screw all the way in due to gunk in the thread in the handle, so I made some super-simple spacers so I can use it without loading up way too many plates.

    uoo6lj6p97vh.png

  • djmitchelladjmitchella Registered User regular
    It's definitely the small home fixes that I'm starting to really appreciate a 3d printer for. This is a trivial model:

    CnLlK85.jpg?1

    but it let me repair a broken cupboard magnet closing thing that's been broken for a few years now -- the left side of the plastic had snapped so, where it should look like this:
    kXYKXrT.jpg?1
    instead, the head of the screw would fall out with general use. So I printed a bit of plastic to fill the hole, glued it in place, and now things are staying put again:
    0iZCvxm.jpg?1
    I could have done the same thing with a bit of wood most likely, or something else, but it's easy and quick to measure something and just print out a perfectly-sized bit of plastic rather than having to saw things down etc.

    On the other hand, I've also been printing out some significantly less useful things; the stepper motors on prusa printers are just sitting out there on the front of the printer, which means that with a little magnet, you can attach things to the extruder which will turn as the extruder turns, so you can confirm that it's actually going. The first one I had was just a couple of inches of filament glued onto a magnet:
    YAV0xyU.gif

    Then there's options which are a bit more fancy-looking, but still just a static shape:
    GuZ6fJR.gif

    You can get more complicated if you want to look like a different type of engine:
    XKFM59I.gif

    but my favorite one is the hamster-powered option:
    rYQMVQG.gif

    There's also goofy things you can make for the X axis motor; a gyroscope (sort of):
    ah1zxrA.gif
    or what I currently have on there, an optical illusion generator:
    KgiEtU6.gif

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    It's definitely the small home fixes that I'm starting to really appreciate a 3d printer for.

    Had the random idea to design a rack for the plates for my mace now that I printed the spacers for them. Also a good excuse to learn some more Fusion 360.

  • djmitchelladjmitchella Registered User regular
  • XeddicusXeddicus Registered User regular
    I see I was off on my guesstimate of the price of the cheapest option by half (and even my guess was too much for me really). Too bad, I want one!

  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    So, several months ago, I started planning out what I wanted to be for Halloween this year, because I decided that I wanted to 3D print my costume ("Elvenshae's Mostly 3D-Printed Halloween!") and I figured whatever I ended up printing would take a really, really long time. I was right, so I'm glad I started early!

    I decided pretty early on that I wanted to be a knight for Halloween this year. To be a knight, one must have a sword and armor. And, preferably, a shield. Spoiler alert: I wasn't able to find the wood to make the shield, so I went shieldless (until I ended up carrying my younger son's, as he couldn't carry his axe, shield, and candy with only two hands). And armor, naturally, includes a helmet.

    For those who just want the TL;DR, here's a picture of me (and my guys) and a picture of me slaying a dragon (my wife):
    bwvuajjw7583.jpeg
    j4gnf7wzjty6.jpeg

    In the above, my kids are dressed up as one of their favorite YouTubers, Dream, who does a bunch of Minecraft videos. My youngest designed his mask, and my oldest was going to but then just asked my youngest if he could use the same design. 10% upscale later, and we got two masks!

    So, to get into a bit more detail about my own costume.

    The Armor

    Definitely the largest part of the project! I started off with a decision to make: what kind of armor was I going to print. I've made chain in the past, by hand, and was intrigued at the thought of 3d-printing sheets of mail, like this one or this one . Since I was looking for authenticity-ish-ness, the second type (and the "NASA Type" of hexmail) was out. I ran a couple of samples of the first, and I kept having severe-enough curling problems that the printhead would eventually hit one of the rings hard enough to pull the whole thing off the bed. After giving it the ol' college try, I decided that printed mail wasn't going to be the answer. That left me with either printed plate or printed scale. The challenge with printing plate was that, with a 200x200 printbed, any armor plate would need to be chopped up into pieces - and gently curving pieces would require supports, increasing print time and material requirements while also making the results less pretty. I also ran into the problem that, while I could find, e.g., Iron Man or Batman STLs to work with, medieval stuff tilted really heavily in the direction of pieces for miniatures. Accordingly, there was going to be a whole lot of work required to manufacture plate with my setup, and even starting as early as I did, I wasn't sure I'd have enough time.

    This led me to scale. Scale was a useful compromise position, because it was straightforward to assemble, made out of individually easy-to-print pieces, and could be printed in a variety of colors easily to minimize the necessary post-printing decoration. Also, like chain and unlike plate, it was somewhat easier to adjust after creation in the event of being slightly off in my measurements - adding an extra row of scales would be far easier than reprinting an entire breastplate because it was accidentally an inch or two too short. This is important because, while I have made clothes and costumes in the past, it’s been a really long time and the chances of me making an error somewhere in the measuring, sizing, and translation-of-pattern-to-realty were basically 1.

    Also, scale is what the iconic D&D 3E Fighter starts off wearing, so …
    d6zmpmcd3bdt.jpeg

    I started off my investigation of scale by downloading several examples off of Thingiverse:

    Prot0typ1cal's Scale Mail Armor
    01i5ijmsb63t.png

    This one showed initial promise because the scales themselves had arms which would allow them to be heated, shaped, and linked with others without the need for a backing garment or cord. However, the heat-treat-and-bend step seemed after experimentation that it would take a long time to assemble, and I was concerned when I read that someone had printed over 500 of them to make a suit and the arms were struggling to support the weight. Still, I took note that the designer had come up with a handful of different scale shapes based on where they were going to be in the pattern, because that seemed useful.

    The next one I looked into was Drago3000's Modular Scale.
    mnuycff8i2uo.png

    I printed enough of these to make a small sample sheet, and the fact that it was corded, rather than heat-and-bend, seemed like it went together a little faster. The 4-hole design, where the scales are woven into the row above in addition to the left or right, was also an interesting difference vs. the other models. I ended up printing about 20 of these and wove them together with some paracord. They made a nice pattern that looked a lot like feathers, actually, and I really like the way the bottom edge scales (which only had the top holes) looked - gave it a finished sort of look. But, the scales were fairly small, and since I wanted to make a whole suit, I thought it would take a little too long with small scales.

    There were a couple of other models I reviewed but which didn't factor much in my eventual end plans:
    • Crest's Scale Armor: Each linkage was individually made, which was going to take way too long.
    • Kmolmstead's Chain Maille Scale Armor: Liked the hidden cords, but did not like print time and complexity of assembly.
    • Devonjones's Scale Mail Armor: Adorable, but needed a backing garment.
    • Octogonman's Spike Scale Mail: Liked the idea of the hidden lower string, but printing one sample revealed that it was hard to get the cord to feed through (he suggests fishing lines, which I think would've worked better, but I didn't want to use fishing line).
    • MissDeliana's Dragon Scales: A really cool idea to print directly on fabric (print some layers, pause, lay fabric down, resume printing), but 1) requires fabric and 2) requires you mostly know your sizing before you print.

    So, with all of that in-mind, I went about designing my own scales. They're based pretty heavily on the Modular Scale design, but with a few tweaks. First, I wanted there to be more than one alternative scale - I wanted a main body scale (4 holes), a bottom / top edge scale (2 holes), and left- and right-side scales (3 holes). This is because I noticed, when doing the modular pattern, that the scales on the edges had an extra hole showing, and I wanted to avoid that in certain locations. In the end, I ended up not needing quite so many of these as I thought I would, except for when it came time to design the pauldrons (but more on that later!).

    Here I ran into my first real tool challenge, because I wanted to design the scale once and then just pick which holes showed up in each version. I was making this all in Fusion 360, so I thought it would make sense to create a scale with the necessary holes pre-sketched, then create copies of the component and extrude the holes as desired. Unfortunately, Fusion 360 doesn't let you do that. When you create copies of components, and changes to one copy are reflected in every copy - or, in other words, adding in the 4 holes for the main body scale would automatically cut holes in the side and top scales, even though Fusion 360 has a timeline of changes and clearly has a copy-paste action available in that timeline, so you would think you'd be able to differentiate between changes before the copy-paste and after. This is apparently a pretty popular request from Fusion 360 users going back something like 5 years, so the fact that it hasn't been added yet is confusing but probably means that they'll never change it.

    There is a way around this, which is by copying and pasting the component as a "new component," but this does 2 things: 1) it breaks the linkages between the original component and the copy, and 2) adds the entire history of changes from the first component to your timeline again for the second component, and again for the 3rd, etc. This makes it so that any changes I made to the original component (such as cutting the holes for the cord, tweaking the size of the holes, or moving them, or rounding out a corner, etc.) would either be automatically included in every copy (bad) or would need to be made 4 separate times (very bad).

    The other way, which I ended up going with, involves making two separate documents (which is a minor pain, because F360 only allows you to have 10 editable documents at a time with their free license, and so getting around their issue counts double). In the first document, you edit the "primary" scale. In the second document, you import the scale as an imported component 4 times; changes made to the imported component are unique to the individual component in the second document, while universal changes can be made in the first document and get automagically imported in the second.

    md1vqye1c4ub.png

    At one point, I designed and 3d-printed rivets to hold the scales together, instead of using cord. However, the final design, though it printed just fine, ended up being too weak (because of how small they are, I suspect) and so I scrapped the idea and moved back to cord:
    a2tqd6c03tj1.png

    After several iterations on my scales, I printed out the "final" versions in a couple of different colors of PLA and tested them out. I put together a long strip of scales, and used that to estimate how many rows I was going to need to make to go from my shoulder to my waist. With that, it was on to the design of the whole shirt phase!

    Since I wasn't sure how else to do this, I elected to go with Powerpoint (!) to plan things out - starting with creating the model of the types of scales I was going to use:
    b2iamrz4kenq.png

    I then used those scale designs to lay out how various parts of the shirt were going to be constructed, with red lines marking the cord and transparency effects showing which parts would lay over others. This included top edges, bottom edges, sides, etc.:
    zmkxctxjzz9s.png

    vyoafguctvpx.png

    ornvcehkcoqk.png

    The enhanced version adds an extra set of bottom-edge scales to give it a more finished look. Re: the side edging: my first test pieces used a continuous cord - that is, the cord went back and forth across the entire piece, such that it was all on essentially a single thread. I determined through putting various pieces together that this would result in it being a gigantic pain in the butt to make any changes partway through, and elected to cut the cord such that each row was its own. (This drove my question earlier in this thread, and the SE++ A&C thread, about ways to get the rope tightened on both sides. More on that later!)

    With "How to put the scales together" figured out (sorta ...) it was time to actually design the shirt. I broke it into four pieces for ease of drawing it out - front, back, and left and right sides - with the understanding that I would put it all together as I was assembling it. E.g., although I planned out the left and right sides separately, the scale assembly would just continue continuously all the way around - I wasn't planning on making 4 individual pieces and then welding them together afterwards:
    3olfogohaxiq.png
    atqy7qv7o83e.png
    qch6tvkx88zl.png

    The goal was a front that was solid (better "protection") and a back that had a gap with lacing, so that it could be fit a little and be a bit easier to put on. In retrospect, a better idea would have been to make two separate pieces - front and back - with side wings that overlapped. This would have meant that I wouldn't have to be quite so precise in my measurements, as the separate pieces could have been more easily adjusted against each other.

    I also wasn't 100% certain, at this stage, how to put the shoulders together. I knew that the front and back couldn't be continuous - as that would make the scales go the wrong way up on the back - so they'd have to meet somehow at the shoulder. At first, I planned to just lace the scales together across the top. But that ended up changing later when I finally got there and realized that it was a good place to put some adjustableness.

    With the plan for assembly in place, the next step was to determine what colors I was going to print everything in. To do that, I took my Powerpoint layout and dropped it into GIMP. I first created a swatch of the 4 metallic-ish colors I had to work with:

    0t5axizgr6mt.png

    .. and then proceeded to just try out a bunch of potential designs:
    7sc7pn4mlxkk.png
    omth51sdd01a.png
    g39a9fcapdjg.png
    t3xbtyjs6k2t.png
    i84bgflxjqih.png
    2fpjgikid3a0.png

    Because I'm a smart guy, I asked my wife which ones she liked the best. :D She liked the 4th iteration, but thought it needed some of the silk gold scales, so I messed around with that a little more:
    3pumrb0ptlti.png
    9tp6vxpzwlm7.png

    When she picked the first of those, I expanded the idea to cover the whole shirt plan, and then figured out how many of each type of scale by color I'd need:
    ixmzxrv85awl.png
    vwe52i1wbb0w.png

    And at long last, I was actually ready to start printing. To keep track of things, I created an Excel sheet with all of the variations on it, and essentially ran a checkbook ledger to see what I had left to print:
    z43vh4tl3ivw.png
    5pt0rb2c1ea8.png

    After each day of printing, I'd mark down how many of which kinds I'd made. I set up and saved print job layouts in Prusa Slicer for mid-day print jobs (4x-6x scales), overnight jobs (10x-13x scales), varying by scale type and material (because True Silver prints at a slightly different temperature than Silk Silver). I started printing on 25 July. I finished my initial batch, after a couple of issues, delays, and other travails, on 1 September, when I printed the last 11 Silk Silver Bottom scales.
    n81bpsknhycl.png

    And then, I started assembly! And found out I hadn't done a couple of things right. :D

    Elvenshae on
  • minor incidentminor incident expert in a dying field njRegistered User regular
    Just upgraded to a Prusa Mini, and holyyyyy shit. Bone stock with default settings and the print quality beats the pants off my Ender 3 V2 that I spent the last year and a half upgrading and tuning to be as good as possible.

    Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    Just upgraded to a Prusa Mini, and holyyyyy shit. Bone stock with default settings and the print quality beats the pants off my Ender 3 V2 that I spent the last year and a half upgrading and tuning to be as good as possible.

    I've seriously been considering one. Only thing stopping me is that I haven't really printed much of anything at all this year.

    ...but maybe it's because I don't have a Prusa Mini. :thonk:

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