The Limits Of 3D Printing From A Complete Outsider
Steve K
Posts: 3,241
I recently saw a sculpture that I had to have and I bought it (several angles attached). It's 2'x2', weighs 50 lb, made of copper. "Folk Art" from mid 20th century.
I have done zero 3D printing. My naive question is: Can 3D printing at the hobby level get even close to something like this? Even on a smaller scale?
I realize copper is not likely an option 
, but some kind of maleable material could be made to look like metal? Or wood? Just not plastic. And many pieces to be assembled seem needed, but from the same virtual model, so the pieces fit?
Or something? And yes, I realize the words "learning curve" will come up. 
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Just to clarify, I don't want to reproduce the sculpture I bought. I have excellent 3D models of similar scenes that work great in Carrara, like this one:
https://www.daz3d.com/lake-village
So I'm wondering if I could do many little pieces of that for 3D printing, to be assembled afterwards.
Headwax probably the one to ask
hehe probably :)
short question needs a big answer :)
Short answer yes, but it's a time thing.
Especially if you are doing 2 foot squared kind of work. {My printer will do about 220 by 220 by 240 cm - but the bigger you make stuff the more chance you have of a fail)
If you want to intricate stuff then you need to use smaller layers - lots of time. Lots.
I haven't watched this video but I bet it tells you a lot
So basically, for that building, you are looking for the detail of miniatures - but lots and lots added together.
For them to fit you need to have your printer properly calibrated - whcih is doable after you watch youtube ;)
If you want an metal look you print black plastic and use rubb and buff.
If you want a wood look it isn't going to happen probably. The displacment tool in carrara is your friend o=in this - you displace the models with a wood texture from the lumber room - but then non of your peices will fit together unless they are all joined when you displace them. You can get wood laced filament but it won't look like real wood. texture is the best thing for this then rubbing wood colour on the plastic.
And carara doen't like big OBJ's as you have probably noticed.
To prepare your models use windows 3d builder and it will fix your meshes. You could also slice them into usable parts with this (not gcode slice!)
I am loading up lake village in carrara but it has stalled - though it has loaded before. Presntlat 89 percent.
I imagine for lake village you would have to export the whole as one obj,= except the boats and peripherals - bring it into 3d builder and slice it into managable parts.
if it loads I'll check it out
PS if you want something to feel heavy put nuts or sand in the bottom of the print :) Make sure they are warm though.
Just had a look at one lake village building.
I took it into 3d builder and it cleaned it up - closed all the open meshes etc.
If you look at this model you have to consider that all the unsupported parts will be a pita to print. - FDM won't print plastic in mid air. How to Optimize Cura Support Settings | All3DP
It will print with supports - but that will take longer and be a pain to clean up afterwards.
FDM will howevere print up to a 45 degree angle. So you would have to slice up your model with that in mind.
If you printed this one without supports in the size shown - see box n right for dimensions it would be over 13 hours
thats at a layer height of .1 mm
So that is the best time you can get if you sliced it up perfectly int parts
Any thoughts on minimum printer requirements for use with Carrara, etc? Pitfalls?
Fascinating discussion. Inspired me to look at 3D printers. The low end printers are not as expensive as I thought they would be, which says more about how high I thought the prices would be. Even so, probably out of my 2024 hobby budget (or swallow up the whole thing) depending on whether I think I would use it and how many years I think it would last. Here is a review page.
https://buyersguide.org/3d-printers/t/beginner?m=e&d=c&c=648847404379&p=&oid=kwd-297820930951&lp=9060548&li=&nw=g&nts=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyeWrBhDDARIsAGP1mWQwhV94Es3oxHdQAuBRBKQKReIV3UQhQ2hgtbK4x4oizVP7V6-KUHEaAgOSEALw_wcB&tdid=9859773&gad_source=1
For what it's worth, there are metal- and wood-infused PLA filaments out there (as well as coffee-infused and a very wide variety of xxx-infused filaments as well).
I've printed with copper-infused and aluminum-infused PLAs; there's only a very small percentage of actual metal particles in the plastic, so you won't have anything that you'll mistake for metal, but the pirnts do have a slight metallic finish. If I tap two prints using the aluminum PLA together, for example, they give off a metallic "ting" sound that you don't get with plastic-on-plastic.
Wow, many thanks for all the detailed advice. I get the message that it is doable but will take some ... doing. Lots to digest, but it is a tempting area to expand into using the great models available at very reasonable prices.
Regarding size of printer, my largest printer is an older Anycubic Chiron that prints up to 450 x 400 x 400 mm (17.7 x 15.7x 1.7 inches); it's been replaced by their newer Kobra Max 2:
https://www.amazon.com/Anycubic-Kobra-Max-Pre-Installed-Construction/dp/B09QGTYW3R/ref=sr_1_6?crid=28ERCBLABRSBV&keywords=anycubic%2Bprinter&qid=1702504638&sprefix=anycubic%2Bprinter%2Caps%2C115&sr=8-6&th=1
There's lots of competitors in the same size range, there'll be lots of user reviews for any model you research (where you'll also find all sorts of pros and cons and probably get a better idea of what you'll be able to print and what might cause you problems).
no prob;lem, I left out electroplating too if you want to add real copper
eg vid
Hi Ted, I bought mine about 18 months ago? So now old tech :)
I use Creality S1 Pro. Works good. I also bought a sonic pad so I can fiddle with the software and parameters of the print and stuff.
The Sonic Pad means you can fine tine your prints and watch them on a webcam. Also change paramters on the run.
As soon as you stop watching a 3d print it goes &^%^%$$#&*)(_)__)(*(*&^*$%$^#$%# ck.
Bare in mind you are buying a printer from a foreign country - sometimes their quality is not good - same as anywhere.
When you get yours check all the nuts and biolts and tight! And check the thing is square.
So my outlay if I started today Ender-3 S1 Pro 3D Printer (creality.com) (as I said it is old fashioned now)
Creality Sonic Pad Control Screen
It doesn't hurt to have an enclosure for filaments like PETG and ABS. Keeps the temp stable.
3D Printer Multifunction Enclosure (creality.com)
It wouldn't hurt to have a selection of good quality nozzles too.
For filaments - Esun Pla plus is very good. Easy to printy and tuff.
PLA is hard to post process. If you use ABS you can hit with an acetone bath to smooth it - but I wouldn't acetone is bad for your CNS.
If you want clear looking prints - not transparent - use PETG.
CarbonFibre infused nylon was a fail on my printer - nylon is very hard to print - it warps.
For the printer you want a direct extruder - not Boden type. Means the filament comes out evenly.
You also want an auto levelinng bed = you are working in .1 mm invrements so everything has to be level.
A PEI bed means your prints will stick properly to the bed with less chance of warping.
If you print eg M4 you need to export him as a posed obj, then reimport him into carrara and remove all the extraneous inner stuff like tongue eyeballs teeth etc, and make sure stuff like the fingernails are connected to the mesh.
3d Builder which comes frr with windows is your friend as it will make your mesh wtare tight so it can be printed - it does this automagically.
Whate else?
Watch as much youtube videos as you can on a printer once you have narrowed them down.
Keep in mind that youtubve creators make money out of getting you to watch their vids. They also get free stuff from companies to review - so buyer beware.
I've found
in no particular order these people are trustworthy - what ever trustworthy means
(53) Aurora Tech - YouTube
(53) CHEP - YouTube
(53) CNC Kitchen - YouTube
(53) Teaching Tech - YouTube
(53) Ricky Impey - YouTube
(53) The Edge of Tech - YouTube
(53) My Tech Fun - YouTube
most of these people are nerds so be careful not to become like them ;)
Lastly - imagine going to the hardware shop and buying a hammer. Suddenly everything becomes a nail.
3d printing is like that.
After 12 months of making surfboard fins I can now make an $45 fin for 3 dolars = after an outlay of about $3000 for r and d - and my wife thinks that I am mad because of all the surfbaord fins laying around
any questions let me know :)
PS don't be fooled like me into thinking because 3d printing is affordable that means it is approachable. The more expensive printers are reputed to work perfectly all the time straight out of the box ....
a 3d printer is like having an old car that needs tinkering occasionally - and you tighten one wheel nut and all the tyres fall off ,- for no apparent reason :)
but at least you get to have fun
more links - people mainly post when they have problems
Creality Sonic Pad Official Community | Facebook
Creality Ender 3 S1 / PRO group | Facebook
Creality Ender 3 S1 / S1 Pro / S1 Plus | Facebook
Wow again. I really did not expect the subject to be this deep. ( A lie, I really did) Maybe just send the Carrara file to the printer, set a few parameters (high detail, metallic finish, cool look) and hit "Print". And a museum quality model drops out the other end.
I did see some advice I think I can handle:
"PS if you want something to feel heavy put nuts or sand in the bottom of the print :)"
BTW, my wife is very good at polymer clay objects, and she is quite familiar with Rub'n Buff. The Electroplating idea reminds me of one of her favorite TV shows, "Forged In Fire" (she also works in small metal items).
Here is an example of her clay earing work (no Rub'n Buff I think)
wow that's beautiful work! your widfe has a terrific eye for colour and design. And Ilove the glow effect with the aura type application of the colour. What media is she using for that colouring? It's very intricate I imagine.
PS make sure uyou hear up the nuts and sand to the same temp as the bed :)
She says the color is all in the clay, no surface effects. She was an Art/Math major in college, graduated cum Laude. Thanks for the kind comments. She has a lot of fans.
Well, now you've lost me. And I thought I was getting it.
heat
Headwxa uyou mdae a tpyo
wow, that's all I can say. "Apart from 'that's all I can say"
Wendy , I did retype that whol post with ny topuys but it ended up being a double post and I see the beautifully typed typoless post has been vamoosed!
Steve, sorry Wendy is right, but hear is always good too. "Like put the sofa over hear." :)
https://3dprinterly.com/how-to-add-weight-to-3d-prints-fill-pla-more/#how-to-fill-3d-prints-with-sand
OK, I can follow that. Only snag is you gotta make the 3D print first. I think.
took me a while to tranmslate that - in Oz snags are sausages :)
yes making the print is a plus. :)
In the gcode (the code that tells your printer what to do ) you can put it in a pause command so you can fiddle with the print - I've been putting carbon fibre rods inside my fins - just make the hole .4 mill biger than it needs to be
Enlightening. I'e been thinking of the print like a render, once it starts it's got to finish (or abort). But its apparently a process that can be course adjusted. Cool.
plenty of parameters on the fly
here is an example of one window with the sonic pad running software called Klipper
I'm seeing "19%" (complete) and all those sliders, etc. are still active? Even cooler. Sounds like making a clay pot on a spinning wheel, but with way more detail available. Or as a musical analogy, the Roland HPD-20 HandSonic hand percussion instrument (I have an earlier version) and its many knobs, especially the "D-Beam" (starts ~2:40):
I get the impression that in Oz, much of the language is slang (Waltzing Matilda, great song), and used to great effect in a favorite TV series "Rake"
A favorite: "Shark biscuit". One American translation: "rug rat".
that's a wowowowow machine :)
for the 3d printer usually you start off with a 'recipie' for all the paramteres, then tweak it as you see fit - eg you can program the nozzle to jump over the printed print by say .65 mill, but if you have increased the flow of the plastic to fill in gaps etc, then after 50 laters the nozzle will start to run into the print .
As far as the Roland, in 1980 I was working in the country. I was taking sax and flute lessons at the local music shop. One night I was there and all the real musos were gathered round this small piano looking thing. It was Roland (Moog?) Synthesiser or similar.
"Look at this!" one of the musos ( a talented cornet player) named Ron said.
We all gathered closer while Ron pushed a button on the ledft of the machine. After a few seconds out of the Roland came the sound of helicoptors.
"Ohh ahh, " we said.
"Oh that's not all!," Ron said, his eyes glistening with excitment.
Then, with a flourish of his hands, he twiddled a big knob on the right corner of the machine - and the helicoptor noises went from one side of the room to the other!
"Ooo, ahh, oowah," we all said.
It was like Apocalypse Now - but bettererer ;)
Ha ha we never talk slang. We just speak Australian ;). Shark biscuit here is a boogey board rider :) And yes, we have rug rats , lol!
Roland has an amazing history:
Some translations of "Shark Biscuit" list children on the beach. Now THAT is a title for my next 48 Hour Film in the horror genre. With some steals from "Jaws".
looking more than forward to it, remind me not to be a child star in one of your movies :)