Something for 3D printers to play with

[samurainoir]

Open Source Action Figure with 70 pts of articulation, if anyone feels like printing this out at Mego scale.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:116571

female...

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:126371

[supes]

Thats pretty freaking cool!!!

[Starroid Raiders Dagon]

He brings up some excellent ways to give joints better friction. We all may need that info. in the coming Mego era without rubber bands.

Here was a good story on a open source 3-D printer. Different in that he converts and uses sound files

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/3d-printer-by-sask-man-gets-record-crowdsourced-cash-1.2417416

[thunderbolt]

that's something I need at 18 inches.

[noelani72]

I've been following that for a while now and it's pretty darn cool.
There's a couple things about this that are hidden gotchas -
1) actually printing it
2) actually building it

lol, ok, maybe those are vague so let me try to explain because this world is quite confusing and Thingiverse (however awesome is it) needs to figure out a way to segregate prints - segregate by material required (ABS vs PLA vs Etc..) and printer the file was designed for (Extrusion, OBjet, etc..).

The Dexter in that article was built using ABS on a MendleMax - which I think is an extrusion model like my MakerBot.

ABS can sand and chemicals such as acetone can really help fine tune products. PLA can barely sand, and chemicals don't work.

Printing Dexter is going to take quite a bit of time. I really wish he'd mentioned in the Instructions how much time he devoted.
Let's just look at the top chest - the biggest portion that has the peck muscles, clavicle and shoulder tips.
Without looking at the file real quick, assuming it is a front & back part which is 15% solid for strength, is gonna take about 3 hours on high res...maybe 2 hrs on medium res...low res ain't worth it.

Now print the rest of him, and for those who have a day job & family, you might be lucky to get him all printed out in about three weeks (assuming you only have one printer, Dexter's creator has at least three in his basement I read somewhere).

Then, as the process is not quite perfect yet, you have the chance of a failed part. Either it pulled off the build plate a bit, or it airprinted. Pulling off the build plate means your part is now warped - not ideal for ball joints and such as this figure has. Airprint means the extrusion nozzle clogged and you didn't catch it in time - so the machine ran for 3 hrs, yet only printed until it clogged.

Assuming everything goes your way - both time to do it and 100% print success, you then have the task of assembling this thing.
If you watch his videos, he shows how he used acetone to melt out some of those ball joints for proper fit. Can't do that in PLA material.
There are going to be times where you'd need to sand - he says you don't have to, but in my experience that is just not true...and PLA does not sand.

If I truly wanted to make a line of figures using this body, I'd either pay someone like Shapeways the hundreds of dollars it would take, or I'd print one, cast it, and clean-up the resin parts...then remold after fitting.

3D printing is just one of the coolest darn things to become somewhat affordable in the past few years...it's only gonna get better...but there is quite a bit to it right now.

[Starroid Raiders Dagon]

Nice information, noelani72! I think I followed what you were saying You explained it well but I am just starting to get used to the terminology and materials involved. That would be a nightmare to print a part for a few hours and have it be a failed piece. I get enough of those just molding and casting regular parts!
Really is a such a cool technology.

[luclin999]

I think that I may download this and see how it prints from my Form 1.