Tag Archives: 3D Printing

UPF Light Cruiser Model and Miniature

I didn’t think I would have this done by today but in a burst of fevered work, I finished up the light cruiser model so that’s what I’m writing about today. The image to the right shows the final model (click for the full-sized image). Let’s talk a bit about the ship.

First off, I’ve been calling this the light cruiser but on the Federation Ships boxed set of miniatures that the original came in, it is labeled as a Destroyer. However, it’s much too big to be a destroyer so I’ve always considered it a light cruiser, although it could arguably be a heavy cruiser also.

The frigate model is 2.25 inches long. Based on the size given for the frigate in the rules, this makes the model 1/2500th scale. The destroyer is only 30% longer and so at that scale should be about 2.9 inches long. This model is 3.75″ long. As a light cruiser it is a 1/3800th scale model which makes a little more sense to me. The battleship model is at 1/5900th scale so that would put it in between the scales of the frigate and the battleship and similar to the sathar light cruiser model which is at 1/3500th scale.

Here’s a picture of the two original miniatures side by side. They are roughly the same size (when I’m comparing them and quoting scales, I’m looking only at the fuselages and not counting the engines) and have basically the same volumes. So you’d expect the ships to be of similar sizes as well. So that’s why I’ve been calling this the light cruiser and not the destroyer despite what the box says.

With that out of the way, let’s look at creating the model.

The Fuselage

The first step was to build the basic fuselage that all the other bits would be attached to. This was fairly straight forward as it was mostly just some cylinders and cones hooked together. The calipers provided the lengths and diameters and that got us from the stern up to the neck just before the bow.

This is where I made my first deviation from the original miniature. On the mini, the bow is a hexagon from back to front so it extends out beyond the neck portion of the ship just a little on the sides. I decided to make if flush there and so used the software to smoothly transition from the circular neck to the hexagon, just like I had done on the frigate model.

At this point, I also added all the ridged trim to the edges of the model. I ended up making my trim a little more finely grooved than in the original miniatures. With that done, I had the basic fuselage and could start adding details.

The Engines

As you can see from the photo above, the engine structure on the UPF ship is much more complicated than the sathar one. That was part of the reason I started with the sathar ships several years ago when I first started making the reproduction models – it was simpler. However, I knew I was going to have to tackle this.

Then I got looking at the engines for the battleship model as well (they are not attached to the model like they are for the light cruiser). On closer inspection, I realized that they were exactly the same! Which meant that once I created a model of the engine, I could use it for the battleship as well.

So I busted out my calipers and started measuring. I quickly realized that that wasn’t going to work too well as there were little bits and pieces that I couldn’t reach with my calipers to make measurements. So I also took a series of images of the engines from each side that I could pull up in a graphics program and measure the number of pixels across a given feature was and convert that to millimeters to use in making the model. The result was the model to the right.

If you look closely, it’s a little bit cleaner than that one on the model. That’s because I’ll be 3D printing these and don’t have to pour molten lead into a mold. That allows me to leave of features that on the miniature look like they are there just to get the lead to flow into all the right parts. So it’s not an exact replica, but rather a close match.

The Guns

The next bit was to do the gun turrets. They are all the same and not quite equally spaced around the body. This was another instance of being able to make a single model and reuse it. It was also at this point that I discovered that there are two slightly different versions of the light cruiser miniatures.

Over the years I have acquired four different Federation Ships boxed sets, primarily in an attempt to get one that didn’t suffer from lead rot. It seems that these ships were particularly succeptable to that, primarily the battleship model. I finally ended up with two good sets, one of which had a coat of primer applied. In looking at the light cruiser models from these two sets, I noticed that the gun turrets were different between the two. On of the minis (the painted one) had more details on the turret than the other. I pulled out my other two cruiser minis to check and there was one of each in that pair as well. The difference is minor but I chose to model the more detailed version.

Again, like the engine, there were some features, mainly material supporting the gun turrets, that were there to help the lead flow into the mold that I left off in my model.

Details, Details, Details

With the easy and repeatable parts out of the way, it was time to start adding in the individual details all along the surface of the ship. I simply started at the stern of the ship and worked my way forward using calipers, rulers, and my good, old-fashioned Mark I eyeball (assisted by a magnifying glass) to determine the size and position of each of the features on the model.

The boxes, cylinders, and spheres were easy enough to add in as those are native shapes the modeling software I use produces. The really tricky part was all the piping along the body of the ship. Getting those shapes created and positions was a bit trick but by the time I got to the bow of the ship I was getting pretty good at the process and had built up some tools that simplified it that will help me in models going forward.

And then it was done. I wasn’t keeping exact track of the time but I think I spent something on the order of 10-20 hours producing the model. Now it was time to print.

Printing

If you remember from my review of the AnyCubic Photon printer, the print time is directly related to the height of the object printed. Since this model was small enough that it could lay flat on my print bed, I had two choices, flat or vertical. I was going to print this with the grey, opaque resin because I wanted to get more familiar with that resin and because it makes the details a little easier to see. The opaque resin takes longer to print and cure as you have to spend a little more time on each layer when printing (16 instead of 10 seconds). So printing flat meant a 3 and a quarter hour print while a vertical print meant a 12 hour print. In the interest of testing, I went with the shorter print (I really wanted to see a print that day and not wait all night).

Once the print was done and cured, I started looking it over to see how it compared to the original miniature. The “down” side looked fine, there were some variations but overall it looked fine. Then I turned it over. The “up” side did not look nearly as good and felt almost melted to me. I realized that this was from resin pooling on the upper surfaces and not draining off and then slowly curing during the printing process. I also noticed some warping due to not having enough supports in certain places. It looked like a flat print was not going to work. So I set one up to print overnight in the vertical orientation.

click for full resolution image

This first image shows the three minis side by side. The original metal miniature is in the middle (this is the primed one). On the left is the vertically printed mini and on the right is the horizontally printed one. This is the “down” side of the horizontally printed mini. Comparing the two printed minis, they look about the same on this side. Although I think the vertically printed one is just a little crisper.

Comparing the plastic and metal minis, I realized that despite always reducing the size of the features as I measured them off the unpainted mini, a lot of the features came out slightly larger. Also, the metal miniature still wins on the details in some places. I think I could fix that but I’m happy with the way it looks.

Turning the model over we get this view.

click for full resolution image

Here you can immediately see the issue with the printing on the horizontally printed model (on the right). The features are just not as crisp and clean. As I said before, to me it looked a bit melted. You can’t really see it in these images but the bow and ends of the engines are pinched and skinnier than the other model and the original. This is due to flexure in the printing process that could probably be fixed with more supports (I don’t think there were supports on the very tips because they were higher up and therefore didn’t technically need them). However, the issues with the remainder of the surface make this not really worth pursuing. This model will need to be printed vertically for best results.

Here’s another picture of the first side with the models in a slightly different orientation that includes a ruler for scale.

In this view, you can actually see a bit of the curvature I was talking about in the bow and engines of the model on the right.

Wondering if the opaque resin was part of the problem of the parts looking bigger or less distinct (due to the longer curing time while printing) I printed another vertically-oriented one win the translucent green resin that I did a lot of the other ships in. I don’t have a picture but I decided that there really wasn’t any difference between the two other than it was harder to see the details on the green one.

Final Thoughts

This model is good to go. I could tweak it in the future to make it look a little bit more like the original miniature but I’m happy with it the way it is so if I do tweak it, it will be some time in the future when I’ve got the rest of the line of ships complete.

I’ll be sending the model file out to my Patreon supporters later today. I’ve added this model to the price list on the Order Miniatures page for those that want to order minis for their collection. It’s priced just like the Sathar light cruiser at $2.75.

Some time in the next month (probably after we get issue 26 of the Frontier Explorer out the door), I’m going to start posting the model files up on DriveThruRPG for download as well. The models that are reproductions will be offered as pay-what-you-want while the ones that are original to me will have a small cost.

Next up is the UPF battleship. I already have the gun turrets (but not the bases, those are different) and the engines ready to go. There are a lot of repeated features on that model so it might go faster but it will definitely be November before it’s done. After that, I plan on filling in the gaps in the ship lines by designing a UPF destroyer, minelayer, and heavy cruiser, and then the assault carriers for the UPF and sathar. That will give all the ships necessary for full fleet engagements. After that I’m going to go back and tackle the pirate frigate, freighter, and privateer minis from the original sets to complete all the reproductions. There might be some new ships thrown in along the way as well.

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments below.

Armed Station Model and Miniature

I teased this model in the last State of the Frontier post where I showed a picture of the printed miniature. In this post, I’ll talk about the creation of the Armed Station model and miniature that I created as part of my current interest in doing more 3D modelling.

Scale and Sizes

The basic outline of this model is based on the space station counter that came with the Knight Hawks boxed set, pictured to the right. For scale, I assumed this to be a HS 6 station making the diameter of the station 1200 meters, just short of a mile. In the end, the model was a bit bigger than that as I set the diameter of the center of the ring to be 1200 meters but that’s a minor quibble that can be fixed if really wanted by scaling the final model.

When I do my modeling, I typically work at 1/1000 scale in the model files so 1 meter on the actual vessel is represented as 1 mm in the model. However, for the space station, that was just a little bit too bit so instead I worked at 1/10,000th scale or 1mm = 10 meters. In the end, at that scale, the model came out at 137.4mm across, or 5.4″.

With the outer ring having a diameter of 1200 meters, that gives us some dimensions of other parts of the structure using the counter image as a silhouette.

The Main Ring

First is the cross sectional size of the ring itself. I chose to model the ring, at least for this version of the model with a circular cross section. I may do a future one with a square or rectangular cross section. Regardless, at this scale, that give the ring a height of 100 meters in the radial direction. So for the model, it has a diameter of 100 meters

That means, assuming you have 5m per deck, you could put 20 separate decks in the ring of the station, with the widest deck at the center being about 100m wide and the decks getting narrower as you move up or down from the center. The upper (and lower) two or three decks would be fairly narrow and probably used for machinery and other non-public areas.

The Spokes

On this station, the spokes connecting the hub to the ring are 60 meters across. Again, I chose to use a circular cross section so they are 60 meters in diameter.

In addition to the spokes of the station, the counter shows a thicker “sheath” around the ring where the spokes meet it. This sheath is 164 meters in diameter compared to the 100 meters of the ring. That means that there can be an additional 12 decks in this section of the station.

The Hub

Let’s start with what we can see from the picture on the counter. Measuring this out, the hub is 400 meters in diameter. That is the same size as the outer diameter on a hull size 2 station! But that’s fine. This is a big station and is supposed to be able to dock a lot of ships of all sizes.

That brings us to the first constraint. According the Star Frontiers rules, a hull size 6 station can dock any sized ship, including the HS 20 ships. Those ships are 100m in diameter. So the bay opening into the hub has to be at least that big. As drawn, in the counter, it’s only 85 meters wide so we’ll have to make it a little wider but that’s not that big of an issue. I ended up modeling it 110 meters wide. A HS 20 ship will fit, but it will be tight.

The harder part is the length of the hub. Those same HS 20 ships are 600 meters long. Or equal in length to the radius of the entire station. For our hub to be able to house those ships inside as the game implies, means that the hub has to be really long, at least 650 meters (to handle variations in width/length both the door and length should probably be larger but that’s what we’re going with here.) This results in a station that looks like this.

I tossed in some HS 18 Sathar heavy cruisers for scale. There’s also a HS 6 freigher (the CDCSS Nightwind) there to the right of the hub.

The same is true for the smaller stations. This image is one I made a long time ago of a HS 1 station which is just 200m in diameter and supposed to be able to house up the HS 6 ship. This shows a cut away of the hub with the CDCSS Nightwind inside along with a couple of assault scouts. I didn’t put bay doors on this one, as it was just for scale comparisons.

Personally, I don’t like the hub that big and in my game, the bigger ships don’t dock inside the hub. Rather they just enter a nearby parking orbit and material and people are moved across by shuttles, which can dock in the hub. So for the final version of this model, I made the hub just 200m tall instead of 650m. That’s still big enough to dock up to a HS 8 ship inside. In a future version, I might make it a little bigger, at 250-260m allowing a HS 10 ship to dock inside. But anything else starts to look a bit to big.

Finishing up the Model

Once I’d decided on the size of the hub, the basic shape of the station was done, but it was pretty boring looking. So I decided to add a bit of surface detail to the model to make it a little more visually appealing.

First I created bay doors that I could position either open or closed. In the end I decided to print the model with them closed but I created models with them both open and closed.

Then I added some surface detail all around the ring, spokes, and hub to give it a little character. In the end, the final model looked like this.

The asymmetry in the number of pips to the left and right of the doors was accidental. But I decided to leave them. The V-shape and half moon shape above and below the bay doors where intentional as navigational markers. The side with the ‘V’ that touches the bay entry is the “up” direction to orient ships aligning with the bay for entry. the opposite side of the hub is identical.

Printing the Model

As I said earlier, the completed model, at 1/10,000th scale is 137.4 mm. The problem is my high resolution printer has a maximum width of 120 mm. So this is just a bit too big. It’s not too tall, the limit there is 155 mm. And it’s not too thick as it can be 68 mm wide and this model is only 22mm wide (that would have been a bigger issue if I’d gone with the fat hub). I could easily print it on my big printer; in fact, I could print it at 1/5000th scale if I wanted to) but that wasn’t the plan. I wanted to print it on the SLA printer. If I rotate it just right, the software says it is possible to print the station at 1/10,000 scale in the build volume I have. And I might try that one day

However, from the beginning I had planned to print it at 1/20,000th scale which makes the largest dimension just 68.7 mm or 2.7″. So that’s what I did. You can see the result in this image.

The station was printed with black resin, the assault scout is 1″ tall and printed in the green resin that came with the printer.

The only detail that doesn’t show up is the “X” on the bay door. They are there, but very, very faint. I might go back and thicken them up in the future so they show up better on the print.

Final Thoughts

Given the size of the station, if it is spinning such that the deck at the center of the ring has a gravity of 1.0g, then for every 60m you move toward or away from the center of the station, you gravity will change by 0.1g. This means that the upper deck, 45m above that position will have a gravity of 0.925g while the outer deck will have a gravity of 1.075g. In the part of the station where the spokes connect, assuming there are decks all the way out to the edge, you get a range from .87g to 1.13g. And the hub with a radius of 200m, has a gravity of 0.33g, roughly the equivalent of the surface of Mars.

That raises an interesting point. The docking area in the hub is supposed to be fairly low gravity. I wouldn’t consider 0.33g to be that low so the hub is probably a bit too large in diameter. But it looks cool so it’s fine for the model.

The model has already gone out to my Patreon supporters at the Surveyor ($2/month) or higher. If you join at that level you’ll get access to it as well. Anyone that joins at the Crafter level ($30/month) in the month of October will get a printed version of the model as well as 8 UPF and 8 Sathar fighters. I’m also planning on posting the UPF Light Cruiser this month (the model is almost done) so a printed mini of that model will go out to backers at that level as well. Those will all be printed and shipped out in early November.

If you don’t want to back the Patreon, but still would like to get a print of any of the miniature models I’ve created, you can jump over to the “Order Miniatures” page to see the costs for the minis and place an order.

Let me know your thoughts and comments on the Armed Station model and miniature in the comment section below.

AnyCubic Photon – A 3D printer review

As you know, I like to build models and 3D print them. I’ve had Rostock Max v3 printer for a couple of years now that I’ve been very happy with. With it’s ~11″ diameter bed and ~16″ maximum height, it has allowed me to do some really large prints like my 12″ Assault Scout and my dice towers. I’ve also used it to print parts to repair things around my house or other useful gadgets.

Types of Printing

As a fused deposition modeling (FDM) printer with a 0.5mm nozzle, one thing the Rostock doesn’t do is super fine detail on small scales. It’s good enough for the spaceship models I’ve been making, especially since I designed the ships with the capabilities of the printer in mind. However, some of the models that I made to recreate old metal miniatures are right on the edge of what the printer could do. And while they print fine, they could be better. It definitely doesn’t do well enough to print small 28mm scale miniature figures with all their detail.

So earlier this month I purchased a new printer to compliment the Rostock on the small scale: an Anycubic Photon. Unlike the FDM printer that uses filament to lay down layers of material to create the print, the Photon is a Stereolithography (SLA) printer. It uses a UV sensitive resin and shines a UV light on the resin, hardening it for each layer. Early (and more high end) SLA printers use lasers as the light source. The Photon uses a UV LED screen. So instead of having to move back and forth across the print area to put down filament, it exposes the entire print surface at once.

Resolution & Build Volume

My Rostock has a cylindrical build volume 280mm in diameter and 405mm tall. Vertically, it can theoretically do 0.06mm layers but in practice, anything less than 0.1 mm doesn’t work but at that thickness and higher it works just fine. So I would use 0.1mm for high detail prints and 0.2mm as the default for large prints. That’s the vertical direction, in the horizontal direction, the positional accuracy was on the order of 0.05 mm but with the 0.5mm nozzle, you get actual resolution more on the order of 0.2mm.

Rostock on the left, Photon on the right. The Rostok is 3 feet tall.

The Photon is much much smaller. The picture at right shows them side by side. The print volume on the Photon is rectangular, 121mm wide, 68mm deep, and 150mm tall. However, that 121×68 mm print bed is imaged by a screen that is 2560×1440 pixels in size. That works out to a resolution in the x and y directions of 0.0475mm, 4 times better than what I can achieve with the Rostock. In the vertical direction, the default layer height is 0.05mm and it can go as low as 0.02mm, although I haven’t tried that yet as the 0.05mm height is amazing. It can go as thick as 0.1mm. So the default vertical resolution is already 2 times better than the best the Rostock can do and it has the capability to go even finer. The cost is print time and build volume.

Some Prints

Before I talk about the printing process, it’s time for some pictures. I’m still testing things out, but the default settings produce some amazing prints.

The images below shows a pair of miniatures that I printed for my daughter’s friends. I had tried printing them on the Rostock and it just couldn’t do it. The discoloration on the print of the sorceress is due to an alternate curing method I was trying out (more on that later). You can see the folds in their clothes and hair, and details in their armor.

The printer came with the green resin and that’s what I’ve been using. I’ve ordered some white, black, and grey resin but I’m waiting for it to arrive. Next up we have the pirate corvette. The silver one was printed on my Rostock and the green of course is the new Photon. You can see the difference immediately. The resin print is much smoother and doesn’t have the banding from the print layers that the FDM print has. That wasn’t actually the best print from my Rostock so it’s not a completely fair comparison but the new one is just that much better.

This image shows my sathar destroyer and hull 6 freighter models printed with both printers. The main thing visible in this set of prints is that the physical dimensions of the prints are more accurate with the resin printer. For example the bulb at the head of the destroyer is a bit distorted in the FDM print. Another thing that’s not as easily visible in this picture (as I wasn’t thinking about it when I took the picture) is that there are some fine details of bay doors and airlocks on both models that are just barely there on the FDM print but easily visible on the resin print. The other thing that stands out is that the barrels on my laser batteries (on the freighter) show up just fine in the resin print.

This next print I did to test out the resolution. The two prints are the exact same model file. The white one was printed with 0.1mm resolution on the Rostock and is 4″ tall. That was the scale (1/500th) that I designed the model to print at. I’ve also printed it at 1/333th, 6mm, and 10mm scales (6″, ~8″, and ~12″ tall. If you want one, you can order them here). The small one was printed just 1″ tall (1/2000th scale). It’s hard to see it in the picture, but every detail you can see on the large model, is also on the little one.

In addition, because of the very high resolution of the resin printer, details on the bottom of the model (back of the engines and fuselage), which didn’t print very well on the FDM version, are hinted at on that 1″ print but completely visible on a full-sized 4″ print as seen in the image below.

Next we have a comparison of the sathar light cruiser model. The FDM printed one has suffered some battle damage from my little boys playing with it. This is their favorite model of the bunch for some reason. Now the FDM version is pretty good but suffers on the underside of the engine struts. Otherwise it looks pretty good. But what blew me away when I got this print finished was the surface detail on the resin print. If you look closely at the head of the ship and the upper fuselage, you can see that the surface is faceted by a bunch of flat surfaces. That is the actual shape of the model file, not a printing artifact. It is washed out by the lower resolution of the FDM printer but the resolution is so high on the resin printer that the fact that I only used 50 faces to model circles is evident in the print. Those are the individual hull plates used to build the ship. At least that’s the story I’m sticking to.

The image below is the tallest print I’ve done, the sathar heavy cruiser. This one is about at the limit of the printer standing 142mm tall. In this case, I haven’t removed the support material from either of the prints so you can see what that looks like before it is all cleaned off. Not much more to add with these ones.

Finally, we have a collection of the smaller ships. These are all models, like the two above, that duplicate the original metal miniatures as exactly as I could (which turned out to be pretty close). We have the UPF and sathar frigates, the sathar cutter (which is the silhouette used on the UPF minelayer chit, but called the sathar cutter on the blister pack), and the pirate and UPF assault scout.

The Printing Process

The Photon’s SLA printing process comes with a different set of experiences, constraints, and challenges as compared with a FDM printer. The most obvious one is that everything is printed upside down.

The sathar heavy cruiser about 3/4 done

Build Plate Adhesion

The layer being printed is at the bottom of the pool of resin. The UV light shines there to cure the resin, then the build plate slowly lifts to separate it from the teflon panel at the bottom of the reservoir, lifts it up and then puts it back down to work on the next layer. Because of that, one of the biggest challenges is making sure that your first few layers stick very strongly to the build plate. I’d say this has been my biggest challenge so far and I’ve had plenty of failed prints where it just hasn’t stuck and I’ve ended up with at layer of hardened resin stuck to the teflon at the bottom.

To achieve a good binding, there are two major factors that go into it. First, you simply expose the resin to the UV light for a lot longer on the first 5-10 layers. Typical expose time for a regular layer is 8-12 seconds. On the first layers you expose it for 40-80 seconds. This makes these first layers strong and well hardened and helps them bind to the build plate. The other part is to make sure that the build plate is as level as you can get it.

On the Photon, the build plate is connected to the mechanism that moves it up and down by a ball joint (that you can just see at the top of the picture above) which allows you to adjust the position of the plate. I’ve found that I need to realign this after every few prints. I think I’m applying too much force when trying to remove models from the plate, or not tightening the screw enough that holds it tight. I’m still working on making this more stable.

Layer Print Speed

Another difference is that it takes the same amount of time to print a layer whether there is only a small bit of the model on that layer or you’re filling the entire build plate. On an FDM printer, the nozzle has to travel over every bit of the layer where you want plastic to be laid down. Which means that the time spent on a layer depend on the amount of material to be placed. In fact, in the slicing software for FDM printers, there is an option you can set that is minimum layer time. This is because the plastic is still warm and if you print over the layers to quickly, you get smearing like you can see at the top of the corvette model in the earlier pictures.

On the SLA printer, it exposes the entire layer at once. Which means each layer takes exactly the same amount of time regardless of the amount of material being printed. However, because of the smaller layer sizes, you have to do more layers.

For single models, the FDM printer is faster. For example, the freighter print, and the frigates and sathar destroyer for that matter, all take about 4-5 hours on the Photon to print since they are all the same height and print time is just a function of the height of the model. The heavy cruiser took about 11 hours (I ran it overnight). On the FDM printer, those smaller models only took about 30 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on the layer height settings. So you’re getting the increased quality in exchange for increased time.

However, because the SLA printing is independent of the amount of material being printed, you can print a bunch of models all at once if they fit on the build plate. I printed the eight smaller ships (destroyer, 2 frigates, freighter, cutter, and 3 assault scouts) all at once. It took five hours and only filled about half the build plate area, if that (I could have packed them closer together). On the Rostock, that same set would have taken nearly 6 hours to print (at 0.1mm height resolution compared to the 0.05mm of the Photon) and the scaled down assault scout model would not have printed successfully at all as the details are too fine on that model. And that 11 hour print on the heavy cruiser? It takes 6.75 hours on the Rostock. And I can print 5 at a time on the Photon in that same 11 hours which would take just over a day on the Rostock. So while individual prints are slower, you can print many models at once and actually achieve a faster print speed with higher resolution. As long as it fits in the build volume.

Materials, Post-processing, and Clean-up

With the FDM printer, I just use PLA plastic which comes in 1kg spools that cost about US$22-25 depending on the color and transparent plastic costs a bit more. You can see one of the spools and its box in the very first picture sitting on top of the Rostock. For the SLA printer, you use a liquid resin that hardens when exposed to UV light at 405nm. You can buy it in 500ml and 1 liter bottles that cost about US$25 for the half liter bottles and US$40 for the liter bottles, again price varying slightly by the color and transparency. So the material on the SLA printer is a bit more expensive.

Additionally, you use more material for any given print. You always have to have a base plate (raft) that uses up material, plus the resin prints tend to be more solid than the FDM prints. There are techniques for reducing this that I’m still learning, but my resin prints are definitely heftier than the prints from the Rostock. Additionally there is a bit of resin lost in the clean-up process each time (although the amount is fairly small). All told, it probably costs about 2-3 times as much to print with the SLA printer than the Rostock.

There is also a bit more work involved on finishing a print with the SLA printer. With the FDM printer, once the print is done, you just have to let it cool, remove it from the build plate, remove the printing supports, and you’re done. Paint or use. It’s a bit more involved with the SLA printer.

First, the print is literally dripping wet. The last bit of just came out of the resin bath and you might have bits of liquid resin hiding in pockets higher up depending on the shape of your model. So you have to have to make sure that gets cleaned up.

Second, there is typically a thin film of uncured resin sticking to the surface all over the print. This needs to be rinsed off to get the highest surface detail. This is done by washing the material in a bath of high concentration rubbing alcohol (I use 91% isopropyl). The alcohol dilutes and washes away the uncured resin. This keeps it from binding to the model in the next step.

Finally, you need to finish the curing process. While the model is solid, it is not completely cured and you want to make sure it is. This can be accomplished in a number of ways. One is to buy a UV lamp that emits at 405nm and put the model under that for a while to finish curing at least the surface (which is really what you need, the interior will finish over time). The other option, which I typically use, is to take advantage of the big UV lamp in the sky and set the model out in the sun for 10-15 minutes. Of course that latter option only works during the day. At night I actually have a full spectrum lamp from an old fish tank that I use. It’s not super efficient as I don’t think it actually emits a lot of UV but it does work if I let it run overnight.

Since you’re working with a liquid, you get drops of resin falling across your work surfaces and printer as you’re working with the finished model, plus resin sticking to the tools you are using, so you have to make sure to clean it up as you go.

Finally, you have to deal with failed prints. On the FDM printer, you just pull the bad print off, make sure the nozzle is clean, and try again. There is a little more work with the SLA printer.

First, when a print fails, that usually means that it has come off the build plate and therefore is stuck to the bottom of the resin vat. Although I did have one failed print (of the heavy cruiser) where parts were just missing because they didn’t stick at first and then later layers worked. The printer comes with a plastic scraper for removing prints from the build plate and the resin vat when they get stuck there. However, you have to be very careful. The bottom of the resin vat is actually a thin sheet of clear teflon film. Clear so the UV light can get through, and teflon to help the resin not stick. This film has to be flat and intact for the printer to work. If you gouge it, it has to be replaced.

Which of course I did on the second day of printing. I was having a lot of failed prints and I accidentally caught the film with the corner of the scraper and gouged it pretty good making it no longer flat. Luckily the printer comes with two replacement films so I got to experience that right away. I haven’t had a problem since. (And I’ve ordered more film in case I do and for when the film just wears out from use.)

The other thing you have to deal with on failed prints, and even regularly after good ones, is little bits of cured resin in the vat. These have to be cleared out because if they get between the build plate and the bottom of the vat, the build plate doesn’t get into the correct position and the layer doesn’t cure properly which can cause it to not stick and the print to fail. This is done by removing the resin vat from the printer and pouring out the resin through through a very fine filter (that came with the printer) into a container. The little bits are removed from the resin and then you can replace the vat (after wiping it out) and refill it with the resin. The picture to the right shows the filter I’m currently using and all the little bits that have been filtered out. The filters that came with my printer are paper and eventually soak up a bunch of resin and have to be discarded. The printer came with 10 so I’ll eventually need to get some more.

Other Thoughts

Just a couple other thoughts before we wrap up. First is the smell. The PLA plastic that I use for the Rostock actually smells pretty nice. It’s not like air freshener nice but it is not a bad odor. The resin isn’t nearly as pleasant. And while it’s not too bad, you can definitely smell it when the printer is running. It’s best to run the printer in a well ventilated area. Also, there is a distinct odor from the rubbing alcohol as well. While I wouldn’t consider them to be really unpleasant, the extra odors from this printer are not as nice as the FDM printer. Of course, I’m not that sensitive to the smells so it might be worse for you.

Another topic is the slicing software that you use to make the print files. The printer comes with the software bundled on a USB stick and as far as it goes, the software works just fine. However, it is very limited in its functionality. It also has a bug in the rotation functionality that makes it a bit hard to position pieces if you want to rotate them. Namely, the x & y rotation work on the original model axes, no matter the model rotation, while the z rotation works on the printer z axis.

Additionally, it would be really nice if the slicing software would tell you how much resin was being used in a print. It gives estimated print times (which tend to be underestimates, I don’t think it takes the motion of the build plate into account) but doesn’t give you the volume of resin used. It also doesn’t do hollowing or drilling holes (an advanced topic I’m just getting to to reduce resin use) but that can be done in other software. I’ll admit that I haven’t checked the company’s website yet to see if there is a newer version of the software.

Others have recommend ChiTuBox which is what the bundled software is based on (an older version) as it does have all those features and fixes the rotation bug. But for some reason, I have yet to get a print to work using a file generated from that program. They always fall off the build plate despite having all the settings the same in the two programs (at least as much as I can. ChiTuBox has many more options). I’m still trying to figure that out. Right now I use ChiTuBox to position and hollow out the model and then use the bundled software to add supports and slice.

Finally, the touch screen is a little small. The icons and images are fine, but the print is really tiny. It’s a pretty high resolution screen crammed into a 2.7″ space so the words are small. I typically have to either use my magnifying glass lamp or put on reading glasses (even with my uncorrected closeup vision) to read the remaining time on a print.

Conclusions

The bottom line is that I really like this printer. Like any 3D printer, it has its quirks and there is a bit of a learning curve to get the best performance, but it is fairly turnkey and once I got the build plate leveling worked out, it pretty much just works. There is a bit more work involved in finishing the prints, and the materials cost a bit more, but it’s well worth it for the increased resolution.

I haven’t mentioned prices. My Rostock was a kit that I had to assemble and cost $900 (on sale from the regular $1000 price). The current model (the v4) is the same price as a kit and about $1400 assembled. You’re really paying for the large print volume with that printer. Getting a small FDM printer with a 6″x6″x6″ print volume will only cost you about $300-400 dollars. I got my AnyCubic Photon on sale for $300. The regular price is $539 but the sale price is still available (as I’m writing this) on Amazon. Here’s a link to the product page if you want to check it out.

So in summary:

Pros

  • Low printer price
  • Excellent resolution
  • Can print multiple models in the same amount of time
  • Easy to set up and use

Cons

  • Slight smell
  • Higher materials cost
  • More post processing work
  • Software somewhat limited and buggy
  • Relatively small print volume

I’m really enjoying this printer and you can expect to see more prints from it in future posts. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, let me know in the comment area below.

Scavenger Transport 3D Model – part 3 – Final Details and 3D Printing

In part 2, we ended with the final version of the hull model for the Scavenger Transport and all that was left was to add in some of the details, most notably the doors and other bits that extended through the hull.  After that, it is just “decorations” to add a little character.

Finishing the Physical Model

Adding in the bay doors was straightforward.  They are just basically rectangles after all.  For the smaller shuttle and workpod bay doors toward the back on the lower level, I added a split vertically down the middle for the doors to open and swing outward on the sides.  For the larger cargo and runabout bay doors, I decided that they would open top and bottom so the seam detail runs horizontally.  In the case of the cargo bay doors, the lower portion of the door can double as a loading ramp if necessary.

Next I wanted to break up the hull a bit so it wasn’t so plain and I created a little triangular design that I placed on the lower and middle decks for and aft of the ion cannon as well as on the wings.  I then added a cylindrical structure on either side of the second level.  Next, I added a bit of a domed structure on top of the runabout bay.  Finally I created some large (2m diameter) portholes and placed them on the back of the ship on deck two between the cargo bay and runabout bay.  These are positions to be in the rec room at the back of that level and the two cabins back there as well.

back view of the ship with the added details
Back of the ship with the bay doors and portholes. You can also see some of the other details mentioned earlier.

At this point I was looking at the model and thinking it was looking pretty good and then I realized:  I forgot to add in all the bits and pieces that stick out through the hull!  Again these were fairly straightforward as they are fairly simple shapes.  I tweaked the block that was the sensor array extension as it was sticking too far out.  The rocket launcher (deck 1, starboard side) may get some tubes added to it for the missiles to launch out of in the future, but for now, I just left it as a solid block.  I also rounded the edges of the airlock a bit.

Speaking of the airlock, after adding it in, I realized it was really poorly placed.  It’s right up against the wing and behind the front part of the engine.  Luckily the wing didn’t overlap it at all.  I didn’t even consider it’s placement when I made the wing so I was lucky I didn’t have to go back and tweak that.  It probably would have been better to put it on the lower level toward the front of the ship.  I guess the engineers weren’t thinking too hard about how the engines were going to be placed when they designed the fuselage :-).  However, its poor placement gives a bit of flavor and something to hassle the crew with (and for them to grumble about).  It truth, it’s more of a backup measure anyway since the ship isn’t designed to actually dock at stations but rather pull up next to them and transfer via the shuttles and open cargo bay doors.  So in practice it’s only a minor annoyance.

Once I had these last structures added, the ship was all done.

Front view of the ship with all the details addedAlternate front view of the other side of the ship

3D Printing

With the physical model done, it was time to start testing out 3D prints.  I started with a simple small, low resolution print.  This was done at 0.2mm/layer and at the native scale of the model (1/1000 scale).  It only took about 50 minutes.

small low resolution print of the model with a quarter for scale comparisonYou can definitely see the print layers on the model.  There are also hints of the details on the body, wings and engines although the size of the features are such that they just don’t show up at at this scale.  This particular print was done with the bottom of the ship on the build plate.  That may not be the best way to print as we’ll see in a minute.

Since it look good enough small, it was time to scale it up.  The next print was a 1/500th scale print, double the size of this one.  Again I printed at 0.2mm/layer and with the bottom of the ship on the build plate.  Although this time I switched to white plastic.  Here’s a picture of that print, together with the smaller black print, our trusty quarter, and a Star Frontiers Assault Scout model at the same scale as the larger print.  This print took about 5 and a half hours

Comparison of the larger print to the original small one.If you look closely at the larger print, you can still see the layer lines although since the print is bigger, they are not as pronounced.  You can also see the turrets on the laser battery print at this scale.  They were just too tiny to print on the smaller scale.  You’ll also notice that the assault scout model in the back looks super smooth.  That is because it was printed at 0.1mm/layer and was printed standing up.

So that’s the next thing to try.  My 7-year-old son really liked the ship and wanted an orange one (that’s his favorite color).  Since I have a spool of orange filament for my printer just to print things for him, I swapped out the white for orange, flipped the model on it’s back, and started a 0.1mm/layer print.  Here is the result, five and quarter hours later:

While bottom printed 0.2mm model compared to back printed 0.1mm modelThe surface on this one is much cleaner.  That is partially due to the smaller print layers and partially due to the orientation of the layers relative to the model, but more of the latter.  A 0.2mm print in this orientation would look pretty good too.  The bigger difference, however, is the backs and undersides of the models.  Let’s take a look at those.  Here are the undersides:

bottoms of the two modelsThe lighting could be better but you’ll notice that the bottoms of the wings and engines on the white model are really rough.  That is partially due to the fact that I didn’t completely clean them up but also due to the nature of 3D printing.  Since each layer has to be placed on the layer below, if you have a floating bit of your model with nothing under it, the printer prints support material to get up to that that point where it can start printing the model.  So in the white model, a bunch of support material had to be printed to support the engines and wings.  Most of that will clean off with some effort using an sharp knife and sandpaper (and my Dremel) but it’s not completely clean. On the orange model, we don’t have that problem and the engines and wings look really good and there was nothing to remove.  However …

back of the two modelsthe back of the orange print has some issues.  Granted the back of the white one isn’t the best, as you can see some issues with the layers of the print being slightly misaligned (I need to re-tighten the belts that drive the print head or slow down the print).  However, you can see the detail of the bay doors and the portholes (barely, they should probably have been a bit thicker for printing).

On the orange print, this was the side toward the build plate and so had to have supports to the parts of the model that were suspended.  In this case that is the back of the engine and wing as well as parts of the back of the ship.  The bits on the engine and wings again are not completely cleaned up but they are flat surfaces in is orientation and much smaller surfaces as well.  They will be much easier to clean up than the rough sections on the white print.

The back of the ship is a different matter.  The surfaces of the cargo and runabout bay doors were the only parts actually touching the build plate.  The rest of the back of the ship and the portholes were raised slightly.  Because of that the printer had to lay down support material.  However, because they were only slightly raised (like one or two 0.1mm layers), there really wasn’t that much room to print support material and it is all fused together.  It could probably be cleaned up with some work but it would be pretty tough.

Finally I did a last print at the higher 0.1mm/layer resolution with the ship on it’s bottom (same orientation as the white print) just so see how that higher resolution affected the look.

two models printed in the same orientation but one with high resolutionAs you can see, the to surfaces are much cleaner in this print. In fact, I would be very satisfied with that print surface on the model.  Here’s the bottoms and backs:

Bottom surfaces of the two ships, one printed at 0.1mmBack of the two ships one printed at 0.1mmThose bottom surfaces are still fairly rough although I think they are better on the higher resolution print.  The back of the higher resolution print is definitely cleaner.

I think the print with the ship on it’s back is still the better way to go, but barely.  It’s a tough call and I could be convinced otherwise.  To address the problem with the support material on the back of the ship, I have a couple of options.  One is to just remove all the surface features on the back of the ship completely.  That would give a flat surface to print and would eliminate the problem but you would lose the details on that part of the unpainted model (you could always paint them back on).  Another option would be to just eliminate the portholes.  There is enough relief to the doors that you could trim the support material from around them.  The rest of the back of the ship might be a bit rough but it is an easily accessible area to sand and clean up.  The final option would be to increase the relief on everything, both the doors and the portholes, so that there is a bit more space there making the support material easier to clean off.  I haven’t decided which route I’ll take yet but I’ll probably do some experimenting to try out the different options.

Going Forward

My Patreon supporters have already received a copy of the model file as it currently exists (that’s one of the perks of being a supporter).  At some point I’ll put the model up for purchase for those that would like to get a copy (That will be on DrivethruRPG and either here or my New Frontier Games website).  I’ll also make 3D printed models available.  That will come once I’m comfortable with the way the prints are coming out.

The next step for the model is to back to the digital model and paint it so it can be used in 3D renders.  I need to add textures and materials to the model to give it color and life.  However, I’m going to put that bit on hold for bit as it’s not really needed for the module (and I want to go over the Blender tutorial on how to do all of that stuff.  I have some experience from the assault scout but it was very trial and error).  So this project will probably go on hold for a few weeks while I work on some other bits and pieces.

Bill is also working on the final versions of the deck plans and I’ll post a copy of those once they are available.

Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions below.