3d Printers South Africa

JerryMungo said:
What are you guys building mainly?
- Toys / gadgets?
- Tools of sorts
- Other?
Click to expand...

From the point-of-view of a complete and utter n00b:

Right now I'm just collecting and printing anything and everything I can find that solves an issue that's been annoying me for years. Also, stuff I never though about keeps popping up, so just typing in the names of gadgets, electronics etc. I have around the house to see what comes up also works. I thought I was going to need to learn modelling ASAP, but I haven't even scratched the surface of what's already out there yet.

Useful things will come first, then later I'll start "playing".
I'm currently casually adding, removing + printing items from a few collections on Makerworld.

1775648017539.png

One of the main reasons for me to get the printer was to be able to print museum fossil scans. The type of stuff I wanted since I was a kid. I don't think I realized how many other uses I have for it until I got it and it started sinking in what it really means to have one.

I ran some numbers last year and it turned out for some of the larger stuff I wanted I could buy a 3D printer + filament and print it out myself.

Haven't even gotten around to that yet but I did drop my first skull print on it an hour ago just to see how it'll come out (plus it's humid as hell in JHB after the rains so should be a good filament stress test)

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R4ziel said:
I've been living the geek life printing and painting figurines I could never afford to buy from overseas, some of my latest finished ones

View attachment 1899370View attachment 1899371View attachment 1899372View attachment 1899373View attachment 1899374View attachment 1899375
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This actually gave me goosebumps.
What an awesome show that was and what an insane print an paint job. I might have to hire you to paint my Diorama's one day.
Liewe f*k.

1775648989260.png

I was eyeing a MASSIVE Saturn V rocket print you can do the other day, the kind of thing that existed out there in the ether when you were a kid, but would have never in their life thought it's possible to own one.
Eish.
 
JerryMungo said:
Lekker. The thing about learning is it's often machine specific, so you have it figured out then switch machines and the process starts again haha.
Click to expand...

Honestly, right now I'm really glad I saved myself the extra "awesome sauce" money that I would have spent on the P2S to get this A1.
I'm just going to grab as much filament with that budget as I can cart in and print the living k@k out of everything I want to try out. Even AMS color prints are no longer off the table for me.
 
RaptorSA said:
This actually gave me goosebumps.
What an awesome show that was and what an insane print an paint job. I might have to hire you to paint my Diorama's one day.
Liewe f*k.

View attachment 1899378

I was eyeing a MASSIVE Saturn V rocket print you can do the other day, the kind of thing that existed out there in the ether when you were a kid, but would have never in their life thought it's possible to own one.
Eish.
Click to expand...

I looked at the Saturn V lego model and was like nope, I can't afford an almost 10k lego collectable, but I have a 3D printer so it began, I wasnt happy with the small one so I scaled it to 200%, now I own a 1.5m Saturn V model :D

Im glad you like the painting on these, my wife has been doing a lot of models I print, I will forward her the compliment. You are welcome to contact me if you are serious about the painting of the dioramas :ROFL:

Some more of our earlier arcane ones , and of course I needed a 40cm high Raziel as you can imagine

1775649473027.png1775649593476.png1775649505940.png
 
R4ziel said:
I looked at the Saturn V lego model and was like nope, I can't afford an almost 10k lego collectable, but I have a 3D printer so it began, I wasnt happy with the small one so I scaled it to 200%, now I own a 1.5m Saturn V model :D

Im glad you like the painting on these, my wife has been doing a lot of models I print, I will forward her the compliment. You are welcome to contact me if you are serious about the painting of the dioramas :ROFL:

Some more of our earlier arcane ones , and of course I needed a 40cm high Raziel as you can imagine

View attachment 1899381View attachment 1899383View attachment 1899382
Click to expand...

Since you and your wife are the experts here:

I don't have white filament right now so I'll just print the teeth of my Velociraptor skull using standard gray PLA...
How well will Flat White Rustoleum Paint+Primer stick to this stuff with zero prep? (I'll use some garden gloves when breaking the supports so I don't oil-up the prints)

1775659558069.png

I'm mostly asking out of interest.

I'm likely going to do my own skull/skeleton prints again in future using either dark browns or whites then doing the coloring myself with some or other cheap airbrush kit I find somewhere.

But I'm f**ing useless with artistic stuff, can't even read my own handwriting... that said,, airbrushing, or fossil/mineralization "aging" techniques might actually work out for me since the whole point is not to be precise and skillful to get a decent patina.

This 3D print is mostly a test, some f**ing kid in our complex is likely going to end up with a 9 hour Velociraptor skull print, the little s**t will have no idea that midlife crisis "grandpa" who gave it to him would have murdered 5 terries and strangled a puppy if he had access to to stuff when he their age.

EDIT:
I just realized, a copper skull with black teeth would look baller!
I don't think I've even seen someone try that before.

1775660153221.png
 
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RaptorSA said:
Since you and your wife are the experts here:

I don't have white filament right now so I'll just print the teeth of my Velociraptor skull using standard gray PLA...
How well will Flat White Rustoleum Paint+Primer stick to this stuff with zero prep? (I'll use some garden gloves when breaking the supports so I don't oil-up the prints)

View attachment 1899429

I'm mostly asking out of interest.

I'm likely going to do my own skull/skeleton prints again in future using either dark browns or whites then doing the coloring myself with some or other cheap airbrush kit.

But I'm f**ing useless with artistic stuff, can't even read my own handwriting... that said,, airbrushing, or fossil/mineralization "aging" techniques might actually work out for me since the whole point is not to be precise and skillful to get a decent patina.

This 3D print is mostly a test, some f**ing kid in our complex is likely going to end up with a 9 hour Velociraptor skull print, the little s**t will have no idea that midlife crisis "grandpa" who gave it to him would have murdered 5 terries and strangled a puppy if he had access to to stuff when he their age.

EDIT:
I just realized, a copper skull with black teeth would look baller!
I don't think I've even seen someone try that before.

View attachment 1899432
Click to expand...

Ive tried plenty of different techniques and guides online, never really had an issue with any paint sticking to PLA or PETG like it would resin, some of my larger prints I just go over with a solid base coat of dark grey or black, but mostly no issues with paint sticking. After its done just a matt or gloss clear coat and you are done
 
R4ziel said:
Ive tried plenty of different techniques and guides online, never really had an issue with any paint sticking to PLA or PETG like it would resin, some of my larger prints I just go over with a solid base coat of dark grey or black, but mostly no issues with paint sticking. After its done just a matt or gloss clear coat and you are done
Click to expand...

Valuable feedback that I could have just tested myself... thanks for taking the time... :)
I'm doing the copper + black thing.... I just decided.
Can't bloody wait.

Got almost no actual work done today... f**k this super useful and completely non-indulgent hobby necessity that solves real problems for real people all day long.
 
RaptorSA said:
Valuable feedback that I could have just tested myself... thanks for taking the time... :)
I'm doing the copper + black thing.... I just decided.
Can't bloody wait.

Got almost no actual work done today... f**k.
Click to expand...


Yeah I feel you, I still sometimes go down the rabbit hole of models and forget there is work that is needed to pay for all of this, careful when going to a 3D print store like buildvolume, leave your wallet in the car the first time :laugh:

No worries man, also super excited to see how it turns out, I might print one too :laugh:
 
Skimmie said:
This is very intimidating and hard for me. I have never used CAD like software before, so the learning curve is quite steep
Click to expand...
Tinkercad

You’ll thank me at first, and then curse me in 6 months time because you don’t put the time into Fusion and Freecad.

I’m stuck on Tinkercad and don’t have the perseverance to switch to a ‘proper’ modeller
 
RaptorSA said:
Since you and your wife are the experts here:

I don't have white filament right now so I'll just print the teeth of my Velociraptor skull using standard gray PLA...
How well will Flat White Rustoleum Paint+Primer stick to this stuff with zero prep? (I'll use some garden gloves when breaking the supports so I don't oil-up the prints)

View attachment 1899429

I'm mostly asking out of interest.

I'm likely going to do my own skull/skeleton prints again in future using either dark browns or whites then doing the coloring myself with some or other cheap airbrush kit I find somewhere.

But I'm f**ing useless with artistic stuff, can't even read my own handwriting... that said,, airbrushing, or fossil/mineralization "aging" techniques might actually work out for me since the whole point is not to be precise and skillful to get a decent patina.

This 3D print is mostly a test, some f**ing kid in our complex is likely going to end up with a 9 hour Velociraptor skull print, the little s**t will have no idea that midlife crisis "grandpa" who gave it to him would have murdered 5 terries and strangled a puppy if he had access to to stuff when he their age.

EDIT:
I just realized, a copper skull with black teeth would look baller!
I don't think I've even seen someone try that before.

View attachment 1899432
Click to expand...
I prefer spraymate. I find the Rustoleum can sometimes take long to dry between coats and remain tacky for quite a while. Might've just been a bad batch. I do like the Rustoleum clear coats tho.

Spray a lot of very light coats.

IMG_20260408_181303.png
 
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saor said:
I prefer spraymate. I find the Rustoleum can sometimes take long to dry between coats and remain tacky for quite a while. Might've just been a bad batch. I do like the Rustoleum clear coats tho.

Spray a lot of very light coats.

View attachment 1899450
Click to expand...

A can of Rustoleum is worth more than an anti Iranian Iron Dome reload these days.
That's why I posted the picture of mine lined up, I was hoping one of the 4 ladies on the internet would accidentally browse by and think: "Jirre, hierrie ou se kanne kan maar"

You just saved myself, and potentially someone else a load of Rands.
 
The Velociraptor skull print so far is looking nuts.

It's way bigger than I had in mind, even if you have the bed in front of you, and imagine it filled with a dino skull, it's not nearly as impressive as the real thing.

I also wasn't prepared for the insights I'd get seeing something like forming layer by layer this in real-life.
The mandible alone has features I can stare at for hours. I'm sure the overall design was interpreted from the original "crushed"/flattened specimens, but that doesn't matter, you can actually see the stress points on the skull and where the forces and direction of those forces were concentrated.

I know people print this stuff 'cause it's cool, but I am in f**ing awe at how much information you can gather from this perspective. Just look at how thin the roof on that maxilla actually is, and the mandible locks into it like a lock and key, this thing was not carelessly slinging random, oversized, chaotic death and destruction around as a primary objective, it's a gorgeous piece of natural engineering purpose built to grab, tear, pull and manipulate things softer than it with the dexterity of a beak layered in velcro. You can even see the texture and pits on the snout where the nerve endings would have been, that is not just a snout, it's a tool. Most of the weight in that head would be sensory.

I cannot wait to mount the teeth, they are gorgeous and each of them falls inside a size category perfectly in alignment with the position on the skull. I've also always known that Raptors, and this Mongoliensis specifially, had big ass eye orbits, but seeing it in real-life is nuts, it's like most of the skull evolved in tandem with the orbit to keep it as big as possible. Whatever this thing chose to look at, speed or resolution wise, there was a lot of it. Seeing a giant orbit in an animal like an eagle or falcon that can resolve stuff at 3KM distances is one thing, seeing it in something that's 2 Meters long and supposedly completely terrestrial is something else... I highly doubt any moving protein snack smaller that it stood a f**ing chance. It's also hard to imagine this not being at least a partially nocturnal predator when you think about the sensory gear involved, but who knows!?!

The "American" centric idea that these things were potential pack-hunters taking down much larger prey is probably bullsh*t... everything about this thing screams "bird-cat"... it's basically a lone cat-like "draadkar" soaked in Wolff’s Law. I'd be surprised if an animal this fine tuned survived as part of a complex group on a daily basis... but who knows, hey? Being wrong about it would make it 100X cooler... I'll be the first one to p*ss my little panties if we find actual reliable evidence of group-like behavior in something this svelte.

1775677436117.png


1775677328785.png

1775677284938.png

Let me show you guys something awesome...

Usually with fossilization, even the good ones, you lose that 3D depth and shape 'cause millions of years tends to crush what's there. Bone cells shrink, bones deform, everything just gets all kinds of f*ed up. Here's what fantastically preserved Velo. raptor skulls tend to looks like when they're found in the Mongolian desert, famous for its awesome preservation (and one of the few places today that happens to have a similar climate in many places than there was 71-80 MYA)

1775681158339.png

Kind of "lizard/reptile" like if you just stop at the side-view.
But here's what a front-view would actually look like when you restore the dimensions on the thing...

1775681711797.png

That's no f**ing lizard face, that's an eagle, or a moersk*nt Hadeda if you're in SA.... :)

Now that we know they were also completely covered in feathers, and not just any feathers, they had actual baller quill knobs on their arms for some proper feather action, it becomes weird to think that there might have been an entire group of animals who could maybe "kind of fly", sometimes, maybe, sometimes not really... in a way we don't/cannot imagine today.

1775685240808.png

No-one even really knows WTF these things were, and the moment you think you know or find one that does make sense, there's 10 others in the family tree k@kking all over what you think you knew.

1775685415242.png

1775687443490.png

1775687728332.png

1775687869459.png

....and yes, my name is RaptorSA, it's been that since the 90's.
I am biased.
Eat a d**k cloaca.
 
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RaptorSA said:
The only thing I've ever used was Sketchup, and that was a long time ago, I think it was just before Trimble bought them from Google.
But that was for modelling my home once. I'm hoping there's going to be something out there that is similarly easy to learn.

I don't need insane CAD skills, just some basic shape manipulation will open up a world of cool stuff for me.
I have a feeling even something simple like TinkerCAD is going to do most of what I want.

EDIT:
It looks like you can actually use Sketchup.... unless someone knows a reason why not, I would give it a go. Sketchup was incredibly intuitive and powerful the last time I used it.

Click to expand...
I'm still only using tinkercad but it's obviously limited. Looking for a cheap alternative that I can use to modify existing models as a start. Still haven't found something I like yet. Sketchup seems kinda expensive for my use case.
 
RaptorSA said:
The Velociraptor skull print so far is looking nuts.

It's way bigger than I had in mind, even if you have the bed in front of you, and imagine it filled with a dino skull, it's not nearly as impressive as the real thing.

I also wasn't prepared for the insights I'd get seeing something like forming layer by layer this in real-life.
The mandible alone has features I can stare at for hours. I'm sure the overall design was interpreted from the original "crushed"/flattened specimens, but that doesn't matter, you can actually see the stress points on the skull and where the forces and direction of those forces were concentrated.

I know people print this stuff 'cause it's cool, but I am in f**ing awe at how much information you can gather from this perspective. Just look at how thin the roof on that maxilla actually is, and the mandible locks into it like a lock and key, this thing was not carelessly slinging random, oversized, chaotic death and destruction around as a primary objective, it's a gorgeous piece of natural engineering purpose built to grab, tear, pull and manipulate things softer than it with the dexterity of a beak layered in velcro. You can even see the texture and pits on the snout where the nerve endings would have been, that is not just a snout, it's a tool. Most of the weight in that head would be sensory.

I cannot wait to mount the teeth, they are gorgeous and each of them falls inside a size category perfectly in alignment with the position on the skull. I've also always known that Raptors, and this Mongoliensis specifially, had big ass eye orbits, but seeing it in real-life is nuts, it's like most of the skull evolved in tandem with the orbit to keep it as big as possible. Whatever this thing chose to look at, speed or resolution wise, there was a lot of it. Seeing a giant orbit in an animal like an eagle or falcon that can resolve stuff at 3KM distances is one thing, seeing it in something that's 2 Meters long and supposedly completely terrestrial is something else... I highly doubt any moving protein snack smaller that it stood a f**ing chance. It's also hard to imagine this not being at least a partially nocturnal predator when you think about the sensory gear involved, but who knows!?!

The "American" centric idea that these things were potential pack-hunters taking down much larger prey is probably bullsh*t... everything about this thing screams "bird-cat"... it's basically a lone cat-like "draadkar" soaked in Wolff’s Law. I'd be surprised if an animal this fine tuned survived as part of a complex group on a daily basis... but who knows, hey? Being wrong about it would make it 100X cooler... I'll be the first one to p*ss my little panties if we find actual reliable evidence of group-like behavior in something this svelte.

View attachment 1899509


View attachment 1899508

View attachment 1899507

Let me show you guys something awesome...

Usually with fossilization, even the good ones, you lose that 3D depth and shape 'cause millions of years tends to crush what's there. Bone cells shrink, bones deform, everything just gets all kinds of f*ed up. Here's what fantastically preserved Velo. raptor skulls tend to looks like when they're found in the Mongolian desert, famous for its awesome preservation (and one of the few places today that happens to have a similar climate in many places than there was 71-80 MYA)

View attachment 1899537

Kind of "lizard/reptile" like if you just stop at the side-view.
But here's what a front-view would actually look like when you restore the dimensions on the thing...

View attachment 1899541

That's no f**ing lizard face, that's an eagle, or a moersk*nt Hadeda if you're in SA.... :)

Now that we know they were also completely covered in feathers, and not just any feathers, they had actual baller quill knobs on their arms for some proper feather action, it becomes weird to think that there might have been an entire group of animals who could maybe "kind of fly", sometimes, maybe, sometimes not really... in a way we don't/cannot imagine today.

View attachment 1899548

No-one even really knows WTF these things were, and the moment you think you know or find one that does make sense, there's 10 others in the family tree k@kking all over what you think you knew.

View attachment 1899549

View attachment 1899550

View attachment 1899552

View attachment 1899553

....and yes, my name is RaptorSA, it's been that since the 90's.
I am biased.
Eat a d**k cloaca.
Click to expand...


That is very very cool, can't wait to see it painted! Yeah staring at things forming layer by layer still hasn't gone away for me even after 10k+ hours of printing.
 
Park@82 said:
I'm still only using tinkercad but it's obviously limited. Looking for a cheap alternative that I can use to modify existing models as a start. Still haven't found something I like yet. Sketchup seems kinda expensive for my use case.
Click to expand...
Blender works really well for modifying STL's, and it's open source. Ditch Tinkercad and use Fusion360.
 
Park@82 said:
I'm still only using tinkercad but it's obviously limited. Looking for a cheap alternative that I can use to modify existing models as a start. Still haven't found something I like yet. Sketchup seems kinda expensive for my use case.
Click to expand...
FreeCAD works well. Its a bit daunting at first but once you figure out the Part Design and the Part workbench you can do most of what you need to do.
 
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