3d Printers South Africa

Not something most people would need to do, but it's fascinating to see just how much control you have over layering when printing.
Will be keeping this knowledge in the back of my mind for possible future use when printing functional parts.

 
RaptorSA said:
Not something most people would need to do, but it's fascinating to see just how much control you have over layering when printing.
Will be keeping this knowledge in the back of my mind for possible future use when printing functional parts.

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Iirc you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get Orca to work with Bambu printers these days.
 
Park@82 said:
Iirc you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get Orca to work with Bambu printers these days.
Click to expand...
It's a bit fiddly if you want to print via cloud but if you slice to USB/ SD card it works fine. Worth it for the calibration prints Orca comes with.
 
Spinosaurus Mirabilis

An actual African dinosaur discovered by a South American, Paul Sereno and his team not long ago.
It's one of those things that make you wonder why some people bother with "fantasy" when these things actually existed and were out there doing their thing.

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RaptorSA said:
Spinosaurus Mirabilis

An actual African dinosaur discovered by a South American, Paul Sereno and his team not long ago.
It's one of those things that make you wonder why some people bother with "fantasy" when these things actually existed and were out there doing their thing.

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Is that your print?
 
Managed to print a lot of stuff over the long weekend. Another small stackable basket, some Keychain spinners for my kid's party, some name tags, a funnel for my generator, fixed the broken flap stand on my EcoFlow Delta max bag, modified an existing salt shaker to be used as a hand shower for when our power is out agian, 3 plant pot holders and some book page holders for my wife.
 
Happen to stumble across this while just messing around...

Someone in the Netherlands was kind enough to provide the print files as well as a .pdf for an entire Smithsonian 3D fossil scan of "Trixie", an 80% complete T-Rex found in 2013. Looks like it's usually a kit people have to buy.

(The funny thing is, after weeks of searching for a full Rex skeleton scan I came up with nothing, it just so happens that I was on our work VPN which connects through a server in the Netherlands... and lo-and-behold, an actual hit. I HATE the fact that the modern internet is basically subjective now because of all the algorithms)


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As usual, it's too small for my liking.... busy blowing this mofo up and applying some tips and tricks about using a slicer more efficiently, like having the ability to print multiple plate objects in sequence instead of all of them on the same plane at once.

Also, the ability to have custom support and infill settings per object has suddenly become super useful.
I'm constantly impressed at how easy and powerful slicer software is.

If this print ends up working well I might have to contact the creators and ask for permission to upload it to Makerworld. I've spent hours on there and the only full Rex models I've seen are all inaccurate low-res hand modeled stuff. Total length once assembled should be +- 1 meter.

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The skull I printed from one of the other fossil scans looks incredible, I'm surprised at how k@k it looks in photos.
I'm going to do a large 60+ hour print of it at some point.

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EDIT:
Was stuck in progressive prototyping hell 'till late last night but I finally have a model for the arms, clavicle & scapulae that more or less works well for printing.

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Now it's onto this beast of a rib cage... not going to be fun to wait ~12 hours and have a failure at the end. Fingers crossed.

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Pro Tip: For complex real-world 3D scans like this one you can run into a problem where there are extremely thin areas that cannot be printed with two or more layers. Those areas are typically excluded from the print by default. Enabling "Detect thin wall" fixes it and works well by allowing single layer filaments that aren't closed loops.

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RaptorSA said:
Happen to stumble across this while just messing around...

Someone in the Netherlands was kind enough to provide the print files as well as a .pdf for an entire Smithsonian 3D fossil scan of "Trixie", an 80% complete T-Rex found in 2013. Looks like it's usually a kit people have to buy.


View attachment 1906985

As usual, it's too small for my liking.... busy blowing this mofo up and applying some tips and tricks about using a slicer more efficiently, like having the ability to print multiple plate objects in sequence instead of all of them on the same plane at once.

Also, the ability to have custom support and infill settings per object has suddenly become super useful.
I'm constantly impressed at how easy and powerful slicer software is.

If this print ends up working well I might have to contact the creators and ask for permission to upload it to Makerworld. I've spent hours on there and the only full Rex models I've seen are all inaccurate low-res hand modeled stuff.

View attachment 1907008

The skull I printed from one of the other fossil scans looks incredible, I'm surprised at how k@k it looks in photos.
I'm going to do a large 60+ hour print of it at some point.

View attachment 1906993
Click to expand...
Can also consider coating it with something like XTC-3d before spraying. Give you a nice smooth finish.


Or if you ever print with ABS...

 
RaptorSA said:
Happen to stumble across this while just messing around...

Someone in the Netherlands was kind enough to provide the print files as well as a .pdf for an entire Smithsonian 3D fossil scan of "Trixie", an 80% complete T-Rex found in 2013. Looks like it's usually a kit people have to buy.


View attachment 1906985

As usual, it's too small for my liking.... busy blowing this mofo up and applying some tips and tricks about using a slicer more efficiently, like having the ability to print multiple plate objects in sequence instead of all of them on the same plane at once.

Also, the ability to have custom support and infill settings per object has suddenly become super useful.
I'm constantly impressed at how easy and powerful slicer software is.

If this print ends up working well I might have to contact the creators and ask for permission to upload it to Makerworld. I've spent hours on there and the only full Rex models I've seen are all inaccurate low-res hand modeled stuff. Total length once assembled should be +- 1 meter.

View attachment 1907008

The skull I printed from one of the other fossil scans looks incredible, I'm surprised at how k@k it looks in photos.
I'm going to do a large 60+ hour print of it at some point.

View attachment 1906993
Click to expand...

This is going to be way harder than I thought.
The infamous tiny Rex arms are a complete fail with the auto tree supports and the top Z-offset settings I've experimented with .... I have no idea how the people who posted those STL's managed to print this thing. There are gaps between the finger bones etc.

So it looks like this little project has just turned into a larger one.
Going to start working on it piece-by-piece and use the slicer to connect anything that's not connected, and then I'll likely have to experiment and create manual supports on some of the parts.

I've seen guys using Lychee slicer with resin supports to get great results on FDM printers when printing tiny models, might have to give that a shot if I can't get this working in Bambu studio.

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RaptorSA said:
This is going to be way harder than I thought.
The infamous tiny Rex arms are a complete fail with the auto tree supports and the top Z-offset settings I've experimented with .... I have no idea how the people who posted those STL's managed to print this thing. There are gaps between the finger bones etc.

So it looks like this little project has just turned into a larger one.
Going to start working on it piece-by-piece and use the slicer to connect anything that's not connected, and then I'll likely have to experiment and create manual supports on some of the parts.

I've seen guys using Lychee slicer with resin supports to get great results on FDM printers when printing tiny models, might have to give that a shot if I can't get this working in Bambu studio.

View attachment 1907161
Click to expand...
hmmm i wonder if there is an AI agent that can assist you in fixing the problematic models
Freecad might also be able to create a mesh of the part and you can fill the gaps that way
 
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ronz91 said:
hmmm i wonder if there is an AI agent that can assist you in fixing the problematic models
Freecad might also be able to create a mesh of the part and you can fill the gaps that way
Click to expand...

I doubt some fancy AI tool is going to solve this.
I still need to do more freeCAD training, but this model is probably more something you'd want to edit in Blender, and I don't have 7 years to learn Blender.

The slicer's fine though, just going to keep adding cylinder connections between joints where needed, then try out custom supports until I get the fiddly parts printing correctly... once that's done it can all be merged.

It's a good training exercise 'cause I'll get to see what minimal supports you can get away with and I'm now forced to have a closer look at the actual slicer layers to see how it all comes together.

Moving those little things around in 3D space is a pain in the arse though, I feel like a dumbass when navigating the UI.

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This is how tiny these things are. My layer height at 0.2mm is too high, but will deal with that later.
It's tempting to just make it bigger, but I don't think having a bloody 2-3 meter Rex model in my living room is going to work out well... or will it.... :unsure:

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Shooooooo ...... some nice work @RaptorSA .....
If your printer supports multi spools, in Bambu or Orca you can choose a different polymer type for the support ... for top and bottom Z, 0.35 works for me most of the time. For intricate stuff like that, I use normal supports rather than tree.

For really difficult parts, you can slice the part up in Bambu or Orca, and add connectors. Its a really simple process but oh so handy.
You may have top split your model up by object first.


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Print in parts and glue it back together.
Dunno if you can get something like this in SA, but works unbelievably well for PLA and PETG.
Its a UV cure superglue.
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Hopes you come right

Looking at this guy ...... expect him to be pretty darn large ......
Took him apart last night, and set him on 6 plates.

The farm is pretty busy right now, but as soon as I get a gap.......
Will probably price him at around the $70 mark.


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RaptorSA said:
This is going to be way harder than I thought.
The infamous tiny Rex arms are a complete fail with the auto tree supports and the top Z-offset settings I've experimented with .... I have no idea how the people who posted those STL's managed to print this thing. There are gaps between the finger bones etc.

So it looks like this little project has just turned into a larger one.
Going to start working on it piece-by-piece and use the slicer to connect anything that's not connected, and then I'll likely have to experiment and create manual supports on some of the parts.

I've seen guys using Lychee slicer with resin supports to get great results on FDM printers when printing tiny models, might have to give that a shot if I can't get this working in Bambu studio.

View attachment 1907161
Click to expand...

I think your best bet is to split the arm off and then angle it at 45 degrees and add a lot of tree supports.
 
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