3d Printers South Africa

Just for those who don't get inundated with FaceBoob adverts...

DIYElectronics is having a bit of a sale at the moment, and their CCTree PLA Filament is R199.95 a roll. They have a whole heap of other stuff on sale as well.
Thanks for nothing bud! Just ordered 12 x rolls cos that is discounted even further!
 
Just for shytes and giggles, I'd say I'm probably about 20% of the way through getting an elevation map of SA into something potentially vaguely printable...

Steep damn learning curve to get this right.... figuring out QGIS has been an interesting exercise in utter UI frustration :p
 
Just for shytes and giggles, I'd say I'm probably about 20% of the way through getting an elevation map of SA into something potentially vaguely printable...

Steep damn learning curve to get this right.... figuring out QGIS has been an interesting exercise in utter UI frustration :p
Mind posting the map you're using pls?
 
Mind posting the map you're using pls?

So that has been the fun part...

I've pieced together the SRTM data from NASA (Sourced it from here : https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/)

And then had to manually overlay a worldmap, and polygon out the SA borders.

If I get the thing to the point of being able to print, I will definitely post it here for everyone if they want, though I am toying with the idea of making the thing pretty big (2 or 3m wide) so it can be a feature piece on a wall.
 
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So that has been the fun part...

I've pieced together the SRTM data from NASA (Sourced it from here : https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/)

And then had to manually overlay a worldmap, and polygon out the SA borders.

If I get the thing to the point of being able to print, I will definitely post it here for everyone if they want, though I am toying with the idea of making the thing pretty big (2 or 3m wide) so it can be a feature piece on a wall.
An Nkandla dartboard would be quite the feature piece for many a wall (firepool bullseye).

Edit: that was purely in jest but it does make me wonder how easy it would be to glue dismembered dartboard bit (cork?) to a 3D print and if repeated impacts from darts would dislodge the glue after a while.
 
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Just for the hell of it, I actually made decent progress on the elevation map last night...

I now have something that is theoretically printable, but it still needs work (the files are all 50mb each, so need simplification). All 152 files of it... But once I kind of figured out QGIS, its actually been a relatively simple process to extract a printable STL file.

**EDIT**

Now to see if I can convince the missus that having a massive printed elevation map on the wall would look good :p
 
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Has anyone bought from DC 3D Printers?
Got a special on the Ender 3 v2 at the moment (R4999 + 2 rolls of PLA), seems like a good deal.
I got all my kit from him; they're "down the road" from me so I could actually look at the stuff before buying. That sealed the deal for me. It turns out they a great bunch of guys, so bonus.
 
Thoughts on the Ender 3 v2 vs the newer Ender 3 S1?

Availability aside, some back of the napkin calcs seem to suggest that, if you bought a v2, and then upgraded the extruder, hot-end, bed-springs, bed-plate, ptfe tubing, and added dual Z; then you'd end up at around R8k, which is probably what an S1 will likely cost (based on the only SA store I can see with it: https://www.zaivan.co.za/product/creality-ender3-s1-3d-printer/)
Plus then you get CR Touch thrown in for "free".

So I'm wondering if it's worth waiting to see if it becomes more available, or just get the v2.
 
Thoughts on the Ender 3 v2 vs the newer Ender 3 S1?

Availability aside, some back of the napkin calcs seem to suggest that, if you bought a v2, and then upgraded the extruder, hot-end, bed-springs, bed-plate, ptfe tubing, and added dual Z; then you'd end up at around R8k, which is probably what an S1 will likely cost (based on the only SA store I can see with it: https://www.zaivan.co.za/product/creality-ender3-s1-3d-printer/)
Plus then you get CR Touch thrown in for "free".

So I'm wondering if it's worth waiting to see if it becomes more available, or just get the v2.

To be honest, I'd probably wait for the S1 to be more available if you're happy to spend into that price bracket.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the V2 (from my opinion) and doing the upgrades would be cool, but to get it all as one package would just be so much nicer.
 
To be honest, I'd probably wait for the S1 to be more available if you're happy to spend into that price bracket.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the V2 (from my opinion) and doing the upgrades would be cool, but to get it all as one package would just be so much nicer.
Yeah, similar thoughts.

I've reached out to DC 3D and DIYElectronics to try get a sense of when it'll be available here.
DIY say "no ETA as yet, keep watching our socials"
Will update as and when DC 3D reply...
 
Just for the hell of it, I actually made decent progress on the elevation map last night...

I now have something that is theoretically printable, but it still needs work (the files are all 50mb each, so need simplification). All 152 files of it... But once I kind of figured out QGIS, its actually been a relatively simple process to extract a printable STL file.

**EDIT**

Now to see if I can convince the missus that having a massive printed elevation map on the wall would look good :p
Curious to see your STL. Saw this earlier of the US, I like how they've tiled it. Haven't had a chance to hunt down a HD ZA elevation map yet - wanted to try convert to black & white and use it do drive some geometry to get an STL.

8dqx38sdppy51.jpg
 
This is what I have as base data... as far as I know it gives resolution to around 30mx30m in real life.

SA-Map.PNG

Each one of the squares is what I intend to print in a 10cmx10cm block and it would end up looking like this test print of one of the blocks I did yesterday. There are 152 individual blocks to print and I guess around 7 - 9 hours to print each one.
I could in theory print each one of the squares in 1mx1m size and still get ridiculous levels of detail.
IMG_20220303_163223.jpg
 
Hi guys, does anyone have any experience with a Wanhao duplicator 12/250. I kind of like the dual extruder.
 
Yeah, similar thoughts.

I've reached out to DC 3D and DIYElectronics to try get a sense of when it'll be available here.
DIY say "no ETA as yet, keep watching our socials"
Will update as and when DC 3D reply...
DC3D estimates about a month for S1 to arrive, so I'll wait for now.
 
Curious to see your STL. Saw this earlier of the US, I like how they've tiled it. Haven't had a chance to hunt down a HD ZA elevation map yet - wanted to try convert to black & white and use it do drive some geometry to get an STL.

8dqx38sdppy51.jpg
Hmmm...got quite close to the tiled map vibe. For print I'd scale the tiles so they touch without the space between them, maybe even make them much smaller. Also push the highest points higher. Need a nice HD map now.

sw.jpg

1.png
2.png
 
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