3D Printed Carbine and Armor Upgrades

[Dat1Darkrai]

Hi everyone!, After completion of my suit, and my newly acquired 3D printer, I figured I would build myself my favorite weapon from the game. Here is some current progress pics of what i have so far!

(Credit for the file I'm using goes to CPO Mendez)

Let me know what you think! I'm a little worried that the scale I am going with is still a little to big, as i originally had to scale it down. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[kaween]

Looking good !`

As for scaling : the're pro's and cons, but I tend to do the following : You look at a Wiki and see how tall the character you'd cosplay normally is, compare that to your own body size, work the proportion factor, and apply that to the prop you're creating.
Will avoid over- or undersized props pretty well.

Certainly Spartan-designed weapons will become way too big on normal human beings, creating the reverse of the BoomCo effect (mostly too small in cases of Boomco's, so way too big in terms of printed props)

To scale and slice my props, I personally use Netfabb. (available for free with a limited funtionality set, but slicing and scaling is kept active).

 

[Dat1Darkrai]

Looking good !`

As for scaling : the're pro's and cons, but I tend to do the following : You look at a Wiki and see how tall the character you'd cosplay normally is, compare that to your own body size, work the proportion factor, and apply that to the prop you're creating.
Will avoid over- or undersized props pretty well.

Certainly Spartan-designed weapons will become way too big on normal human beings, creating the reverse of the BoomCo effect (mostly too small in cases of Boomco's, so way too big in terms of printed props)

To scale and slice my props, I personally use Netfabb. (available for free with a limited funtionality set, but slicing and scaling is kept active).

Ok. I see what you are saying. I'll have to check out Netfabb then. I have been meaning to find a good slicing program. Im have just been running off of 3D Builder that comes with every windows computer now and the program that came with the printer itself.

As for the scale wise, is it to big? Im thinking its probably a little hard to tell right now cause i dont have most of the body printed out amd built.

 

[kaween]

sitting in my car frustrated because of traffic jam. WANT TO GO HOME.

If you did not scale it down, the Carbine51 is something like 130 cm long. If I understand the pic I see you're holding the "gun rear body about mid lenght", so there is still quite a lot to be printed in the rear and a WHOLE LOT MORE in the front.
However, your hand fits the handle well so I would keep it as-is. The worst thing you can have is a scaled down weapon that doesn't allow you to hold it without leaving a pinky or whatever outside of the gun grip (which what happens to me when holding a Boomco M6 : it looks ridiculous)

So no, I would not scale it down any further. 51 is a BFG (any Doom reference is no coincidence) and should not be degraded to a pea-shooter.

As for NetFabb, there used to be a "Basic" version (the free one). These days I think it's all the same and you get a full version for 30 days or so, after which it falls back to typical NetFabb Free functionality levels.

I whish you luck with the printjob, much nice models, no spaghetti and no clogged heads.
On a personal note, I'd go crazy with something as small as a Da Vinci Mini.

 

[Dat1Darkrai]

sitting in my car frustrated because of traffic jam. WANT TO GO HOME.

If you did not scale it down, the Carbine51 is something like 130 cm long. If I understand the pic I see you're holding the "gun rear body about mid lenght", so there is still quite a lot to be printed in the rear and a WHOLE LOT MORE in the front.
However, your hand fits the handle well so I would keep it as-is. The worst thing you can have is a scaled down weapon that doesn't allow you to hold it without leaving a pinky or whatever outside of the gun grip (which what happens to me when holding a Boomco M6 : it looks ridiculous)

So no, I would not scale it down any further. 51 is a BFG (any Doom reference is no coincidence) and should not be degraded to a pea-shooter.

As for NetFabb, there used to be a "Basic" version (the free one). These days I think it's all the same and you get a full version for 30 days or so, after which it falls back to typical NetFabb Free functionality levels.

I whish you luck with the printjob, much nice models, no spaghetti and no clogged heads.
On a personal note, I'd go crazy with something as small as a Da Vinci Mini.

Ok cool! i will stick to this scale and keep on printin. I will be downloading net fab after the piece im printing now is completed. The da vinci mini is not bad at all in my opinion. I love it. My only gripe is just print time but i know that long print time is usual with 3d printing. I may ened up getting a second one to print out more pieces per day cause i can only get 4 done a day. But its so far so good! no clogging or spaghetti noodles. Minor spider webbing, but nothing that cant be fixed with sanding!

 

[LockedProps]

Good luck!!

 

[kaween]

Oh, I know the the DaVinci's are great little machines, I know them first hand. An ex-collegue of mine had/has a Pro 1 and the results that came out of it are really very good. It all depends on what you want to do with your machines I guess, and huge machines have their own set of problems too. But back then I decided I wasn't rich enough to splash out 900 or so € for a ready made machine that had a build space of 20x20x20cm (roughly), as the Pro was at that time the only one accepting 3th party filament types. (yesyes, I know the DaVinci's have been hacked since then )

So I started building my own machines, and I've never looked back since then. Only yesterday I did a slice/cut job for a friend who owns a relativly small machine and while doing that I was thinking "oh man I'm so glad I don't have to do this kind of stuff too much".

There you have it, I admit. I'm lazy.

 

[pipninja]

looks awesome! quick question though, did any of the printed files need supports?

 

[Dat1Darkrai]

Good luck!!

Thanks! Im loving the build so far!!!

Oh, I know the the DaVinci's are great little machines, I know them first hand. An ex-collegue of mine had/has a Pro 1 and the results that came out of it are really very good. It all depends on what you want to do with your machines I guess, and huge machines have their own set of problems too. But back then I decided I wasn't rich enough to splash out 900 or so € for a ready made machine that had a build space of 20x20x20cm (roughly), as the Pro was at that time the only one accepting 3th party filament types. (yesyes, I know the DaVinci's have been hacked since then )

So I started building my own machines, and I've never looked back since then. Only yesterday I did a slice/cut job for a friend who owns a relativly small machine and while doing that I was thinking "oh man I'm so glad I don't have to do this kind of stuff too much".

There you have it, I admit. I'm lazy.

I dont blame ya, slicing can be very meticulous work from what i have heard from friends lol. I have always wanted a 3d printer and they were all just to expensive for me at the time, but then i found the da vinci mini and alot of the reviews were good and saying that it is a good first step into the 3d printing realm.

looks awesome! quick question though, did any of the printed files need supports?

Not really, if anything, the only support material required was in the crevice/ indented area. See below:

Other than those pieces with the indented areas, there really isn.t support material, of course unless there are big overhangs.


I should be able to start printing more pieces soon! i had to order some more filament the other day and it should be arriving today, so yay!
Will post more pics when i start printing again!

 

[Dat1Darkrai]

Was able to print 3 more pieces to the butt of the gun today! New pieces are white!

I also discovered that it saves alot of time to just print each piece by itself instead of grouping pieces to be printed together. I was originally printing 2 pieces of the gun at once, which was taking 6 hours, but when i only printed one piece at a time, it only took around 2 hours. So by that then, I should be able to print 3 pieces in 6 hours instead of only 2 pieces. Im fairly confident that it was a rookie mistake to print multiple pieces at once, so i'll own up to that one hahah

 

[kaween]

Oh, that's not really a "rookie mistake". And nor is it a problem (in fact, it sometimes can be a solution).
But it's good you have come to the realisation it's not the same thing nor does it yield the same results, and now's the time to understand the consequences of this fact so you can turn this into your advantage for future prints.

1) for one thing, multiprint parts on a printbed cause more travel time. The more parts ? The more travel. The longer the print in total will take. There ARE slicers which will allow you to sequentially do the printjobs one at a time (if physically possible) causing far less time spend on travel time, minimizing the travel time and still allow you to start up an unattended mutlipart printjob.

2) Is this longer time due to travel Always bad ? No. It can even be put to good use. Say you have a shitload of really small parts : if you'd want to print them sequentially or one-at-a-time, your printouts will still take longer as starting at a certain size, the printer will be forced to either slow down the print OR incorperate a delay for each layer to allow it to cool down. In such cases, you're better of -and you will get a better quality- having multiple small parts on the bed : the travel time and the time spend "on the other part" would be enough to allow the first printed part to cool down without your machine doing "nothing but wait".

Example : in 2016, I did a batch of Combat knives for Gamescom. Thin, long blades, printed along the Z axis (standing upright). Now, if I printed just one blade, the machine would either botch up the quality of each blade as it didn't have the time to cool down the previous layer when starting the next on these small-surface parts, or I would have to incorperate the "wait x-seconds for layers with lower print times than x seconds" delay to allow the previous layer to become solid.
But when I printed 6 of these blades in a batch, each blade would get printed a layer, the printhead would quickly move to the next blade, print, next blade, print ..... allowing the individual blades to cool down evenly and ensuring a good quality surface, while not "wasting tme just waiting".

See ?

3) and if you're running unattended prints, a longer wait isn't an issue at all as "you're not there to do anything with the parts anyhow".

Depending on your workload volume, available time, physical layout of the models and of course technical limitations of your machine, one strategy can turn out to be a better one than the other and vice versa.

A very important part of learning to get the most out of your 3D machine is understanding what your machine _needs_ to do a good print (time, speed, temperature) and set it up accordingly. That's something you learn by experience, and understanding what solution needs to be chosen for what specific type of job determines the print, both in terms of quality as speed.

 

[Dat1Darkrai]

Oh, that's not really a "rookie mistake". And nor is it a problem (in fact, it sometimes can be a solution).
But it's good you have come to the realisation it's not the same thing nor does it yield the same results, and now's the time to understand the consequences of this fact so you can turn this into your advantage for future prints.

1) for one thing, multiprint parts on a printbed cause more travel time. The more parts ? The more travel. The longer the print in total will take. There ARE slicers which will allow you to sequentially do the printjobs one at a time (if physically possible) causing far less time spend on travel time, minimizing the travel time and still allow you to start up an unattended mutlipart printjob.

2) Is this longer time due to travel Always bad ? No. It can even be put to good use. Say you have a shitload of really small parts : if you'd want to print them sequentially or one-at-a-time, your printouts will still take longer as starting at a certain size, the printer will be forced to either slow down the print OR incorperate a delay for each layer to allow it to cool down. In such cases, you're better of -and you will get a better quality- having multiple small parts on the bed : the travel time and the time spend "on the other part" would be enough to allow the first printed part to cool down without your machine doing "nothing but wait".

Example : in 2016, I did a batch of Combat knives for Gamescom. Thin, long blades, printed along the Z axis (standing upright). Now, if I printed just one blade, the machine would either botch up the quality of each blade as it didn't have the time to cool down the previous layer when starting the next on these small-surface parts, or I would have to incorperate the "wait x-seconds for layers with lower print times than x seconds" delay to allow the previous layer to become solid.
But when I printed 6 of these blades in a batch, each blade would get printed a layer, the printhead would quickly move to the next blade, print, next blade, print ..... allowing the individual blades to cool down evenly and ensuring a good quality surface, while not "wasting tme just waiting".

See ?

3) and if you're running unattended prints, a longer wait isn't an issue at all as "you're not there to do anything with the parts anyhow".

Depending on your workload volume, available time, physical layout of the models and of course technical limitations of your machine, one strategy can turn out to be a better one than the other and vice versa.

A very important part of learning to get the most out of your 3D machine is understanding what your machine _needs_ to do a good print (time, speed, temperature) and set it up accordingly. That's something you learn by experience, and understanding what solution needs to be chosen for what specific type of job determines the print, both in terms of quality as speed.

Ok, I see what you are saying. It makes sense like you said about printing multiple pieces unattended. I have school every monday and wednesday, so it would make sense just to do multiple pieces at once to fill the time from when i leave for classes and coming back. I have noticed that when I go this route, my printer prints maybe 2 layers on piece, then prints 2 layers on another piece and then it repeats.

 

[Dat1Darkrai]

Just a quick couple questions i have regarding the printing of gun and my printer that hopefully you guys can answer,

When I'm going to initiate a print to start, i get this some times as the object is being sent over to the printer. I make sure i hit the LED button on my printer to fully finish the print job. Any help?

Then regarding the pieces being printed, These tend to get on the pieces alot. Does it have something to do with the geometry of the model itself? or are the bumps and ridges related to how the piece was printed?

I have no problem witht he bumps and what not cause i cant just sand them away, just curious if its my print settings or the 3d model of the piece.

 

[kaween]

You know, posting that question 1 time was kinda enough.

TBH, about the way the Davinci reacts on that error ? Dunno. I suspect you're sending it over a USB cable. What I know is this : if this runs on Ramps/MKS/Arduino kind of combination -and I suppose it does- I know first hand that some of these boards have a very hard time with anything but very short USB cables, certainly when the pc communicates at 250.000 speeds.

Suggestions ? If the software of the DaVinci allows for a lower communication speed, try that first. If not, try a different, preferably shorter USB cable. If you're using the Wifi connection to dump the model, try a cable instead.

Or, if the DaVinci support it : dump printfile in memory card, insert memory card in printer, print.

As for the model surface errors, well without seeing the actual files I couldn't say. Import the model into Netfabb or Meshmixer, look if the errors are there too. If not (and I would expect they will not be there), it's a printer/filament/settings issue.

The first pic : if you mean those diagonal lines : that's model based (the ridges for sure, it looks like a remainder of an originally intended-for-pep type of issue : it looks like what used to be folding lines.)

If the file comes from "pep origin", all bets are off. Too many variables for me to judge if it's a model issue or a printer issue, but that last pic really looks odd.

I can check the files for you if you want, but first pic ... pretty sure it's the result of a pepakura-origin-file-translation.
Second picture .... can go either way.

EDIT : just found out the Mini does not have an easy access SD slot. HOWEVER, it DOES have one on the mainboard and it stores the uploaded printfile there. Or better said, at least SOME DaVinci's have this kind of setup.

HERE's a guy who modded his DaVinci to accept SD cards like ... well most other printers I know are able to do :

A Flying SD Card Socket for the Da Vinci 1.0 3D Printer

but I'm unaware if this holds true for the Mini too.

 

[Dat1Darkrai]

You know, posting that question 1 time was kinda enough.

TBH, about the way the Davinci reacts on that error ? Dunno. I suspect you're sending it over a USB cable. What I know is this : if this runs on Ramps/MKS/Arduino kind of combination -and I suppose it does- I know first hand that some of these boards have a very hard time with anything but very short USB cables, certainly when the pc communicates at 250.000 speeds.

Suggestions ? If the software of the DaVinci allows for a lower communication speed, try that first. If not, try a different, preferably shorter USB cable.

Or, if the DaVinci support it : dump printfile in memory card, insert memory card in printer, print.

As for the model surface errors, well without seeing the actual files I couldn't say. Import the model into Netfabb or Meshmixer, look if the errors are there too. If not (and I would expect they will not be there), it's a printer/filament/settings issue.

The first pic : if you mean those diagonal lines : that's model based (the ridges for sure, it looks like a remainder of an originally intended-for-pep type of issue : it looks like what used to be folding lines.)

If the file comes from "pep origin", all bets are off. Too many variables for me to judge if it's a model issue or a printer issue, but that last pic really looks odd.

I can check the files for you if you want, but first pic ... pretty sure it's the result of a pepakura-origin-file-translation.
Second picture .... can go either way.

Yeah I know about the quad-posting, trying to fix it lol. Not sure what happened at all. I dont see a delete reply button.

I can see if i can find a shorter cable. Im not too sure what the cable type is first so hopefully the manual that came with the printer says what kind of cable it is. Like i said, im not too worried about the weird geometry going on the pieces cause i know i can just sand them flush. I was just more curious about it than anything

 

[CPO mendez]

Oh dang! i found one of my files in use out in the wild! sorry to hear about the problems. if it helps at all, i exported everything through MatterControl, which is apparently notorious for being annoying and hard to work with (i'm using it just fine myself)

But, all the files went through quite a few different programs before getting uploaded. the files started as .OBJs from pepakura, got dumped into maya and sliced up, then the sliced, hollow models were dumped into microsoft's STL repair toolkit, which is some sort of automated thing that "magically" repairs the models (it's seriously three buttons. Upload, Repair, Download. who knows what's going on behind the scenes) then everything went through Spin 3D Mesh Converter to convert from .3MF to .obj or .stl, then finally they're compressed, uploaded to 4shared, and linked here.

If i had to guess, it seems like your slicer might just not like the files very much. Mattercontrol is pretty universal and free (i think) so maybe give that a shot?

 

[Dat1Darkrai]

Oh dang! i found one of my files in use out in the wild! sorry to hear about the problems. if it helps at all, i exported everything through MatterControl, which is apparently notorious for being annoying and hard to work with (i'm using it just fine myself)

But, all the files went through quite a few different programs before getting uploaded. the files started as .OBJs from pepakura, got dumped into maya and sliced up, then the sliced, hollow models were dumped into microsoft's STL repair toolkit, which is some sort of automated thing that "magically" repairs the models (it's seriously three buttons. Upload, Repair, Download. who knows what's going on behind the scenes) then everything went through Spin 3D Mesh Converter to convert from .3MF to .obj or .stl, then finally they're compressed, uploaded to 4shared, and linked here.

If i had to guess, it seems like your slicer might just not like the files very much. Mattercontrol is pretty universal and free (i think) so maybe give that a shot?

Yup! Came across your file on thingiverse actually and it led me to your thread you created! Loving the files so far though! I Havent really done anything to fixy yet on the files as they seemed fine on the 3d builder app on pc. I use the reapir thing you are talking about on a couple files alreayd and it has seemed to work a tad bit. I will have to check out that program as well! The more slicer programs the better it seems like

 

[kaween]

Hm. Speaking out of my own experiences, MS's stl repair is ..... pretty funky to say the least. When I was working on the M7 which originated from a SketchUP origin, it didn't always do a really nice job (understatement - occasionally it would **** up a model beyond recognition). The fact you have litterally no control over the fix parameters, at least not last time I looked at the tool, may be inviting to use but .... meh. (my personal opinion).

Not saying this problem originates at that stage, just saying, there are better repair tools out there. -but not free-.
Yet, even the free "makeprintable" site offers a lot more control over the output.

As for "the more slicer software the better", it's true all slicers have their up and downsides.
But the two that still come out on top for me, both in terms of speed and quality, are Simplify3D (expensive) and the old CURA's (15.X).

An interesting video on this subject :

While I don't always agree with Agnus, I felt he's pretty much spot on.

This comparisson between Mattercontrol and Simplify is interesting too

 

[CPO mendez]

Hm. Speaking out of my own experiences, MS's stl repair is ..... pretty funky to say the least. When I was working on the M7 which originated from a SketchUP origin, it didn't always do a really nice job (understatement - occasionally it would **** up a model beyond recognition). The fact you have litterally no control over the fix parameters, at least not last time I looked at the tool, may be inviting to use but .... meh. (my personal opinion).

Not saying this problem originates at that stage, just saying, there are better repair tools out there. -but not free-.
Yet, even the free "makeprintable" site offers a lot more control over the output.

I'll look into it. it was a godsend to find the microsoft one back when i was still learning maya, becuase i had absolutely NO idea how to make a model "solid" by filling the hole after cutting it into sections! glad to hear there's more options out there

 

[kaween]

Meshmixer has a good "make solid" (if it doesn't have a personal vendetta against your machines, which seems to be the case with me. ). Netfabb does a great job in repairing and rewrapping surfaces models. You can download it for free and these days, it will allow you to use the full functionality for 30 days or so until it falls back to the far more limited, free/basic version.