Just got my printer (finally!) and after test-printing the formlabs logo, I jumped in and printed a model I’ve wanted to test for a while.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:46638
The pictures below speak for themselves. I cured the items by placing them 3 inches away from a blacklight tube for about an hour. This worked flawlessly. The prints were done at 100 microns and as was said before, uneven surfaces come out better than flat ones; I can’t find layer marks on the ring whereas on the logo they show a lot. Also I don’t have clear resin to compare with, but the grey resin feels almost like ABS plastic. It’s resilient yet flexible enough not to shatter on impact when thrown on the floor. Added bonus, the color under a blacklight is insane! This makes it very easy to find and cure lost resin bits. Going to test 28mm scale miniatures next, some without supports (will stick with 100 microns for now) and am very pleased with the material and printer so far.
I found the printer to be very noisy when it adjusts the trays. Thankfully it’s not as loud while printing. Also, supports are a pain to remove, and this is after reducing the default width and cap size by half! This is a good thing I suppose, as it means the objects are very well supported while printing.
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The resin glows under blacklight because we infuse each bottle with just a little essence of the elder gods. Your Cthulhu ring looks great, but remember to cast any summoning runes in the anti-clockwise direction (assuming you’re wearing the ring on your right hand).
Also, if you’re painting the part, you can use the blacklight to check your coverage!
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Ok, I did print some other models. So far I’m printing a lot less than I thought I would, and it’s mostly been linked to PnP games. Oh well.
This was done in the last month, about one batch per week. Yes, the poor printer’s neglected.
First is a coffin + mummy available from http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:32905. They were printed to 32mm lenght. The coffin walls tore at one place, otherwise it was made without supports and quite easy to remove from the plate. Next is a set of eight doorways which are a deviation from dutchmogul’s own. I thinned them and added a slot to place a strip of cardboard/paper with an image… basically it’s a 1 inch wide door frame. They have been painted and saw a lot of practical use so far.
Then, custom dice. The customizer on thingiverse generated the custom icons on the mesh from black and white images I provided. Tested one as holow, the other as filled. Going to make filled dice from now on; the hollow ones just don’t have as much heft to them, nor do they bounce around much.
Customizer: http://www.thingiverse.com/apps/customizer/run?thing_id=131071&code=e572da7f476c19c64a37c9a2c53f8ed0
Finally, I tried a batch of 28mm scale miniatures. I processed two male/female human meshes and a succubus from WoW. I also printed a spaceship from dutchmogul’s Breach game, and one of his characters sitting on an intricate throne. Oh and a larger coffin/mummy set to boot.
The WoW models turned out kind of poorly, due too few support and the art style, where they give women tiny heads and super long legs, and gigantic forearms on everyone. The spaceship was printed vertically and I think the supports were also weak, for it bent (and thankfully did not break). I had a lot of trouble to remove prints from the platform ever since I updated the software. Broke the coffin lid outright, as well as many support bases, and punched a hole through the coffin itself when the scraper slipped. Will try to lift with a razor bade and finish with the scraper next time.
Is this in 28mm scale ? Im very eager to find out if the form 3d printers is good for printing high detail models for tabletop games like warhammer for example. The detail on the squid seems great!