This was a long project, I finished the original 3D model in 2012 but had kept in mind that I wanted to 3D print it. So after that point I was looking into 3D printers and trying to find one that could produce high detail. I skipped on the Form1 originally and had tried some other printers, and most of the issues I had were things like the print volume or issues with quality and mostly issues with having to spend a lot of time experimenting with settings.
Back in 2015 I got the Form1+ since it seemed like it could do pretty good quality. The main thing I was looking for was being able to print larger objects without lowering the quality, since it uses a laser rather than a DLP projector it can print at high quality in the full volume.
Later in 2015 they announced the Form2 and I decided to sell the Form1+ and get the Form2 since it had some significant improvements. What made it most useful was the larger build size. Specifically on this project the body was originally made of 12 parts to fit in the Form1+ build volume. But with the Form2 I was able to print it in 4 parts which made things so much easier.
Overall the ease of use helped a lot, I didn’t have to experiment with printer settings and after a bit you understand some techniques in how to design your parts for printing with an SLA printer.
When I got the Form2 I ended up reprinting everything, and it also gave me the opportunity to redesign some things so that I could assemble them more easily or sand them more easily or to get better orientations to maintain the detail. Having the printer also meant that if something broke or if I came to a problem then I could print something real quick. For example very close to the end I was getting the engine parts sanded and had just finished and was washing the parts off–I dropped one of the main pieces and some of it broke, while I was able to reassemble most of it, one of the parts was unable to be found and so I was able to reprint the part in a couple of hours.
Part of what also made it difficult was that I wanted to light the speeder so things had to be assembled in a certain order so that I could run the wires and make sure I wouldn’t paint over the lights. I used an arduino with an RGB light shield so that I could control 3 sets of lights with 12v of power (the arduino can’t provide enough power by itself for all of the lights I used). I also put a small 0.96" OLED screen in the center console so I could have an animated screen. It also uses a bluetooth module that I can link to my phone and I used Unity to make a simple app to wirelessly control the lights.
I had some trouble with the paints, originally used Vallejo paints but some of them just wouldn’t dry fully, they were sticky and the paint was rubbery and would peel off. So I switched to Tamiya and it worked great. Also, the Novus plastic polish and scratch remove helped to get a nice finish and also helped to get the windshield looking clean.
The windshield was very difficult, it’s still not perfect but there’s not a lot of options to 3D print something that’s super clear and very thin. It was mostly careful sanding and polishing.
This is 1/10th scale, about 18.5" long. 202 pieces
More photos at my artstation portfolio: https://www.artstation.com/qymaen
