I've mentioned before how hit and miss my adventures in 3d printing have been. Recently I've experienced more miss than hit, with holes and miss prints happening with alarming regularity. Consulting the experts on various support groups (Cults?) it was divined that I was having an LCD failure. I was mortified - partly because it sounded serious (it is) and partly because the cure sounded both complicated and expensive. Happily it wasn't (phew).
I ordered a new LCD screen which cost less than £25. Before fitting I watched a couple of Youtube videos and took a deep breath, then launched into it. It was simple but not exactly easy, but it was completed in under an hour.
I've levelled the machine, levelled the bed, chanted the relevant incantations and "Praise the Machine God" it is running perfectly. Phew!
What this experience has taught me while searching for advice and videos is that there is a large number of after market upgrade kits that you can apply to a printer to make your machine more efficient. You can replace the print plate holder to make levelling easier, or the single rail with a twin which will make printing smoother for instance. I think I will have a dabble over Christmas with some upgrades - the Gods willing.
Have I changed my mind about the impact home 3d printing will have on gaming companies? Not really. The process is still fussy, messy and far from guaranteed at the moment. On the other hand the technology will mature at an increasing rate - the new mono LCD printers are faster and more capable and I suspect these will be a step change in capability.
Anyway here are my rather beautiful Fairy Swordfish fresh off the printer yesterday. These models are from the RoC-Works stable and were trouble free to print. I think these models show the potential of 3d printing. No other process could make a one piece model at this scale, and the idea of trying to assemble a traditional model biplane in this scale six times would just be too much to consider.
Next off the printer hopefully will be some early single seat Sturmoviks from the Plane Printer Patreon. I joined this subscription service and for a couple of quid a month they provide some nice STL files. So far I've not printed anything from them, and of course they don't come "pre supported" as the RoC-Works models do, introducing another level of uncertainty into the process. Time to start the chanting again!
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The stringbags look really good, Ken.
ReplyDeleteRegards, Chris.