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O boy, what did I get myself into

Discussion in 'Scenery' started by Arloid, Nov 23, 2017.

  1. Arloid

    Arloid Well-Known Member

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    So I basicly made a long term promise to the group to 3d print 2 tables worth of modular terrain, one table based on a abondoned underwater base and the other based on a Haqqislam trading station in space. Besides that I also promised to make some city tiles to play on.

    To give you guys a idea, here is the description I've given the guys at my local group;

    Abandoned underwater base
    Lots of narrow hallways connected to large dome structures. Some domes will be quite open while others are tight and filled with corridors and rooms. Some area’s are flooded or give access to water, allowing troops with Aquatic terrain to traverse large sections of the game table relatively unharmed.

    This is probably the most difficult to make, requiring a lot of parts for the domes and probably the one requiring the most storage space. However it’s also the one I’m most excited about.

    Space cargo docks
    Welcome to alharir alsuwq, the silk markets. This is the place where the silk and all other valuable commodities are brought into orbit and sold to the highest bidder. Once a well-organized place, due to rapid growth and expansion it has grown out to a maze of container storage facilities, catwalks and office space.

    Very straightforward this one, just wall sections and connectors on the first level using sliding dovetails with the option to screw on the walls for the second floor using din 912 bolts. Not entirely sure how I’m going to connect the catwalks yet.

    I have the option to either:
    bolt them into the first floor using the same din 912 bolts,
    add a hook so they hook into the second floor and stay clamped between the 2 floors during play or
    just print them as part of the second floor.

    Besides the modular table I plan to make a couple of 3d city tiles to place on the bare green boards were currently playing on.


    I probably bit of more then I can chew, but whatever. I probably start working on it on saturday and will see how far it goes. Still have a lot of time before I can afford a 3d printer.
     
  2. Nincoreween

    Nincoreween Macross Frontier Commander

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    WOW! Good luck, but on a good note most 3d printers once you have them setup and the CAD files in it does the work on its own. So, setup and walk away till its time to setup the next one.
     
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  3. Arloid

    Arloid Well-Known Member

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    As you say, most of it will be pretty painless once the CAD files are done and even then making the CAD files is probably more tedious then difficult. Also the deeper I dig into 3d CAD design the more I'm convinced that the simple route (but not necessarily the least complex or easiest) is often the way to go.
     
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  4. Boardron

    Boardron Member

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    Well, you can always help me out with my modular mdf board ;-)
     
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  5. Arloid

    Arloid Well-Known Member

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    I like your sense of humour Boardron, actually making vector files is a large part of my education so designing some mdf buildings isn’t that hard for me. (I study furniture making and design)

    However I think I dug my grave already deep enough ;P
     
  6. Zarc07

    Zarc07 Pan O TAG Pilot

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    Good luck Arloid. I don't know much of 3D printing but I do know that an Abandoned Underwater (most likely COBRA Base) sounds awesome and SUPER intensive to do.
     
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  7. Arloid

    Arloid Well-Known Member

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    Small update:

    You're definetly right on the super intensive part Zarc, I've been working 4 hours on the underwater hallways alone and still not even remotely finished thanks to being largely unsure what I wanted and Fusion 360 not doing what I exactly want. In the end I only have the front silhouette finished and as such there is not much to show. This probably means that the first real update will probably have to wait till saturday next week, unless I find some time (and energy) before that time.

    In the end I settled on hallways with a 4 inch interior width and roughly a 3 inch height. For the lenght of the hallways and everything else for that matter I decided on a 3 inch system, this means that the distance from one connector to the next will always be in intervals of 3 inches. This will ensure everything will connect and that I'm not restricted to one single layout.

    On a different note, for those of you who are unaware I'm still looking for the measurments of the "District 5 Bus Services" busses from Micro Art Studios in order to determine the width of the roads of the board tiles I'm planning on designing. If anyone has those, whould you be so kindly to send me the lenght and width of those? I don't seem to get any response from the Micro Art Studio forum on the old forums
     
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  8. Arloid

    Arloid Well-Known Member

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    It took 3 iterations to finally get right, second one unfortunatly being a little bit too cramped to fit the fingers in, but third time's the charm.

    It all started with the below shape as a base, from there I could add the beam structure.
    [​IMG]

    From there I substracted the support for the acrylic windows.
    [​IMG]

    I also added a little dividing line in the middle of the 6 inch hallway.
    [​IMG]

    As some may notice there is a empty space between the floor and the bottom of the hallway, these will eventually be filled up. The reason for this space is that I want to make some maintenance hatches for in the hallways so models can gain cover by crawling into them. For that I have to make a negative of the hatches so I can easily copy and paste this into these area's. Same goes for the area's below the windows.

    However I probably focus on something else first, this is kinda driving me nuts at this point.
     
  9. Wombat85

    Wombat85 Well-Known Member

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    As someone who does a lot of 3d printing (phd in engineering designing actuators) i Strongly suggest you find a way to laser cott cut these. I would expect a 3d printed table like this to run a couple of grand. If you want to check for yourself upload your file to protolabs for a quote.
     
  10. Arloid

    Arloid Well-Known Member

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    I see what your getting at @Wombat85 , however I plan on printing them myself once I get my own printer. However the filament and production methods provided by protolabs are overkill. Even then, getting it printed in pla by a print service wil cost €41 for a single 6 inch hallway. Now after some calculation I conclude that from 1 1kg roll of filament I can print 2 hallways which translates to about €14,75 per hallway not including the acrylic. Still not cheap, but manageable.
     
  11. Wombat85

    Wombat85 Well-Known Member

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    Fair enough. When you print you going to be tempted to print as shown in your image above, don't. Its quit likely the bottom will bow and warp. Instead flip it 90 degrees, it will turn out much better but will slow your print time. Also get a head start and make an acetone vapour bath that will fit these pieces, it will be worth it.

    Oh one more thing. Once you are finished with the part consider cadding a mold for it, then 3d printing that and just casting the parts. It will greatly lower your cost. Let me know if you need a hand with anything
     
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  12. Arloid

    Arloid Well-Known Member

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    I was already aware of the 90 degree flip, but thanks for pointing that out. Due to printing time I'm going to break everything up in parts, but it probably still holds true for the window frames.

    Not sure how I feel about the acetone bath, I'm not a big fan of using chemicals, given that acetone isn't extremely harmfull I probably try some other methods first.

    As far as molds go, good idea. I probably print those out of flexible filament and see how that goes.
    However I let you know if I have any questions.
     
  13. Monkeysloth

    Monkeysloth Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure where the 1k for the cost of the table comes from. I finished up a sewer system for an RPG that easily covered 3'x3' for only about $45 in pla. A 2"x2"x.5" tile was only about $.20 and the wall just a few cents more. Sure it doesn't have the verticality of what infinity needs but still. I'd also be surprised if one of those hallways took half a KG of filament. Maybe if you're printing at 100% infill but if those are rotated 90 degrees you could pretty much print them hollow--which I recommend not because of them warping (which it wont if you're printing in pla) but because it will look horrible as all the under hangs will be very rough and not look good.

    Also, as again I've only seen PLA mentioned as a material, Acetone will not work with it. Best to print 2-3 outside layers and sand it down or coat it in self leveling epoxy (several brands for 3d prints) though a few coats of varnish and paint will cover up most of the print lines.

    As for the microarts bus, just happen to have a few sitting right next to me (sorry couldn't find a metric tape measurer)

    bumper to bumper it's 6 17/18" x 1 6/8" x 2 1/8" H I didn't measure out the rails out in front
     
  14. Arloid

    Arloid Well-Known Member

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    Well services like protolabs ask around €290 for one 6 inch hallway, however they use some of the more advanced printing methods which cost as much as 7 times ordering the same bridge in pla.

    I also remember using something like 70% infill, which is a bit overkill now I think of it. 20-30% might be a bit more reasonable, but I could probably get away with less and use a thicker wall thickness which hopefully fix the underhang problem you talk about.

    Thank you for taking the time to measure the Micro art busses, however Andrew from MAS has already provided me with all the measurements I need, but I still apreciate it.
     
  15. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    I'd suggest either pegs and/or magnets instead of bolting things together. Magnetizing can be a pain to get your polarities correct, but I think it's worth it in terms of ease of setup/teardown.

    The secret to getting your polarities correct is to choose one piece as a master, and magnetize everything to it. Use some cling-wrap or similar cheap plastic films (shopping bag, ziplocs, etc) to prevent you from gluing your magnets to each other.

    Also, part of the reason that the printing services cost so much is that they're dividing the cost of the machine by the printing time (assuming probably two years to pay for the machine and save up for it's replacement). So if you have a file that takes 20 hours to print, you are paying for 20/8760 = 1/438 of the cost of the printer. $10,000 printer /438 = $22.83, plus the cost of electricity and printer materials.
     
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  16. Monkeysloth

    Monkeysloth Well-Known Member

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    Do you really needed them printed like that? If you need print resources there's a subreddit designated to finding printers (r/3Dprintmything/) if you want to find someone cheaper.
     
  17. Arloid

    Arloid Well-Known Member

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    Pegs might be a good idea to keep the second floor in place, not sure about using magnets to hold a entire catwalk though. Might change it to that only the catwalks are bolted down in the space cargo docks.

    As far as printing costs go, that's reasonable, I already assumed that the cost of the 3d printer and filament were added in, but haven't really digged into the whole equation behind it.

    As I replied to Wombat85, I plan on buying my own 3d printer and printing them myself. Given the cost of printing 2 tables worth of terrain it's just more economical in the long run. Ordering a 6 inch hallway in pla cost me about €41, doing it myself after some recalculation cost me about €9,70 excluding the cost of buying a 3d printer.
     
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  18. Monkeysloth

    Monkeysloth Well-Known Member

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    Pegs will work fine if designed right but I suggest looking into Openlock which is an opensource tile and clip system. even if you don't want to follow their system 100% the clip works really well and could easily be integrated into what you've made. However if you go open lock it would be really easy for you to sell what you made as there's a pretty large echosystem for them but the sci-fi is still lacking.
     
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  19. Arloid

    Arloid Well-Known Member

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    Openlock looks promising and I guess that with some support pieces the catwalks would work too. It's also a bit more versatile then what I was originally planning. Alright I give it a try once I'm a bit further with the underwater base.

    I guess I could also use the openlock system to connect the hallways from the underwater base with the domes.
     
  20. Monkeysloth

    Monkeysloth Well-Known Member

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    There's an openlock group on facebook where several of the designers hang out as well as people that just print the stuff. It's open to anyone,
     
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