Low budget 3D-printing again ...

To say it politely: I am not amused. My wife was a bit more sarcastic: This printer isn't ocean-going, is it?
The story in short:
2013 - September: I bought a FreeSculpt 3D-printer from PEARL. It was shipped originally with a damaged stop end switch. I got it back repaired after a few weeks.
2014 - June: The nozzel heater gave up. I got the printer back repaired after 10 or 12 days.
2015 - February: The material extruder gave up. I got the printer back repaired after a few days.
2015 - February: After 7.5 hrs of printing (overall) the toothed belts of the printer head jumped a bit. That means I got a displacement in the print of ~3 mm (after 1.5 hrs at the current job). I made a second attempt and got the same displacement because the toothed belts didn't work properly (after 40 min this time).

I have to have a serious talk to PEARL tomorrow me thinks.

 

One solution could be:
Karl Dönitz lost the Battle of Atlantic during WWII in 1944. He had a lot of Uboats. But only one quarter of them could operate, while another quarter was at the yard for repairs and two other quarters were on the march to or from the battlefield. Probably I should ask PEARL for four new printers instead of my one to compensate the pain and make me able to do just one print job each time?

P.S. Don't get me wrong. I don't defend or glorify what happend during WWII. It's just an example for logistics that I know.

 

Okay, I will get a brandnew printer. I had this announced "serious" telephone call with PEARL's customer service today. I will get a credit voucher of the price I paid once (800 Euro) and can than buy a new one. Good thing is: The actual price is 700 Euro. So I can buy some print material from the difference later ... 4 kg. Not bad

IF THE NEW PRINTER WILL DO IT'S DAMN JOB!​

 

Yo, finally I am back!
Got the new printer two weeks ago. And guess what: It was broken too! Slack joint. Maaaaaaan! Okay, they repaired it and I printed the right boot of the model today.

I will continue with the left boot tomorrow. Hopefully the printer will hold out this time.

I decided to call her "Tamara".

 

Day two.

Left Boot and left lower leg


Okay, the parts look a bit shitty so far because I didn't use any sandpaper on them. The reason is: I will talk to a former colleague next days about taking over the finishing job (sanding, glue and paint).
Cross fingers the printer will hold out a bit longer than in the past. Scheduled jobs for tomorrow are Tamara's left thigh and arse. Plus the belt if there is time for. Stay tuned.

 

Yep. I am a bit excited. Only the left boot with lower leg are 20 cm long (~8 inch). But it is still my "step two" in an ongoing process. At this step I will check what I have to care for when making such a model - say: detailing, splitting parts, paint and such. The main goal are still two 75 cm statues of Ulla Braun. One from Entropia Universe in my old beloved Lion armour with a Niflheim equipped and one from Skyrim.

The sad thing is: it takes too much time. The parts above took ~1.5 hours of preparing and ~7.5 hours of printing each. But okay, it's worth it!

 

HOLY SHIT!
Tamara's left thigh took FIFTEEN hours to print!


I should reduce the filling rate next time dramatically.

How ever. The printer stood through the job and I am optimistic to continue in a good way.

Just to give you an imagination of what size we are talking about:

 

LOL!
That YouTube and streaming things are not my business. That's all lame. Better info comes here. I couldn't resist to run a quicky (compared to the former job). The belt with 2.5 hours "only":

I will call my potentially model finisher and painter tomorrow. Hopefully she will like to work together with me at this project. Cross fingers!

 

Well, the plan is to learn how it could work and how much bucks it'll cost. Not to make an amazing model yet. It is still step two only on my way to make amazing models once.
Example: Tamara's arse.

The printer code was generated with the same filling rate (10%) like the 15 hours thigh above. I canceled the print job after 2.5 hours because the estimated printing time would have been ~20 hours!


Regarding costs ... hard to say at this early stadium. And how to calculate them? Shall I count each hour I spent with prepairing the 3D-model? What I really paid so far:
Printer: 700 Euro (including 1 kg print material - wich is enough for this statue)
3D-model done by a hired freelancer: ~200 Euro
Additional I have to buy a license for Rhino3D in early June: 1100 Euro
No clue what assembling, finishing and painting will cost. But I will keep you up to date ;-)

All costs of consumable materials (printing wire, filler, sandpaper, paint cans etc.) are really marginal compared to the effort it takes to make a good RL model.

 

So we had a small progress today. Two parts of Tamara's right leg:

Tomorrow I will try her arse again and the missing part of her right leg.
Oh don't worry about the notch in her knee. That's the place where her arm will lie.

 

Guess what! There are more than two aspects. At least one more is: my know how ;-)

 

The small work of today: The missing part of the right leg. I glued the parts roughly. I will break them apart again later for the finishing. Btw. the squares on the cutting mat are 50x50 mm.


I am too lazy to start another 8-hour-job today to get her arse out of the printer.

... will do McCormick's Drone instead of ...

 

Old Tamara in a good progress. Nine hours for her butt instead of 20 :-)

 

Well ... the boots ... ... ...

I wasn't really happy with the boots my modeler made. I told him to leave the shoelaces because the printer can't handle such fragile parts. But the boots at all arn't very good. Several overlapping parts, some open geometry ... no chance to put them together with Boolean operation in Rhino. (It's not his fault! I told him to work smart, use parts from stock or other sources etc. Accuracy and high detailing are not the goals of this stage.) But still I was unhappy. The prints of the boots are pitted and some of the details are simply too small. I had to learn (again!) that everything below 2 mm causes serious problems. Especially regarding the finishing and painting later.

So I took a break from the process and searched for better free or cheap 3D models of boots without laces but with clasps or clips or even zips. The booty was small :-( Here is what I got:

From left to right: original boot from my modeler, kinda Manga accessoir boot for free, other free stuff and two boots I bought as bundle for $6 from Turbosquid. Model 3 in the middle is really too rough and model 5 at the right has too thin geometry (0.7 mm wall thickness). So I made test printings from 2 and 4.

Both not satisfying. Than I started to remodel number 5. But it turned to become a shitload of work ...
... so still

Whisper ... there are other things to do as well ;-)