To support or not to support?

This was a commission job to do a character model based on someone Final Fantasy XIV character, and it is the most complex part I've ever modeled and printed. Part of the complexity of this model was the fact that it was a moving target. As an online game the player was constantly changing their costume. The other part of the complexity was that this character had a lot of clothes to model. In the future singlets and jeans only. And finally no matter what I did I could not come up with an intersting pose that didn't have massive overhangs.

I get a lot of guff from other 3D printing people because of my stance on break-away supports. So I decided to take this character and see if I could make supports work. I tweaked and adjusted and used every trick in the book to get a well supported part out of it. But when the supports didn't fail and fall before they got to the part they needed to be supporting, the supported arm, which was already thin, was made skeletal because of the necessary gap introduced so that the supports could be removed. And I'm not talking about the clean skeleton you see in the doctor's office, no, like a dripping, fleshy, zombie skeleton arm.

So I adjusted the design to print without supports. I removed the overhanging arm, gave it a slightly overhang orientation, and removed the book as well. Of course this part was too small to add any sort of registers to the parts so that I could line them up after printing so gluing them was a fine art of patience and a steady hand, and I admit that having the badly printed part for reference probably helped. But the final result was so much better.

Now, I'm not saying that break-away supports should never ever never be used. I still think they're a fine art and they have their place. But fine details on rounded objects is not that place.

My entry to the Pinshape Space Design contest

This is my entry in the PinShape Space Design contest. You can check it out here. If you have an account on Pinshape (and they're free, so why not?) I hope you'll give it a like there. If you'd like to get the model you you don't need to worry about the exorbitant $0.99 price tag on it. If you're a Pateron backer you'll be getting the models for free. But if you're not all you have to do is share the Pinshape link on social media, then reach out to me and let me know and I'll pass along the free download to you. Easy as that.

I hope everyone enjoys my writeup, too, because I thought I was being terribly clever and I'll probably be using that as the script for the video I'll do showing off this project.

Modeling a Puzzle of Evil

I'm sure you don't want to hear about the massive technical problems I had making this video that forced me to re-record this same content 5 times before finally settling on this. But I'm going to tell you anyways because that's what this blog is for. Originally there was going to be a cut to the print, full screen, at the work bench as I fiddled with them, and then a cut to me full body as I plead for your help for ideas for my 500th subscriber video. But all that had to be scrapped because inexplicably videos recorded with Open Broadcast stopped being playable and editable on my computer. I have no idea what the problem was, whether it was OBS or my computer. The old videos still play and are editable so I'm going to say OBS changed, but in the end I had to stop trying to edit it and just send it to YouTube and hope it can encode it, which it did. So at least we have something.

Yes, I need your help because I'm getting dangerously close to 500 subscribers and I promised when that happened that I would do a thing... and I have no idea what that thing is still. So if you have an idea leave a comment on the video, or thumb up someone else's idea, and help me come up with something cool.

If you'd like to print your own desk puzzles you can download the finished models:
https://pinshape.com/items/7793-3d-printed-t-puzzle
https://pinshape.com/items/7792-3d-printed-puzzle-of-evil
As well as many other places online.

Arrow of Light Holder

Not every 3D print will change the world. Some will simply bear our accomplishments for the world to see.

You can download the arrow display hook on YouMagine.

How I stole the Clug and why I don't feel bad about it

Okay, full disclosure, I do feel a little bad about it. But hopefully you'll see why I'm not beating myself up about it.

A friend pointed me to a kickstarter for a bike holder called the clug. It was a cool idea. But the reason it showed up on my radar is because they 3D printed the prototypes and if you backed at the lowest level they would send you the STL and you could just print it yourself. Distributed manufacturing, hoorah!

But by the time I heard about the Clug it was too late to get in on the kickstarter. So I went to their kickstarted website and saw options to buy the real things, shipped to me from Canada. And where there should have been an option to buy the 3D model there was only the message:

We're hard at work getting the 3D Files ready for sale.

And hard work it must be because it's said that for 6 months. So I reached out to them and found out they were having to play a legal game of CYA. A home printed doesn't go through the  same QA checks and what if it fails and damaged someone's bike? The answer is if course a paragraph of legal babble attached to the download that discharges their responsibility. But apparently that's hard work, or they've just got other things they'd rather do, because so far that's not happening.

At this point I guess I should have just bought 5 of them but, darn it I don't have a 3D printer so I can buy goods online and have them shipped to me. I'm living in the future here. So, I studied their images and video and figured out how the thing worked and what was the important parts, and modeled my own.

Aside, this isn't the first time a product was 3d printable and I said "I could do that" looking at nothing but pictures. That distinction goes to the square helper. But I really didn't want a square helper so I left that one alone.

So here's the head scratcher; did I steal their design? Without a doubt my design succeed, and succeed with my first try, because I had their failures to look at. I'm not a lawyer but I suspect there's nothing wrong with just looking at a thing and making your own based on what you see. I could probably even distribute or sell my design, though I'm planning on keeping this one to myself for now. Reverse engineering is a frustrating thing, but it's not illegal. And besides if the Clug folks had just sold me the STL like I wanted I would have had no reason to even try.

This, I think, is the moral of the story. 3D printing is ushering in a new world where design is rapid and manufacturing can be distributed, but it's also changing demand. The mantra of business has always been "give the people what they want". This story is just a glimpse. When 3D printers are in more homes and hands and people who won't keep their designs to themselves are copying every 3D printable doodad it will not be feasable to be in the business of selling doodads unless you're also ready to release the models that people want. That's a great thing for many people but a scary thing for a few.

Meta Chess set

Like the game itself, uploading this set to YouMagine has levels for me.

See what I did there?

But seriously, Meta Chess was designed for the same contest that won me a 3D printer. But in the two years since I never printed the whole set. Part of the reason is because when I printed half of it a while back it gave me ideas for the next iteration and I just never gave myself the time to do those changes.

Meanwhile things happened and I decided to migrate all my designs from Thingiverse to YouMagine. In the migration I took the time to do all those little updates to my designs that I've just put off. And Meta Chess is the last design to migrate (unless I missed one).

It's a long print. At first I tried printing the whole set and 8 hours later it was only 60% complete. Then the filament had a snag and it ruined the whole print. The small pieces were done. But I decided to do the big pieces in two smaller segments which worked better. Over all this kept my printer busy for 3 days.

Now to find two people crazy enough to play the game.

Looks like I'm going to be printing TARDIS Run for a little while

I got a flurry or orders on Etsy for TARDIS Run, my Doctor Who themed board game. So I asked the people ordering from me where they all heard about it at once. Turns out it was featured on CNet. So there you go. (I also found it featured elsewhere on the net, but CNet gets the credit for the current flock of orders.)

Looks like my 3D printer is going to be busy for a little while filling orders for TARDIS Run, which is exciting and exhausting. But at least I won't be without something to print for a little while.

Third and Fourth segments on 3D Printing Today

Episode 47 of 3D Printing Today podcast features not 1 but 2 segments featuring me.

http://threedprintingtoday.libsyn.com/

The segments are about precisely modeling using tricks like typing in the amount you want to move and using the Properties panel (N) and modeling without supports which I more or less covered before.

Functional prints are boring

Lately I've been hearing this same refrain in a number of different voices:

If 3D printing is supposed to be so great, how come all anyone ever prints is stupid stuff?

I'm sorry that giving hands to children where making an expensive prosthetic they're going to grow out of just isn't practical isn't enought for you. It's too bad you're tired of talking about making weapons available to people despite what their government says they should and shouldn't have. And I that generation of young inventors it's inspiring and enabling isn't enough for you. If someone decides they want to print something frivolous to perfect their use of the technology, then by golly they deserve your ridicule.

Okay, fine, I got a functional print for you.

I bought an LED light strip to make my skypes (and other things) properly illuminated. But I discovered when I mounted it that pointing down wasn't the best solution. I needed to mount it facing outwards. So I made an adapter that hooks into the screw and allows me to hook the LED strip into it.

And it works great. So why don't I upload this model to youmagine and share it with the world? Because it took me all of 15 minutes to model, and unless you have the same LED strip I do and have the same problem I do, I don't see this being of help to many people. There's, maybe, two people in the whole world who needs this besides me, and I'm the only one with a 3D printer.

On the other hand here's a travel case for a micro board game. Almost 6000 people got almost 8000 copies through kickstarter, I'm positive more than a few people want one of these.

Do you see my point? A functional print has practical appeal to people who are in the same situation as you, but a piece of art or a toy appeals to everyone. So it's not that 3D printer aren't being used for practical things, it's just that no one is talking about the practical applications of 3D printing as much as their talking about the fun and cool applications of 3D printing.

EDIT: I seem to be rubbing some folks the wrong way. I don't mean to say that all functional prints should be ignored because they don't excite me. Just that when selling the idea if 3d printing a less utilitarian print does a better job. But I would never pass up on a functional print I needed because it didn't excite me. I print functional things all the time. I just don't talk about them as much as the fun stuff because I know what my audience as the body of humanity wants. Maybe functional prints excite you. I would guess you're in the minority.

My second segment on 3D Printing Today

A little bit behind on this one, but the second segment I recorded for the 3D Printing Today podcast. Episode 43 if you want to listen to it at the 28 minute mark.

http://threedprintingtoday.libsyn.com/

Decimating meshes is now part of my workflow, especially if the thing I've been making involves sculpting with dynamic topology. I do it quite a lot. And for the most part I can keep the effect of the reduction to a minimal so that the final print is doesn't look decimated, assuming you don't scale up your print. While other tools have decimation tools, I do mine in Blender because... well, I do almost everything in Blender.

Of course, if you want to learn more I cover decimation in 3D Printing Blueprints Chapter 7. And, here's an idea. If you would like to learn what I teach in 3D printing blueprints, but aren't sure you want a copy for yourself, ask your local library if they have a copy and ask them to get it. That way everyone in your community can benefit from my big 3D printed brain.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try, try, try again

Iterative designing is what 3d printers are for. Print your design out, test it,  fix the design, repeat. Sometimes you get it right in a few tries, and sometimes...

My sister uses these modular loom kits that snap together but are missing a concave "L" so she challenged me to make one for her.

I used the technique that I've talked about here and in my book, the poor man's scanner, wheteby the object is  photographed and the image is used to insure proper proportions. The first designs were made flat on the side so they could stand up but that was quickly abandoned as the holes weren't as accurate that way. Then the whole thing wasn't beveled properly, them it was to small, then to large. Finally I got one that was close enough that I could make it work with just a little sanding.

Now that it works I'll be uploading it soon, even though the final design isn't perfect. It's good enough that I got mine, so that's good enough for me.

The Angel Moroni

I decided to try my hand at making an angel Moroni. The result is before you.

The angel Moroni is a statue that decorates the tops of many temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints. Overall I'm not 100% happy with the result, but my attempts to fix it haven't turned out well. So I'm just going to call it good now.

However, printing this statue was a big challenge. Obviously supports were necessary. I tried printing it standing as-is, but the result was not good. So I iterated the design slightly and laid it down and the result was better... from the front. Obviously I challenged myself with this one, because I didn't totally succeed. Well, I succeeded enough to upload it and move on to the next thing.

The Angel Moroni statue can be downloaded on YouMagine.

CyBot posable toy

I said I wasn't going to do it, but PinShape's toy contest convinced me to take the joints I made for my Cymon robot and make a more generic modular robot toy. Introducing CyBot!

The goal was to make these bots more home 3D printer friendly than modibots, more stylish than like beco blocks. There is no ball flatening like on modio to make them printable. Instead all balls are designed to print at the top of a shaft so they'll print perfectly round. There was no attempt to punch them full of holes like the Modibots to save on materials either, so they're a little more expensive on services like sculpio, but they're sturdy, perfect for FDM printers.

And of course they don't have to be assembled into a humanoid robot.

I'd love to continue developing these and make horses and cows that can be combined with the basic set to make centaurs and minataurs, dinosaurs and accessories. But the basic set (and a rescaled Cymon bot coming soon) are up on PinShape for their contest right now. If you're on pinshape I'd love a like and repin. If you're not I'd love you to get on pinshape to give it a like and repin.

Now for the "behind the scenes" bit that you read this blog for. The bot you see in the pictures was printed with a filament diameter that was too low. Consequently his joints were too tight which made posing a problem. Every pose you see him in was a frustrating fight with joints popping out and at the end one of the balls delaminated about 1/4 the way up. As soon as these pictures were done this busted bot went into the recycling. But if I keep doing this project I'm going to need to reprint this one, so I'll have to fix this.

Saving money on PinShape, Sculpeto, or Shapeways

I mentioned before that there's been some learning involved in using PinShape. Because PinShape partners with Sculpteo to print your stuff, understanding how Sculpteo prices their prints, which is similar to how Shapeways prices their prints, is key in bringing prices down.

First of all, a big print is a big print. There's little to nothing that will bring down the price of a huge model no matter what you do. Yes, making big objects a thin (2mm) shell and giving it a hole to drain build material is one way to bring costs down, but I don't know any way to make my dice tower any cheaper. But there are tricks that can help my other models.

The cost from services like this is a per-volume cost plus + setup fee. So if your thing is made up of a lot of different parts and you print them all separately that setup fee is being paid on each part and ends up adding up quickly. But if you don't mind if those parts are all printed with the same material, placing your objects in one model file with enough space between them that they don't fuse together (about 2mm to be sure), a practice called "plating" on FDM printers, will save significant amounts of money. How much? Let's find out.

When I uploaded my Doctor Who pawns I uploaded them ala carte, as 12 different models. When uploaded that way the cost for printing them was a whopping $66.51. This for a handful of small pieces of plastic. So as an experiment I put all the individual STLs on a plate setup that would still 3D print happily and uploaded that and the price dropped to a considerably more reasonable $13.92.

Then, as an experiment I wondered if I couldn't decrease the build envelope by taking advantage the fact that SLS printing, the way Sculpto and Shapeways prints, doesn't need to worry about build platforms and the like. So I flipped half the doctors upside down so I can nest the bodies closer and spent a little time cramming them as close as I could and still have 2mm between them. I didn't want this to work because it means that my download would be a tough one for FDM printers (like the one I have) to print. I uploaded this crammed block of Doctors and the price came out to... $13.92, exactly the same as the plate.

So there's clearly advantage to be had in pre-plating files, but less advantage in alienating home 3D printer folks. Which is good. So with this new understanding I've gone through and, where it made sense, lowered the price of many of my PinShape models. Hopefully, maybe, in the future PinShape can do the plating for you and save you money or multiple items you want to order.

But that dice tower will forever be pricey.

Lego Gold Idol

A coworker of mine when they saw my Golden Idol asked that I make a Lego version for his kid. I thought it would be easy enough, forgetting that its never easy.

The modeling part with smoothly enough. Find a presumably compatible Lego brick model and a little boolean jiggery pokery and the model is done. But then I printed it and tested it out and it was too small. Mathematically it was fine, but either because of ABS shrinkage or instrument calibration issues the actual print was off. So I whipped out the ol' digital calipers and calculated that scaling it up by 111% would fix it. Then I tried printing it with the cheap gray filament that I want to get rid of and the result was crap. Then I printed it with the good stuff and it was much better. Little acetone vaping, little gold spray paint and now Lego Indiana Jones has a golden idol as big as he does.

But this brings up a question that bothers me quite a lot. If I upload this model to pinshape or shapeways and someone orders a print of it, will that print need to be scaled up by 111% as well? It was one thing for me to discover this when printing at home. It's entirely another to pay someone $20 for a custom lego brick and then discover it. Which means it's my responsibility to pay the printing fees to find out. But why would I do that? I have mine. And will printing it in different materials affect the fit? So I'm stuck not doing anything that needs precision like this.

Spelunky inspired designs for sale... but where?

There are a number of marketplaces where 3D models for printing can be put up for free or for sale. I've been hunting for a good one for a while and so far I haven't found one I liked. But two new sites have appeared recently, PinShape and 3DaGoGo, and I'm going to try them out for a while and see if either of them stick. And I've got the perfect models to start with.

I modeled some Spelunky inspired models a while ago and I've been holding on to them because I wanted to explore getting a small batch of food safe inserts for the kapala cup and sell them on Etsy. However my local plastics shop with a vacuum former has flaked on me, so screw it, here's the models. You can download the Golden Idol on Pinshape or 3DaGoGo, and the Kapala on Pinshape or 3DaGoGo.

After the cut is my long-winded thoughts on the various 3D Printing Marketplaces and where you can find 3D models...

Color changing filament and business card holders

This is called killing two birds with one stone.

I've been thinking a lot about business cards lately. For some reason I got some entirely superfluous business cards at work. And what with going to GenCon, I figured I'd better have some cards to give away there. Then, on an unrelated note, I bought a roll of Afinia's blue/yellow color changing filament. So I decided to use that filament to test a new line of customizables for my Etsy store. First let's talk about the filament:

There's a pretty stark difference between hot and cold, and your hand is usually enough to change the colors. I'm gonna make some rings and see if a few millimeters will mean we could have two tone colors (at times) with one ring. Could be a neat effect. Experiments will follow.

So in looking for a good business card holder I found a few options that were almost what I wanted. So I modified them, put my logo in relief on them, and printed them out. Once I figured that out I put the pocket holder, the pocket display, and the desk holder, with the option to put your logo on them, on Etsy. You can also download the modified card holders on YouMagine without my logo. I think I like the pocket holder the best, but I'll be keeping the desk holder around since it holds so many.

New Charles 'O Perry Chess set on YouMagine

I am slowly migrating my 3D models to YouMagine and experimenting with PinShape at the same time. I may have more to say about them in a little while. But for now my migration to YouMagine isn't just a straight copy of my 148 designs on Thingiverse. It's a thoughtful culling of old designs and obsolete iterations, as well as updating some of the designs as I go.

For instance, a new version of my Charles 'O Perry chess set is now on YouMagine that is bigger, with better tolerances, and will print more successfully on more printers.

The Perry chess set is a thing among chess collectors. Only 300 were ever made, and all of them by hand out of metal pipes. But this is the future. We don't need to bow to scarcity any more. Let's just print ourselves a cool, rare chess set.

The chess pieces nests and then connects together so it travels well. It's a neat gag.

And on a side note, the biggest complaint about YouMagine is that sharing the first 3 letters with YouTube is going to make it difficult when I start visiting one of them more and then want to visit the other.

A quick model that I won't be printing yet

To start, here's a really short video with a plug for my book showing how easy it can be to model a heart token for Love Letter.

My intent was to print out 13 of them and have a picture of them with the game here for you.

That picture would have gone here.

So why is there no picture? Because I have 0 functional extruders at the moment. My left extruder started leaking around the nozzle, meaning I didn't have it tightened enough. And I can't clean out the wrapped nozzle enough to fix this, so I'm probably going to have to use one of my spare extruder blocks to fix it. My right extruder, the one with the PTFE tube in it, jammed, so I'm going to have to take it apart and maybe try flossing or something to fix it. And until I do that this weekend I can not print. This is not the fun part of this hobby for me.

Splitting the die

Got a fun job on MakeXYZ for a family d10, a 10 sided dice with the names of the members of this family on each side. They wanted it in blue, I offered to make it in glow-in-the-dark blue I got from Craig at Addicore, because glow-in-the-dark is at least 20% cooler.

The initial print did not go well. The overhangs were just too much to print reliably. So I scratched my head a bit. Should I risk supports? would rotating it help or hinder supports? You should know I avoid supports when I can. Then I realized that this particular D10 would split in 2 fairly easily. Here's a video explaining how I did it:

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The final result printed like a champ. Each of the names are readable. It's just pretty all over. And did I mention it glows in the dark? 20% cooler. Because that's what you get when you hire me to print for you.

Not all models will split as nicely as this one and sometimes maybe using a cube and the Boolean operation is the best choice. Leave me a comment if you'd like to see that or if you have a technique that you employ wen you want to split a print.