Age of Strife

So 2 weeks back a friend brought his Elegoo Mars 2 Pro printer over as it wouldn't calibrate. I guess in the car whatever was jamming it up loosened, as it calibrated fine first time as my house. So he said he didn't have time to mess with and get the settings right, and would I like to set it up for him and print off some stuff. I've been looking at getting a printer for a while, so this was an ideal opportunity to try one out and see how it works.

So I might have printed a few things. And a few more. And maybe a few more after that ... damn it's fun The very first print was the Elegoo rook test print, which ended up needing a hammer to remove from the build plate. Everything after that I've downloaded STLs from various places and loaded them into Chitubox with automatic rafts and supports, only default setting changed was to adjust layer exposure from 2.5s to 2.3s. Some things are printed at 0.03mm, some at the default 0.05mm.

Next up I'm going to modify the Medusa gun for the carriage (the larger one I got a couple of days ago) so that the breech hatch is separate and can be glued open. Almost cracked it with Sketchup today (tried with Meshmixer and FreeCAD and got completely lost trying to figure out how to do it), but only after getting it split and creating new faces did I realise Sketchup doesn't handle tiny faces very well and I should have scaled the STL up first .. Doh!

Stop reminding me that I need to fix the FEP on my photon and finally get round to my Saturn that I've had since January...

It was going so well, only 2 very small parts hadn't printed fully with a tiny piece missing each due to dodgy supports, out of all the parts I'd printed so far. I've modified the Medusa gun to have a detached hatch so it can be glued open, updated the plate of parts with the new gun model and hatch, and set it to print last night. Checked it this morning and found this monstrosity ...



Three of the wheels had printed ok, the rest were just bits of supports, and the raft was mostly peeled away from the base plate. The gun was squished, and the hatch deformed. Rechecked the model and it seemed ok, so I put it down to either not shaking the resin well enough or it being a little colder last night. Did a vat clean, removed all the resin from the vat, cleaned the printer down completely, releveled and left it to dry off fully. Reprinted the same place and it's come out perfect Was a lot more vigorous in the shaking this time!

This is the change I made in Sketchup. If I'd thought it through a bit more I'd have kept the hinge piece attached to the arm on the hatch, so that it fitted between the uprights either side, to give a bit more surface for the glue and make it less likely to be able to be snapped off. But it's good enough for what I want, once I've got the third printed out and put together I'll break out my paints ...

Decided to try something a bit bigger yesterday, nearly 8 hours to print this body and sword.







It's going to be another 7 hours ish for each wing, and then another 3 hours for the base and chains for the wings.

The wings are only just going to fit in the build volume of the Mars 2P, might have to look at getting myself something bigger like the Saturn when I give this one back.

Printed the wings, one of them split about 3/4 through but I'll patch it up with some green stuff. The base is solid and heavy, but it counters the weight of the wings nicely. Still got some chains and skulls to add, and it's pretty big (normal sized infantry next to the base for scale).



Found out today that my wife and son have ordered me an Elegoo Mars 3 Pro, so when this printer goes back to it's home I'll still be able to churn things out - and at a higher resolution!

What is the resin emissions like? As in the smell? Ive been looking at one, but it might have to operate in the garage. However Im not sure if that will be stable environment for printing.

The fumes can get pretty bad in a room with no ventilation, I've got the printer in the garage. Once the parts are cleaned I leave them for a day in the garage, then post cute then in the UV tank for a few mins, then leave them in the garage another day, and the parts don't smell.

Also the isopropyl for cleaning gives off fumes too, so unless you go with water washable resin that adds another hazard. So you'd either want the printer in a fume hood and vented out a window, or out in the garage.

The printer is pretty much sealed when it's running, so the only issue is to make sure the resin doesn't get too cold. Right now in my garage it's very warm, even in the middle of the night, so it's fine. When it gets colder later on the year I might look at getting a kitchen cabinet from b&q and print the printer inside in the garage, along with a small space heater and thermostat, lots of how tos on the web for setting up something like this.

Hmm, makes sense! Thank you

Welcome to the rabbit hole. I'm in 4 printers deep

its made such a difference to the hobby - couldn't be without mine now

My Mars 3 Pro arrived, currently on it's 4th plate of prints. First plate was some calibration parts which all worked great, second was some Leman Russ turrets and barrels, third was a Centaur and Earthshaker cannon. No point in going in slow and easy Got a Centaur Grenadier crew and another Earthshaker plus shells on the go right now ...







UPDATE: the Centaur crew and Earthshaker came out perfect, so that's 4 plates with no failures so far on the Mars 3 Pro.



So my output so far has been - 3 Medusa carriages (plus 1 smaller one, but I'll probably give it away or use it for test paint schemes), 2 Earthshaker cannons (will fit the Medusa carriages), 1 Centaur, 6 Leman Russ turrets (5 Gryphonne, 1 Ryza), 4 Russ Conqueror barrels, 1 Russ Demolisher barrel, 1 Russ Vanquisher barrel, 2 Death Korp snipers, 1 mounted Death Korp officer "Napoleon style", 1 mounted Valor Korp officer, 1 Valor Korp officer on foot, 1 Daemon (very similar to Belakor), 6 war dogs (large dogs with gas masks), a few pugs (mix of Cadian and DK).

And for a couple of friends: 6x 1/150 scale Sd.Kfz 250 half tracks, 16 characters for Arkham Horror, 3 elf maidens, and 2x samurai swords with stands (about 7cm long).

Just over 4 weeks of trying things out And in that time only really 2 big failures; the first when I didn't level properly lost a Medusa barrel and 6 wheels, and the second when I didn't top up the resin vat and ran dry 3/4 through a print (doh!). Also had a Vanquisher barrel fail as part of another plate (the turrets and other barrels on it came out great), but that was due to not adding supports to it so it peeled away from the base under it's own weight, printing the same model again with more supports worked great.

Argh! Dug my DKoK out of the attic, put an original Centaur side by side with the printed one, and the printed one is too long! It's the correct height and width, but about 15% too long; and the stubber is 15% too long too. Have rescaled it lengthwise and printing another one overnight to see how it compares.




Good news though, the Gryphonne IV style turrets and Stygies Vanquisher cannon are almost dead on the right size, the cannon barrel is a little thicker than the original but it's the right length. In the upper picture the part painted turret is an original FW Stygies turret and Vanquisher cannon, and the bare grey resin are the printed parts.

Just got the resized model out of the printer. Overall length is pretty close, height and width are good. But realised that the internal placement of the seats is off a lot.




Until it's dry and fully cured I won't be able to check if the crew will fit ok, of not I'll have to look at modifying the internal structure too. But at least now it doesn't look ridiculously oversized next to the 3 Centaurs I've already got.

Comparing the tracks I realised that the resized Centaur was a little smaller than the original, so resized to 90 percent length and printed again. Also printed a 90 percent length open topped version at the same time, the Mars 3 plate is just large enough to do 2 side by side when angled in one direction (I did the assault version at 45 degrees, but due to the dozer blade on the open topped version had to angleb it to 55 degrees).



With the FW version in between, the size looks good. The tracks are pretty much identical length wise.



Did have a small failure on the assault version as the hook didn't print. I'll print one separately and glue it on, it will mean I can have that at 100% size.

Just finished printing this large Konrad Curze statue for my brother in law, at 50% scale (even at this size the knee is as tall as a standard human figure).



The base, cloak, helmet, and cables were printed on the Mars 2 Pro, and the rest on the Mars 3 Pro. There were only a couple of small issues that won't be seen; the bumps on the shoulder sockets didn't print (but are only used to locate to the body), and there's a ripple on the bottom of the base where it was a bit heavy and sagged where I missed putting some supports in.

Haven't updated this for a bit, but I've printed lots. And lots. And lots!

First up is a plasma blastgun to convert a plastic Shadowsword to a Stormblade. It's not an identical copy, but it's close enough. This is the first model I tried hollowing to save on resin.