RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I am pleasantly surprised that a £300 printer can produce all the bits you have printed so far. It's certainly earning its keep

Keep up the good work

Guy

Well here's the first instalment of the IS2 turret build - quick roll of dums - Tara:




It took three and a half hours to print and a year off my lifespan!

All I have to do now is print off the other four sections, glue them together, and then turn them into something that doesn't look like a dog's breakfast.

Alwyn

Next instalment 1 hr 40 mins pint time - cumulative 5 hours 10 mins



and fastened together



Still some rough edges to smooth. The next print to get to the half way mark is 3 hours.

Alwyn

Superb work Mr Alwyn

You have made my scratch build juices begin to flow ( not to be confused with any other juices of any kind ) after seeing this take shape my friend

AlwynTurner wrote:Next instalment 1 hr 40 mins pint time

Alwyn

Does that mean you are off to the pub in less than 2 hours?

No, it means it was time to get a beer out of the fridge

I've given up for tonight as the third print came loose from the print bed after 45 mins, so reprint tomorrow.

Alwyn

Some progress




I've spent 4 hours today including one aborted print, so we are now up to 9 hours and only half way. This printing is a tedious and nerve-wracking business, the hull is only 1mm thick so any printer deviation or hiccup immediately ruins the print and then start over.

To anyone with a printer I will happily forward the STLs so you can also have the enjoyment of producing this interesting turret.

Alwyn

Some more progress.




Basically it's all there apart from the turret roof which I still have to print. A word of advice to anyone else attempting this - DON'T. The STL files are simply not good enough quality and if I had known what I was in for I would never have started, I would have designed from scratch and finished off with Milliput to get the necessary curves. It is going to take a lot of effort to turn this sow's ear into any form of purse never mind a silk one.

The only thing I can say is that I have a correctly scaled and sized structure from which to start. The printing process was beyond a nightmare as you can see if you look closely at the prints, I often had to do repairs as the print was running and that is not something I would recommend. The prints delaminated and changed shape during printing due to the flimsiness of the design/scan, the average wall thickness is 1mm but in places it was thinner than that, and it's like trying to assemble tissue paper to put the layers together.

In the end you can see I wound up with something that resembles an IS2 turret. I now have to reinforce it - a process already started:



I've designed and am printing off some strengthening/replacement for the turret ring as the quality was also terrible. Once the reinforcing is done I will then see if I can get the external shape approaching correct and acceptable, I think a lot of milliput will be required.

hey ho, the joys of being a scratch builder!

Alwyn

The one thing I have learnt about Thingiverse is that by my guess some of the people who design items on there have never 3D printed anything in their lives.

Depending on the format of the downloaded files there is a way to get thicker walls. It might be possible to open the file in Openscad or Blender, turn it into a solid lump, not hollow, then create another one but scale it down by say 10%, and deduct that from the original. I do it all the time in Openscad as it is easy in there, it allows me the create a complicated part, and then hollow it out with an even wall thickness throughout.

The other problem with downloaded files is that they may have created them with a low polygonal count, so the part is low resolution, curves are rough etc. Again, if it is created in Openscad it is a simple $fn=100, to fix it, though I assume that the same can be done with an STL file in Blender etc.

Your dedication to printing this tank is beyond the call, I would have abandoned it long ago,