Our first 3D print of a Wings modeled object

[TulipVorlax]

Hi guys,

Yesterday, we (my friend artist and I) went to a "Fablab" that we have in our city wich is named "échoFab".
For information, their website is : http://www.echofab.org/

Going there, we didn't know yet what they would let us do... But after a short introduction, the young guy welcoming us said that we could use one of their computer to model ourself something to print in 3D, also adding that if really needed, it was permitted to install our prefered piece of software to do the job.

So, a few minutes later, Wings 3D was downloaded and installed on their computer by myself. I must admit that i was maybe overly proud to show it off since the french translation is my work.

After a bit of modeling done by my friend artist with my help for technicallities like configuring the prefs and calculating proportions (Cross-multiplication) trying to reproduce a real life object, exporting to STL from Wings left us at only a couple of step away from our first 3D print.

To prepare the object for printing, the guy helping us imported it into a piece of software called Cura wich i had never heard of, and after a few minors ajustement the objet was sent to an SD card wich in turn was inserted into the nearby 3D printer of wich i dont recall the brand (it was white and had a global C shape).

When we left the place afer two prints of the same model (we need to replacement parts for something), Wings was still installed on their computer.
I hope it stay there and that people will be able to discover it.
There's a big amount of chance that we will go there again in the future, my friend artist is already at work on his computer trying to "cut" a bigger model in parts that could be easilly printed and assembled.

3D printing was something my friend artist has been dreaming of trying since we first heard of it and discovered the existance of the RepRap project. But we dont have the space at home and we arent confident enough to try to build one ourselves. I'm sure many people could feel the same. So isn't it wonderfull that FabLabs began to multiply everywhere in the world ?

See ya all. :-)

EDIT :
I found Cura by a simple Google seach and it is now installed on my friend computer's for purpose of some testings...

[ggaliens]

I missed the picture of the result from the printer.

[TulipVorlax]

Lol, i have none, yet. ;-)

EDIT :

It's no fabulous object : It's a simple cylinder with an hole (a bridge) in the center of it. It was to replace a standing "feet" for something. The hole is for a screw of wich the head must also enter... So diameter of bottom part of the hole is smaller. Also, its color is black.

[Marcin Maćkowiak]

Cool! I am hope full that it will work as you said! I work everyday with Printers 3D/Wings3D and I am lovin it.

I missed the picture of the result from the printer.

I think in a couple of days I will make a new Topic about some printed stuff created in Wings.

Greet!
Marcin Maćkowiak

[TulipVorlax]

We have tried the replacement part and we made a small error.
The printing was OK, the 3D printer has done what we said it to do.
But, the original part was made of somekind of hard rubber that is still a bit flexible on it's surface.
Not much, but it make a difference when inserting the screw in it.
Our error was to leave to screw at home.
The hole for the screw head is too thight on the printed replica.
We had to use sandpaper...

[micheus]

Waiting to see the result.

As the 3D printing has becoming an interesting subject and we already had discussed about equipments, tools an other tips before, I just created a sub-forum for it here in the Off-Topic session. It's just to keep those good information easy to find. No new thread is allowed, but new posts to include/update informations to those subjects can be done. (we don't want that become a mess )

[TulipVorlax]

We are currently waiting for our second 3d print to finish here at the échoFab of Montréal.
We have taken some pictures, but will have to wait to be home to see if they're good enough to post. And maybe crop them...

[TulipVorlax]

I'm sorry, but i prefer to show you guys our second 3D print project straight away as the first one was really too simple.

First, here are the object in Wings, each with a different color :




Then, pictures while printing :





The result :

[micheus]

Thanks for sharing TulipVorlax

Just curious, how long did it take to get done?
...and, after export the model from Wings3D, it was needed many tweaking in the "pre-printing" software?

[TulipVorlax]

The "pre-printing" is called Cura and anyone can download, install it and see that aside from from scaling, rotating and others simples operations, it can't do much. Or i don't know how. But when we open the exported STL in Cura, it is very small as one unit of Wings equal one millimeter. We didn't tried to import others formats since STL is supposed to be the best for printing.

The first time at the échoFab we stayed there about 3 hours, but we had to install Wings, configure a few prefs and my friend modeled the object from a cylinder while I was doing cross multiplications to have a good ratio of each diameters, the height of the object and the two parts of the screw hole. Then the object was printed two times for about 20 to 30 minutes each. The first print did not adhered fully to the print surface so it was skewed a bit.

For the second day at the échoFab, the models were all ready to be printed when leaving home. But something was already printing when we arrived the place, and the first thing we have done was using a laser cutting machine on a plastic sheet to do, something else... I think the 3d print of the tablet stand has taken at least 2 hours, maybe a bit more. But there was a problem with the models as some sanding was needed to make the extremities of the "yellow" part fit in the hole of the two others. In total i think we stayed about 4 hours at the lab.