"Abandoned Comms Station" Topic

I already posted this over on theFB group, but figured I would throw it out here, too. It's been a while.

I finished this over the weekend- It consists of a frame printed at home on my makerbot that 5/16 foam core is slotted into to create the structure. It was my test bed for a more modular building system for myself. I didn't clean up the prints, I wanted to see what it would look like painted, and I think the granularity is ok for buildings. Antenna and door are junk from my bitz box. Thin, 3d printed stencils let me add marking to the building, and a recursive tree file provided the tree in the back corner.

Each part has channels to slot the foam board into, simply secured with white glue (normally white glue doesn't adhere well to PLA, but it seems to work okay with the channels pinching things together). I may go to gorilla glue in the future. Each corner column has a locator pin for the roof to help square everything up.

I've since tweaked the files so that the roof has slots to accept the corner pillars (stackable now) and removable sections of the lip so I can connect gantries between. I've also created a recessed door and a window frame that will allow me to sandwich acetate into the wall sections. I'm going to test print the new pieces this weekend.

Next improvement, I think, is to try creating printable veneers for the foam core wall sections in Photoshop to further speed assembly.

Really well done… how do you like your 3d printer?

It's been good, Harold.

It definately requires mothering, though. Lots of bed-leveling, for one.

It's more useful so far just for creating/repairing around the house. So far, I've used it to fabricate a replacement part for my dishwasher and printed a new lawn sprinkler when my old one broke. Also used it to print a new cap for the coolant resevoir on my C10, we'll see how well it holds up to the heat in the engine compartment, though.

Done a few things for my truck with it, actually. New handle for the driver's window and some clips for routing electrical.

That's pretty awesome… what's the material cost?

Between $40 USD-$50 per Kg.

Without weighing stuff, it's hard to guess how much an individual print costs, but since most of the stuff I print is mostly hollow, it stays pretty light.

The only ones I know for sure are the five trees I printed. I was curious what the cost in plastic was, so I weighed them. It cost about $3.10 USD to print 5 trees between 2.5 and 4 inches tall.

I really like that. Look nicely abandoned.

I really like that, I'm going to drop you an email about an idea for blastastic I have:)

Ok, AA let me know if you need my gmail addy.

I love it!

RebelMike
Rebelminis.com

Yeah really great. I'm intrigued about the tree? You printed that too?

Yeah, there is a file for a recursive tree on thingiverse that lets you generate a tree with from three to seven branches, I believe. Plus I can scale them prior to printing if I want larger or smaller.

When they print, the trunks have a sort of geometric faceting to them, but, if I carefully add a little heat to it, they smooth right out (I've been using a little weller microtorch to treat the surface). Plus, I can twist and stretch the branches while it's still warm. I'll post up a pic later with some trees, I can show the difference between my post print process, too.

thingiverse.com/thing:279864

Printed trees:

I like those the irregular angles that form the trunk of the trees it make them look very off world and alien to me, painted up in the right way with metallic paint they could be made to look like metal to create some new alien flora, 'Iron thorn tree's :)Zac

Jeff

Did you get my email?

Cheers

Keith