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Anycubic Photon and Mono X 3D DLP Printers


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No have not tried it, I do all slicing for my Photon S in Chitubox, which (compared to the versions of Anycubic's Workshop I got with the printer) offers a lot more control over positioning support, now I've got the hang of it. I'd be interested to hear about the ability to divide into different zones with different build settings though, and what other Photon users prefer, specifically to tackle the issues raised in printing railway rolling stock. There are a few snags with printing square, regular objects with sufficient accuracy which your typical mini-figure printer doesn't seem to encounter or be too bothered about. 

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I have had a go at printing the water tower for Brent. The base and tank are separate parts. I have etches to use as overlays on the tanks so the slots are provided for clearing tabs on some details to fit to the etches. The tank had distorted during the build and was slightly too short so is being done again.

 

I used a 0.2mm gap between the bricks a layer thickness of 0.02mm and an exposure time of 7.5 seconds to try and minimise light bleed. The building was grown perpendicular to the build plate. Scale is 4mm:1ft

 

Regards

 

Mark Humphrys

 

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On 20/10/2019 at 00:11, Mark said:

I have had a go at printing the water tower for Brent. The base and tank are separate parts. I have etches to use as overlays on the tanks so the slots are provided for clearing tabs on some details to fit to the etches. The tank had distorted during the build and was slightly too short so is being done again.

 

I used a 0.2mm gap between the bricks a layer thickness of 0.02mm and an exposure time of 7.5 seconds to try and minimise light bleed. The building was grown perpendicular to the build plate. Scale is 4mm:1ft

 

Regards

 

Mark Humphrys

 

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I do like that.

 

What programme are you drawing your files in, in particular the brickwork. Is each wall made up of copy and pasting bricks and brick rows each time?

 

I've been trying to come up with an automated (ie lazy..) way   - maybe  using  displacement maps for example  so that I can just click on a wall face and it will be magically covered in a 3D mesh of bricks in a similar  way to the way you can add 2D texture files of bricks etc in various packages  and so on but its been pretty frustrating so far.

 

The best I've come up with up to now is that I've managed to create 3D 'brickpaper' sheets in various brick bonds via a convulated process using Inkscape, 2 versions of Sketchup, Blender and Meshmixer (Yay for free software!)  that I can place over walls that I've cut openings in for windows etc, then trim the 'sheet' to size, and cut out the openings much the same way as you'd create a wall using card and scalescenes sheets but the brickwork above the windows is still a work in progress. 

If you have any secrets you can share I'd love to hear them!

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I use Rhino 3D for my cadds models. The basic structure was created as a solid shell 0.6 mm smaller on each side to allow the bricks to be booleaned on afterwards with a 0.3 mm overhang to allow some depth between bricks for mortar. I did an experiment using 0.15 mm deep on a chimney stack first in the picture below.

 

unfortunately the brickwork is English bond and close examination of the building has required a lot of effort to position bricks to obtain the right position of openings. This means that layers which are predominantly stretchers have the occasional header along the length. I don’t think this can be automated. 
 

i have also started to paint the main structure now.
 


 

Regards

 

Mark Humphrys

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That looks Fantastic Mark. If it helps any, I'm currently laser burning the waiting room at Havenhouse, Lincs. It too is English bond with stretcher layers, and I've noticed on the prototype there is a header in the middle of each stretcher row.

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That is a nice outcome, though I guess my quest to just right click a wall and magically have it ll bricked continues. Bender has that cool feature where you can create a roof  with one click and there it is  covered in your choice of tiles, slates or iron, complete with ridge caps and gutters...

 

Untitled.jpg.0e0db68621cd18d82e05200d2829dfb2.jpg

 

I was hoping for the same kind of thing for walls. II might end up having to dust off my minimal Python scripting skills and try to write my own..

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Hello

 

I am new to this and thinking of getting one of these printers.  I have produced .stl files before using Solidworks several years ago and had them printed by a commercial printer.  However, I no longer have access to this software and needed to download a replacement 3D CAD program.  So I downloaded Blender which has been mentioned but it seems capable of doing complex things way beyond the 3D sketches I want to produce of various railway parts.  I can’t even find how to draw a line or circle with it or find a YouTube video to show me how.  Have I downloaded the wrong software.

 

Regards Les

 

 

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On 14/10/2019 at 18:51, lyneux said:

Looks great! Is it a 3D print?

Oops, late replying! Yep, body and bogies both printed. Your reference photos were extremely useful! Some major compromises on the bogies made for the small size, but a reasonable approximation at least!

 

On 16/10/2019 at 07:46, Mark said:

Has anybody tried to install the latest Photon S slicing software? It has a number of upgrades the most useful being able to divide the print area into 8 different Build zones which can have different build settings. So you can try 8 different settings simultaneously to optimise your model. 

 

Pretty interesting. Is the Photon S software not just the stripped back version of Chitubox the normal Photon comes with?

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4 hours ago, les101975jud said:

Hello

 

I am new to this and thinking of getting one of these printers.  I have produced .stl files before using Solidworks several years ago and had them printed by a commercial printer.  However, I no longer have access to this software and needed to download a replacement 3D CAD program.  So I downloaded Blender which has been mentioned but it seems capable of doing complex things way beyond the 3D sketches I want to produce of various railway parts.  I can’t even find how to draw a line or circle with it or find a YouTube video to show me how.  Have I downloaded the wrong software.

 

Regards Les

 

 

 

Blender had a cleanup with its 2.8 update and  is easier to use but still very formidable at first sight. Bear in mind its main reason for being is 3D rendering and animation (games and movies) so about 80% of the knobs and buttons you'll never need to learn.

 

For an easier introduction, try tinkercad, onshape or sketchup (all free) they are a lot more user friendly, particularly tinkercad for learning the ropes. Sketchups latest free version is web based but the 2017 version is easly found if you want one that runs as a standalone app rather than having your stuff off in the cloud.

 

Once you've created a file in either there are a few potential issues you might have making it 3D printable (google 'watertightness or manifold in relation to 3D printing) but cross that bridge if and when you come to it - just get stuck in and muck around with the software.

 

Luke Towan, an Australian modeller who (usually except here where he is testign a different brand ..) uses a Photon has a couple of videos out - his latest shows tinkercad as used to build a 3d model of his house. It includes  a handy quick rundown of the resin printing process from turning on the printer to cleaning and curing  the prints if you want a quick rundown.  (has gratuitous skillshare plug but you have to pay the bills I guess...)

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, njee20 said:

Oops, late replying! Yep, body and bogies both printed. Your reference photos were extremely useful! Some major compromises on the bogies made for the small size, but a reasonable approximation at least!

 

Pretty interesting. Is the Photon S software not just the stripped back version of Chitubox the normal Photon comes with?

 

With the Photon S, Anycubic went proprietary for both the electronics and the software. The latest version produces files in a proprietary format too, which is incompatible with the Photon 'classic'. The 'classics' currently in production have quietly adopted the same proprietary motherboard as the 'S'. All this has upset the user community which has expended a lot of energy tweaking the 'classic' firmware and toolchain, and are sceptical about Anycubic's intentions after locking down their machine.

 

The Nim.

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Les, there is also Fusion 360 from AutoCad. As with all 3D software there is a steepish learning curve but there are plenty of videos on YouTube. I used it as it was recommended by my son who is a design engineer, so I didn't compare it with other products. It is cloud based although the files are cached on one's own PC so can work offline. Autocad offer a free subscription to hobbyists so there is a risk that could change.

 

Fusion 360 is especially suitable for home Windows PCs as it uses Microsoft's DirectX 11 supported by the common AMD Radeon and Nvidia GeForce GPUs. I.e. it doesn't need a special graphics card. An 8GB minimum of RAM is recommended.

 

Whilst these 3D packages can export STL they tend to store designs in their own format (.blend for Blender and .F3D for Fusion 360) there may be limits on converting. With Fusion 360 the native file format holds a timeline of the individual steps in building the 3D object whereas the STL is I believe just the finished object. Fusion 360 does export the ISO standard STEP file but I've not used it.

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There are, quite frankly, loads of free CAD packages. Off the top of my head I tried Shapr3D, Blender, Sketch up, Fusion 360, TinkerCAD, 3D Builder and Free CAD. Shapr3D was good if you've got a suitable iPad and Apple Pencil, but it's expensive for the paid version and the free one is very limited. Like Alan I landed on Fusion 360 as being the most user friendly, I liked this guy's tutorials.

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It's funny, I got on with Blender, but never could work with Sketchup. Maybe it's the way my brain is wired. The thing about Blender is that it was built for 3D modelling and animation for movies. There is a load that you wouldn't use, and there are some bits missing (flanges on chimneys are a bit involved), but overall I like it a lot.

 

As some of the others have said, if you want to first work with something really simple, give Tinkercad a go, or if that's too basic, Fusion 360. @chris p bacon got on really well with Tinkercad making chimneys, domes and buffers, and he'll be the first to tell you that he's not really into doing 3D design.

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1 hour ago, JCL said:

@chris p bacon got on really well with Tinkercad making chimneys, domes and buffers, and he'll be the first to tell you that he's not really into doing 3D design.

 

I am a real novice with 3D, I tried Blender but wanted to put my fist through the sccreen, I'm sure it's a brilliant resource but my way of thinking doesn't seem to work with it. I ended up just playing with Tinkercad which I describe as the equivalent of 'Paint by Numbers'. But it works with a bit of care and I was able to produce what I wanted and accurately.

I tried Fusion 360 but there was an issue with the download and in trying to reload I got caught in a catch 22 where it wouldn't let me have the free version to try as I already had it, but it wouldn't work. I'll try again when I have the time to learn. 

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  • 2 months later...

For some reason I started to get print failures with odd "flakes" appearing on the prints:

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To my knowledge I had not changed anything in the machine. Some research suggested it was one of two things:

  1. The LED screen developing a fault
  2. A bug in the firmware known as "Frame Shearing"

Apparently there is a bug in earlier versions of the firmware which is fixed in version 4.2.18. Sure enough I was running firmware 4.2.17 so I took the opportunity to upgrade to 4.2.18 and "touch wood" the problem seems to have been solved.

 

Incidentally there is a version 4.2.19 of the firmware out but that also has bugs so 4.2.18 it has to be.

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At the beginning of December 2019 I started a 3D model for a LNER V2 locomotive body. Why, I don't know, but I have always fancied trying a fully detailed body and had a couple of early generation Bachmann V2 that I could swap bodies with. Clearly the Photon would not be capable of reproducing the body in one piece so my concept was to produce both body and footplate separately in two pieces giving me 4 pieces in all. Impatience got the better of me and I ended up printing a first prototype thus:

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The two halves were joined using a moulded "O" ring and the prints done at 35 microns and a 30 degree angle. As can be seen here the layering was apparent:

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Somehow I managed to undersize the apperture for the motor and chassis and ended up carving excess material away until it fit. As an aside the Bachmann chassis is not very strong and I managed to break one of the valve gear mountings:

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In my haste I had also missed off some bits that I wanted to include so back to the drawing board (or more accurately Blender) and prototype 2 printed again following the same concept.

 

This time I also got as far as printing the two parts of the footplate. For the body I decided not to print the boiler bands as they made cleaning up the joint in the body more difficult:

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The underside cutout was made wider this time however the body sheel tended to open up the cavity when curing which complicated joining the two boiler halves together:

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This time the model was printed again at 35microns but a 60 degree angle with anti-aliasing set to 4. I think the result is better but some of the detail might not be quite as sharp. A comparison of the 2 versions with version 2 on the top:

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Still not happy I then embarked on prototype 3 which I will cover in my next post.

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If it helps I've been adding thin stretcher bars to the boiler insides, undersides and cabs due to experienced gained.

 

Clipping them off after curing does leave marks that have to be modelled out (ideally) yet the prints turn out more stable and accurate.

 

Free tip I guess.

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As promised, prototype 3. There were a number of changes I intended to make to prototype 2 but forgot to do including adding the upper covers to the washout plugs on the firebox. This time, as Knuckles has commented, and as I had learnt for myself, I added ties between the boiler cut outs to stop warping as the resin cures:

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After printing prototype 2 I was unhappy with how flimsey the separate footplate was going to be so decided to combine the footplate parts with the boiler parts resulting in just two parts making up the model. To be honest I was worried about how I was going to be able to add the supports  with the resulting structure.

 

The model was once again orientated at 60 degrees to the build plate and supports added manually (and tediously) where I thought they need to go:

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I have overdone the ones along the footplate edge a bit but they are fairly easily removed.

 

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The prints before fully curing can be a bit on the soft side and it is quite easy to mark the printed surface:

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Once printed the parts are cleaned up. For the joint between the boiler halves the edge was rubbed on a sheet of 400 grade wet and dry:

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An oversight on my part I forgot that with the non-warping ties in place my O ring joiner would no longer fit:

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The O ring was cut down so it fitted and superglued to one half of the boiler:

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Once the superglue had set it was cleaned up:

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At this point I thought I had a good joint between the two halves however on fitting and superglueing the other boiler section found the fit not to be as good as I had hoped and requiring some filling:

IMG_1558.JPG.9442ef0015ccc6bf85a8dcd2bc83e801.JPG

 

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With the glue set it was now a question of carefully filling any gaps, rubbing down and priming. When daylight is back I will give them another rub down to remove odd little particles and respray.

 

So here is the completed body as it stands and I am more than happy with it, a great improvement on the Bachmann original:

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IMG_1562.JPG.e42366f189fad2cb78dd671d8146c271.JPG

 

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3 hours ago, MikeTrice said:

At the beginning of December 2019 I started a 3D model for a LNER V2 locomotive body. Why, I don't know, but I have always fancied trying a fully detailed body and had a couple of early generation Bachmann V2 that I could swap bodies with. Clearly the Photon would not be capable of reproducing the body in one piece so my concept was to produce both body and footplate separately in two pieces giving me 4 pieces in all.

 

This time I also got as far as printing the two parts of the footplate. For the body I decided not to print the boiler bands as they made cleaning up the joint in the body more difficult:

 

 

Alan Gibson does some strips for boiler bands - you 'just' cut them to length and stick them on.

 

V2 body looks fabulous.  Sounds like you had a fun Christmas!

 

Both the valve gear hangers and the rear pony truck centres are pretty weak - one of the reasons I want to buy a printer, so that I can print replacements.  I have a fleet of V2s, B16s and V1/3s that all need similar repairs. 

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1 hour ago, micklner said:

Mike

     Will these being going on the Shapeways shop please ?

Only if you think they are worth the >£100 outlay that Shapeways would cost ;-)  I have however wondered about lifting some of the detail parts which would be more viable.

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1 hour ago, MikeTrice said:

Only if you think they are worth the >£100 outlay that Shapeways would cost ;-)  I have however wondered about lifting some of the detail parts which would be more viable.

i wonder if any of these 3D hubs are worth a look?

From what I see folk bid to make your prints. Not sure on the finer points mind!

 Cheers 

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