Is there a separate topic/thread on the Forum for 3D printing?
Santa brought me an Anycubic Photon Mono for Christmas and I am trying to learn how to use it.
The Photon Workshop software that comes with it is crapware. I have tried three versions with no success. After I found one that seemed to work and printed a test run of some simple parts using the default settings and the print failed. Looking through the files I found that it exposed the base layers for 40 seconds each, as set up in the program, but then printed the rest of the job with zero second exposures! Only the bases printed!
However, I got Chitubox and it works pretty good.
The biggest surprise came when I found Microsoft 3D Builder will fix and bless the 3D files I created for my USS
Oklahoma City CLG-5 CAD model. Some of them were started in 2004, before any reasonable quality home 3D printers existed, and before the software would generate STL or OBJ files. None of the model was drawn with 3D printing in mind - much of it is just 2D surfaces and not 3D solids. But I have tried a few, selecting all the parts and using "Solid Define" to make them a cobbled together solid. Most have more leaks than a sieve!
But 3D Builder opens them, says they have problems, and then patches them up. Chitubox takes them in, slices them, and produces a print file for the printer.
I have attached a photo of one of the most complicated single pieces - the anchor. The larger flukes piece has 60866 polygons, and is about an inch across. This was printed with the default settings for the printer (0.05 mm vertical steps and 4.5 second exposure). It came out pretty good!
Now I am printing a propeller. At 1:96 the blades are 0.0165 mm radius at the edges and only about 0.5 mm thick in the middle. There was no way I could cast something this thin in metal, especially with the compound curves. I am printing it at the maximum resolution of the printer - 0.01 mm - just to see if it works!
If this works it means I can use the files I generated over 14 years while making my CAD model of the USS
Oklahoma City CLG-5 and I will resume the 1:96 model.
https://www.okieboat.com/CAD%20model.htmlhttps://www.okieboat.com/Ship%20model%20page.htmlPhil