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The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

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Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#131

Post by chaosite »

kennywinker wrote: post #114
samplatt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cory Doctorow waxed lyrical for many years about the ability to 3d-print clothes and other Maslow-hierarchy needs. Even the most experimental of designs haven't approached that yet... and I think we'd now be scared of increased PFAS levels even if we could.

3d printed shoes are… almost a thing(1). Clothes, not so much… some experimental high fashion fabrics, but nothing you’d wear under normal circumstances. But to your point about PFAS, afaik no common 3d printing materials contain PFAS - at least not filament ones, i don’t know much about the resin printing world. 1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4id0-vvu-u0

The only place PFAS is used in an FDM printer is the filament guide some printers have. That's a Teflon tube that the filament travels in towards the hotend. Bowden style printers tend to have a long tube, direct drive printers sometimes have a short tube fully contained in the hotend assembly.

I don't see how PFAS can be used as a filament in FDM printer. It's not a thermoplastic, that's one of its advantages as a material.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#132

Post by iLoveOncall »

cultureulterior wrote: post #101

So it's just a technology problem. As soon as bambu or someone evolves the tech sufficiently to have full color full resolution, the meta will change.

No, it has nothing to do with resolution or colors. Did you read the article? It's about the absolute pain that resin printing is because of its toxicity.

The moment you have fully non-toxic resin, it will take off.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#133

Post by terribleperson »

jacquesm wrote: post #108
terribleperson wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Prusa Mk3s (kit built) from 2019 has been no-fiddle for all seven years of its life.

Those things are indestructible. The oldest I have has done well over 100 km of filament.

It's the perfect "I just want my 3d printer to be a tool" printer. There are better options now, of course, but it's one of the best purchases I've ever made.

Much better than my Printrbot Metal Plus, which turned out to require all the tinkering of a budget printer at the price of a high-end printer.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#134

Post by kergonath »

throw-12-16 wrote: post #121
kergonath wrote: post #112

3D printing is fantastic for terrain, which is typically larger and smoother, so it’s easier to hide or sand away any printing issue. It’s fine for things like busts or some display mini, where you can afford to be careful and spend the time fixing rough edges. But it really isn’t there compared to good quality plastic for smaller minis with dynamic poses. It’s too cumbersome, too finicky, and the material is too bri…

This hasn’t been the case for several years. High res resin printers are more than capable of printing high quality minis. There are hundreds of videos on youtube to back that up, squidmar in particular has done several side by side comparisons.

Sorry, I was thinking about FDM printers, which is what people tend to have. Resin printing has a lot of issues for minis. It requires more faf and nasty chemicals, and the brittleness issue is even worse.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#135

Post by aleph_minus_one »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #58
gerdesj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when "Warty 40" was invented and largely supplanted Warhammer itself. I remember Citadel Miniatures and (A)D&D 1st editions, not to mention Traveler, Runequest, Tunnels and Trolls, Car Wars and many more. I was pretty decent at painting (quickly and accurately) and several kiddies used to pay me to get their latest regiment of space marines into action with the right colours. I went to a posh school and so…

Pretty much the same age, generation and story. I also remember Traveller and Car Wars, and when 40K was first released as Rogue Trader (and when GW said that they were keeping plastic mini prices comparable to lead minis because the injection moulding equipment was really expensive, but once they'd paid that off they'd be reducing the price of plastic minis dramatically. hahahhahahhahhahah). I had a go at FDM printi…

> I had a go at FDM printing some minis, for old times' sake, and it didn't go well. The best resolution that I can get to is around 0.1mm, which is incredibly slow to print, and still not fine enough. The print layers are still visible, the detail is blurred. Sanding doesn't help that much; the face is still a mess. You can't paint individual eyeballs on them.

If you just care about the print layers, use a filament that is solvable in acetone, and use it to smoothen the surface. Of course, if you absolutely need the resolution, you likely must use a resin printer.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#136

Post by jacquesm »

terribleperson wrote: post #133
jacquesm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things are indestructible. The oldest I have has done well over 100 km of filament.

It's the perfect "I just want my 3d printer to be a tool" printer. There are better options now, of course, but it's one of the best purchases I've ever made. Much better than my Printrbot Metal Plus, which turned out to require all the tinkering of a budget printer at the price of a high-end printer.

I've extensively used Prusa MK3/MK3+, Creality K1, Bambu A1 and Bambu P1S.

The K1 is the fastest but the worst hardware. We were joking they have a half life of about 3 months.

The Prusa's are workhorses, they break too but at far longer intervals, they're simple and infinitely more repairable to the point that I've 'remixed' the printers to different sizes (600 mm high, as well as 1x1 meter) modifying the firmware as needed.

The Bambu A1 is much better engineered than the Prusa, but the software sucks and the company behind it sucks even more they work, until they break and then they are as often as not complete write offs but it can take a considerable time before they break. The P1S is a better version of the K1 hardware wise but the software and user interface are absolutely terrible, there is no USB port that is normally accessible the one that is there doesn't work and it does not support folders. They are essentially forcing you to use their closed-source cloud based software. You can run the printer in lan only mode but you still have no idea what that cloud plugin is up to and there are multiple reports of large data streams with unknown contents making it to Bambu owned servers.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#137

Post by throw-12-16 »

kergonath wrote: post #134
throw-12-16 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hasn’t been the case for several years. High res resin printers are more than capable of printing high quality minis. There are hundreds of videos on youtube to back that up, squidmar in particular has done several side by side comparisons.

Sorry, I was thinking about FDM printers, which is what people tend to have. Resin printing has a lot of issues for minis. It requires more faf and nasty chemicals, and the brittleness issue is even worse.

I outsource my resin prints to avoid the fumes. There are lots of shops in my area that offer the service.

Brittleness hasn't been an issue for me and I have over 100 resin models in my collection.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#138

Post by wincy »

arvinsim wrote: post #43
wincy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a good question though! I got into Lorcana in 2024 and spent way too much money. I became curious about the $3 “reproductions” for $50 cards on AliExpress and ordered a few, while having matching copies I had pulled myself from packs, so I knew mine were authentic. I was shocked that even under a jeweler’s loupe, I could tell no difference. Even the microscopic ink patterns were identical, except for the very ra…

I thought EDH would satisfy my casual interest in MTG. But it ended up being worse than competitive play because of politics, vague deck building restrictions for balance(brackets) and difficult to organize people to play. I settled into boardgames(especially solo boardgames) last year to satisfy that itch.

EDH was so bizarre to someone who played Magic in 2003 or so, like “wait I need to care about my opponents feelings and if they’re having a good time? Why would I do that?”

I also went away from competitive scenes and found D&D suits me much better.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#139

Post by throw-12-16 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #28
neonnoodle wrote: post #2

This was a very enjoyable read for me. I’ve never played 40K but have always been impressed with the craftsmanship and dedication of the community. I remember a lot of the early hype around 3D printing, most of which hasn’t panned out where the consumer-hobbyist-level machines are concerned. My local game shop makes a lot of cool 3D printed stuff and sells it online or at cons, but even Etsy is now cracking down on p…

> I remember a lot of the early hype around 3D printing, most of which hasn’t panned out where the consumer-hobbyist-level machines are concerned. That is not true. I have a resin printer that is around 3 years old (Anycubic Photon Mono M5s) and it has a level of detail that simply cannot be matched by injection molded parts. I have printed some miniatures that have details much smaller than a human hair, like the ne…

Squidmar has a great video on how high res resin printer are actually too accurate for painting and can actually result in inferior models.

There is a sweet spot between FDM and 4k resin printers that is perfect for painting.

Re: The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves

#140

Post by throw-12-16 »

chr15m wrote: post #24
iroddis wrote: post #8

This was a great read, and perfectly conveyed the combination of passion and anger of every WH player I’ve ever met has had. Given the time, it’s hard not to view this same argument through the lens of AI. People who love crafting their creative works will still do it, even when AI can do it. They will still inspire others because they demonstrate what humans can do, and what we can aspire to.

Great point. Also, nobody would go to a cafe where the coffee comes from a fully automated machine instead of a barista.

If you think people care about coffee quality you must never have been to a Starbucks.
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