Is this Tower FDM printable? Costs?

[kaadesign]

Hello,

I have experience with SLS- Printing only.

Is this Tower printable by FDM?

Wall thickness = 2 mm / Windows cross = 0,8mm

Max diameter = 156

Hight = 350mm

Does somebody has samples, how this could look like after printing?

[MB3D]

Hi there! Yes this shold be printable, do you have material preferences or any other wish for color/property of this object? The lines in the Windows are 0,8mm thick, right? Please contact me by creating an enquiry on my hub, because I have some other questions to clarify before being able to print this. If you consider shipment to be an issue I can guarantee you, that this is no problem. I ship worldwide for a maximum of 15€ and have fair pricing for a wide variety of materials. Here’s the link to my hub: www.3dhubs.com/siegen/hubs/marius If preferred you can also contact me via Skype: Nickname: railes123 Kind regards, Marius Breuer

[bardiir]

I think the main issue might be the height of the print. It would probably need a split and glueing together after the print on most printers default build volume. Mine would need at least one split as I only got about half the build height.

Aside from that it should be printable quite easily. The crosses in the windows shouldn’t really be a problem for any printer with decent material cooling/bridging capability.

If you’re interested I can try to print some demo rings like for example one of the window layers for you as an example how it might look on a FDM machine. My printer is probably not the best calibrated one in the world (yet) but it should do ok for a little feeling about the possible look ok FDM. Either for pickup in reutlingen or via pictures. Free of charge and with no obligation to do the final print with my hub of course. Just a demo of object vs fdm

[MB3D]

Hi there !

This sample is printable, however the overhanging front of the roof will need support material. If you want such a salte roof you will have to go with something like an SLA printer, to get the fine details and holes. The first tower would be easier to print.

If you want I can do a test print of the windows-section to see, how these small brides will turn out, as they are very small I don’t think, that this would cause any trouble.

The fact, that the cross of the windows is 0,8mm thick is perfect for my printer. I have 0,35mm nozzles which (due to gravity and stuff) lay down 0,4mm wide plastic strings in a print. This means, that exactly two of those strings (just in width) will make a perfect cross.

Other printers will maybe have too large nozzles => only one line for the bridge.

Or too small nozzles => infill pattern in the cross, which maybe causes trouble and looks ugly

If you want a sample you could start an enquiry on my hub:

www.3dhubs.com/siegen/hubs/marius

Is there anything special about this print ? Should it be paintable / out of a material blend (ie with wood, bamboo, sandstone or metal) / should it be very strong / optically clear / other color / shiny or matte appearance / stiff or flexible ?

these are most of the options that you have for material variety at my hub.

Feel free to contact me for more information and if you want a sample.

Kind regards,

Marius Breuer

[kaadesign]

Hello Alex & Marius,

thanks for reply.

Good idea, to make a sample first.

I have uploaded a smaller sample which is downloadable: Tower Sample / Hight 102Mm / Window Cross 0,8Mm - Download Free 3D model by kaaa [33549a1] - Sketchfab

*** STL- file here: ***

Dropbox - File Deleted

… and I don´t know what I´m doing… would be this kind of support ok?

https://sketchfab.com/models/1ecc3addaa174161b0aa0726298e78d3

[kaadesign]

Hi Alex,

could You provide a link to Your Hub?

[bardiir]

https://www.3dhubs.com/stuttgart/hubs/bardiir

But you might want to wait with an enquiry until you can see the sample.

And as I said, I haven’t got the build capacity to print it in one piece so you might be better off printing somewhere else as some glueing would need to be involved when I would print the big model

The colors in the hub aren’t all colors I got btw…

[kaadesign]

Thanks!

VERY interesting to see the processing.

[bardiir]

Ok I’ll make a print of the most difficult part (the brim) up until one of the window lines and a few tiles are finished. No need to support the print files, I’m generating that myself so it’s printed specially printed to be easily removed.

This is the part in the slicing software view and how it looks on the printer, you can easily see the support beeing generated for the overhanging brim. This is designed to easily breakoff and break in itself so removing isn’t that hard.

The windows got support in them too.

The print status is at 6/100 layers for the 1cm print I’m doing on the first picture and at 42/100 on the second.

[kaadesign]

Where ist the 100/100 print?

[bardiir]

The main learning on my side: Pulling out the support from the windows is somewhere near impossible. So I’m currently printing a wall with two windows again without support material. This would probably be the strategy for the final print too then, prevent auto-generation of support material for everything except holding up the brim of the roof

Well, it is possible to pick out the support from the windows, but it doesn’t leave a nice result and it’s a very gruesome task, wouldn’t really want to do it for a whole tower

Cleaning up the roof however is pretty straight forward, just did a piece of that and this is the end result.

[bardiir]

Here are the windows before and after cleanup, much easier to get this cleaned up than with the support in there.

Heating up the DSLR with the Macro for all the nice and ugly parts in higher resolution than the iPhone can deliver…

[bardiir]

A bit more details

As you can see the layers are quite distinquishable with FDM. There is the possibility to do a acetone vapor bath to smooth the surface if the print is ABS. Otherwise the layers will always be there.

With a resolution of 100microns this is somewhere between Medium and High Resolution on 3D Hubs. As for the cleanliness I guess there are printers that do fare better on FDM. But the overall Texture will stay.

[kaadesign]

I´m afraid, my customer won´t be satisfied with these printing results.

The “competitor” is SLS… flawless & no further work to do on the surfaces.

Here 2 samples 1x 150mm / 1x 240mm,- windows cross the same = 0,8mm.

The print should be nearly the same as these parts

[bardiir]

That’s what I was expecting. Coming from an SLS process the lines created by an FDM print (as small as they might be overall - there are printers that print finer than what I can do with mine and overall can create a cleaner print due to better ooze prevention) are just not as nice as the grainy look and feel from an SLS print where the part is always naturally supported by the not bonded material and thus has perfect finish all around with no supports needed and nothing to remove.

The only real advantage of FDM vs SLS is cost of manufacturing.