…code, cg, electronics, 3d printing…

I work with many talented people, one of whom is Franco DeRosa, an amazing zBrush / 3d artist.  I’ve printed items for him in the past (here, here), and the latest is what he calls “The Fisherman” :

Here are the stats for the final (largest) print:

• Printed on Makerbot Replicator (1)
• Gray PLA on unheated removable glass built plate covered in blue painters tape with raft & supports.
• Total print time: 29 hours, 52 minutes.
• 2 shells, 5% infill, 100 micron.
• 217g gross: 180g for the print, 37g for support.

It filled the build volume laying on it’s back, facing up:  This pushed all the support material to the rear, leaving the facial features really clean.

But before I got there, I printed two smaller versions:  The medium version was printed straight up, filling the height of the printer (so had more support scaring on the face).  The smallest one was the first printed, took about an hour and a half (low-res setting).  I printed all of these (2 large versions, one med, one small) front to back: probably 75 hours of straight printing with no problems.  Perfect.

Belt buckles seem like the perfect intersection of 3d printing and sand casting:  They’re relatively small, so they print quickly, and don’t take a lot of material to cast.  Plus, they’re mainly “one sided” objects, meaning you don’t need to split them for a two part cast, and generally need no special supports when printing.

As my first attempt, I used the logo of the company I work for, Sledgehammer Games.  Modeled in Maya, it printed in  a couple hours on my Makerbot Replicator (in PLA), and cast (in aluminum) with no problem.

It looks a bit warped in the below pic, but trust me, it’s symmetrical 😉

The Mrs. & I were at a “container store” looking for home goods. Saw a 4-pack of hanger dividers for $12. That seemed like a crazy price to pay, so I decided to make my own.
Modeled in Autodesk Fusion 360. The hook has an ID of 40mm, which fits smaller metal, and larger wooden rods. Based on my print settings, it weighs 26g (and takes about an hour to print on my Makerbot Replicator 1), so based on the price I paid for filament, it works out to about a buck each.

Head over to Thingiverse to download the files for print and get more info.