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1/24 Scratchbuilt Westland Whirlwind Mk.1.


GunnarO

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I have a Form2 on my desk at work and it's very easy to work with and produces excellent parts. It's sadly way out of budget for me, but if I had the funds, it would definitely be my first choice. 

 

I agree, for large parts, a filament printer is a better choice, not only in terms of printing volume but also from a cost point of view; still, if I was allowed to choose one single printer and wouldn't have to worry about the cost, I would still opt for an SLA printer as it is way more versatile in my opinion. A filament printer will never print you a canopy as I did with the Form 2 several times already!

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Thanks!

 

I found the FFF printers to be more suitable for me, easier to print parts and more economical to buy filament instead of resin. I've printed a lot more with my Prusa i3 in the last 6 months than I ever did in 4 years with the Form1. I've seen the Form2 printers are much easier to work with though, that's the drawback of buying the first model of a new technology, it gets quite fast outdated. On the price point, I could buy 4-5 FFF printers for the price of 1 SLA printer and 9 (6,75kg) rolls of filament for a cassette with 1 liter of resin. It is important to think about what you want to use the printer for. For large scale models or rc models, I think the FFF printer is a better choice. For small scale and intricate detailed parts, the SLA printer is probably better, but you can buy a lot of models from online printing services for the price of owning one. What many people don't think of, is the time it takes to make the 3D models to be printed and the extent of CAD knowledge to possess to make them. You have no use of a 3D printer if you can't make the parts you want to print.

 

:piliot:

 

Cheers

 

 

 Is the a Berlitz course for this?  :hmmm:

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 Is the a Berlitz course for this?  :hmmm:

 

 

Hehe... I just love TLA's (Three Letter Abbrevation) 

 

The SLA printer is a stereolithography printer. It uses an UV laser to cure a liquid photopolymer resin into a solid part layer by layer. It can produce highly detailed parts, but are often quite expensive and has a small build volume. (at least for the consumer market)

 

The FFF (Fused Filament Fabrication) or FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) printers uses a plastic filament as an additive material and melts the plastic in a heated extruder head to build the model layer by layer. The parts have often more structure in the surface and less detail, but build volume is usually larger. Mostly aimed towards the consumer market.

 

Models are made in a 3D modeling software and exported as STL (stereolithography) file format. Both printer types use the STL model to produce G-code through a slicer software and use the generated code to control the position of the laser or extruder head. (G-code is also used for CNC mills and lathes to make parts by removing material from a blank)

 

3D printing is very popular these days, but it's actually a quite old technology. It was started in the late 70's and the term Stereolithography was patented in 1984, over 30 years ago.

 

Enough history, back to the workbench...  ^_^

 

Cheers

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  • 2 weeks later...

After a roll of filament that didn't work out well, I've finaly made some progress. Some hours has gone into the model as well, so I was quite excited to see if things worked out with this one. The fuselage is divided in two, due to the length, and in two halves like a normal kit. I printed the model halves in a 40 degree angle and the rear part also turned 60 degrees around the first angle. I was very pleased it turned out well after 22,5 hours print time. I printed with a layer hight of 0,1mm so I could use it for the final model in case it went well.

 

IMG_2315.jpg

 

A few supports were printed as well, but the most important one was modelled as a stiffening rib between the base and the model. The large base was to ensure it would stick to the building plate.

 

IMG_2324.jpg

 

It's easier to see the angle on the rear fuselage here.

 

IMG_2326.jpg

 

A bit of cleaning up...

 

IMG_2333.jpg

 

And it's starting to look a bit like a Whirlwind  :thumbsup:  A 1:48 scale Classic Airframes Whirlwind for comparison.

 

 

Cheers

Edited by GunnarO
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I jus dun a silly thing..... I bought a Formlabs 2!

 

Freaking amazing! Considering the original machine I learned on 15 years ago set my employers back £110,000, and it needed 50kg of resin loaded into it before it would build a single thing, it is amazing how technology has moved on.

 

Someone still has to do the CAD though......

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You should definitely post cure every printed part. I am working with Form 2 since early 2016 and to my experience, post cured parts are easier to work with. Parts which haven't been post cured tend to remain a bit sticky after cleaning them with IPA. Some materials (like the tough resin for example) absolutely require UV hardening.

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Good looking parts! Seems you have printed some of them at a 90° angle. I did this in the beginning as well, but trust Preform and let the algorithm calculate the angle for you. You may have to remove a few supports, but the results and surface finish will be even better!

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I jus dun a silly thing..... I bought a Formlabs 2!

 

Freaking amazing! Considering the original machine I learned on 15 years ago set my employers back £110,000, and it needed 50kg of resin loaded into it before it would build a single thing, it is amazing how technology has moved on.

 

Someone still has to do the CAD though......

 

 

Great printer, good luck with it. I wish I could afford one, it's excellent for detail work. For my work though, I figured out I could order a lot of parts from shapeways for the price of one and bought my Prusa i3.

 

So, a little progress. Cleaned up the parts and taped them together. Tailplane is done as well.

 

IMG_2340.jpg

 

I think I'll call this a proof of concept. The experience so far with PLA is quite good, but the material is hard and brittle when printing this thin. It is also quite hard to sand and a little difficult to glue. I tried CA, but maybe I didn't use the right type because I could quite easy break the parts up again. I thought maybe I should use epoxy glue to join the parts instead, but haven't tried it yet.

 

After a good deal of thinking, the obvious thing occured to me. I should print the parts with polystyrene, It's what I'm used to working with and what most model kits are made of...  :doh:  :mental:

 

A roll of HIPS (High Impact PolyStyrene) filament is on order. It has the same good mechanical properties as ABS, but prints as easy as PLA. Hopefully it will turn out more usefull and a better choise for printing modelkits than the PLA I've used so far. New tests will follow and more CAD work to be done in the meantime.

 

Cheers

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