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A tale of four prints

This week I thought I'd talk about some Heroforge prints I had done and some issues that occurred and why I think they happened so that you guys don't make the same mistakes as I did.

I use Meshmixer for all my miniature or complex model support.  As much as I love the Cetus3D and the ease of use of the propriety software, the support generation leaves a lot to be desired.  using Meshmixer you have all the control you need to create accurate support structures allowing for much more complex models and finer detail (it is also a hell of a lot easier to remove than the Cetus generated supports).

Support generation in Meshmixer
Id like to also preface this post with the fact that I'm pretty sure all the failures were my fault and not due to either the models or the software.

 Print No.1

 This print was a simple case of poorly designed and checked supports.  I didn't ensure there was enough under the shield and had also told the software to make the support sticks/branches/tentacles? thinner meaning they were more prone to failure during the print.


Lessons learned;
  • Ensure the support has enough strength to survive the entire print
  • Check under delicate parts of the print and overhangs to make sure there is enough support there
  • Keep an eye on the print! - The shield had become dislodged early on in the print and I could have saved a fair amount of time and material if I had canceled the print then and there.
FAIL

Print No.2

Taking note of the points from the previous post I redesigned the support reprinted the same model.  The result was infinitely better, with the shield in one piece and both horns fully formed.  There were a few errors and failures in the support branches however and that led me to try something else which resulted in print No. 3.


SUCCESS

Print No.3

So normally when I do the support in Meshmixer I just generate and then export to .stl for the slicing program.  However there is an option to merge everything into one solid object before exporting so I thought I'd give it a go to see if that reduced the errors I was getting in the printed support branches.

Long story short, it DID fix the support branches.  It also decided that the dwarf I was trying to print should have a large cavity where his chest should have been;


As you can see from the photos above, this was a weird result and resulted in an unusable model (although I am considering painting him up as some sort of ghost or wraith, playing on the fact that maybe hes not quite all there corporeally).

Lessons learned;
  • The slicing program decided that it should not print part of the chest
    • maybe Meshmixer made that part of the model have too thin of a wall for the printer to understand?
    • Or perhaps that part of the model ended up with a reversed normal?
  • This process provided better support printing but ended up with an essentially unusable model
FAIL

Print No.4
For this print I went back to having the support structure as a separate element at the time of export.  Whilst this did fix the hole for the most part, weirdly it still has a small hole going all the way through the chest.  Also the support  did fail in places again, mainly at intersections of support branches.  I really need to get to the bottom of this, I think I'll re-download the raw .stl from Heroforge and try from scratch to see if I can get a decent print of the Dwarf.


Since printing these miniatures, Cetus3D has released a update to their software which allows you to preview the print layer by layer.  this feature was sorely needed and apart from the fact that most other slicing software already allows you to do this, the ability to go through the print layer by later would have meant I most likely would have spotted the holes in the dwarves and not wasted time and material starting a print that was doomed to fail.

Anyway I hope that was interesting and perhaps even a little educational.  I will continue to experiment with support settings in the hopes that I find the ultimate process and when/if I do, I will definitely share it on here.

See you next week.

Troez.


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