troez3D

A lot of times I talk to people about 3D printing they aren't aware that there is more than one type, so I thought in this blog post I'd give a super quick run down of the main types out there and a few pros and cons of each. FDM/FFF First and foremost, the type of printing that most people would immediately think of would be Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) or Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF).  This method uses a heated nozzle to heat a filament of plastic and then lay it down onto a print surface one layer at a time.  It is by far the most popular type of printer out there for enthusiasts and home makers due to it's relatively low cost and ease of use. The price range of FDM printers is huge, with even just the consumer market ranging from a couple hundred pounds all the way up to the thousands. Popular Printers I will clarify that there are literally hundreds of printers in this category so I have just picked a few that I have first hand experience with;

If any of you play table top games like Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder you will know there is no limit to the companies providing high quality miniatures for your games.  However if you want to stray from the norm, and for example have a steampunk Dwarf or Elf, where do you go? Games Workshop make great miniatures but they are limited to the armies that they use in their games.  Places like Dark Sword Minis or Reaper provide a more traditional set of miniatures for fantasy type games and even a few for Sci Fi, but what if you need that one miniature that suits your character perfectly but doesn't exist? Well with the advent of 3D printing, some companies have begun to offer online customisation of miniatures which you can order printed or even download the STL files to print yourself at home.  The most well known of these sites is Heroforge . Heroforge allows you massive amounts of customisation for your miniature, from race and gender all the way down to clo

Space.  The final frontier..... Seriously though, how awesome is space exploration, and especially now with commercial spaceflight making getting to space cheaper and more accessible. I am a massive science fiction fan, like my father before me (Star Wars quote) with some of my favourite movies including Blade Runner, Aliens and Stargate, so its not really surprising to learn I am a massive fan of companies like SpaceX which are trying to push the boundaries of what is possible in modern and future spaceflight. Of course, none of this would be where it is now without NASA.  Even though I was born too late to watch them live, the Moon landings are, in my opinion, the single greatest scientific and technological achievements of mankind, followed closely by the ISS.  I mean, I even have a LEGO Saturn V sitting on my desk next to my monitor. But LEGO is expensive! I hear you cry, There must be a way I can own a small piece of NASA's spaceflight history without paying

It's been a whole month already!  That means it's time to pick my favourite print from the last few weeks to give the award of POTM... This month it actually goes to two prints, the large scale Locust and Centurion Battlemechs from Battletech! As any of you who know me even a little will probably be aware I am a big fan of all things Battletech, from the tabletop game to the Mechwarrior games on PC.  I have even begun printing out my own set of tabletop scale Battlemechs which I will probably talk about at some point in the future, but for now here is a sneak peek; The normal scale for a Battlemech in tabletop would be 1:285 or 6mm, making a 14meter tall 'mech roughly 50mm tall.  My large scale models however are quite a bit bigger than that!  The Locust is around 135mm tall making it 1:60 scale and the Centurion is 155mm tall making it 1:96 scale. I've definitely got a couple more large scale 'mechs planned and will definitely post about them in the fut