srlake314
take
Britney Spheres
Wyatt
Thanks so much for the kind words.
srlake314 - We’re using high end Objet printers at work, so I just export STLs and send them to our model dept and they do all the rest of the prepping for print. I have no dealt with having to set up my work in a slicer myself yet. For a long time as a I was learning Zbrush, I was still exporting my final geo as OBJs and taking them back into Freeform and decimating and exporting from there because I could be 100% certain of scale and it was also easier to merge pieces and core them if necessary. But lately I have been exporting right through the 3D exporter plugin and have had no issues so far. I usually set my scale at the beginning of the project by importing something with a known dimension and working off from that. Then I just verify the dimensions in the plugin before export.
Black-Tooth - the joints aren’t as complex as they seem. The swivel parts that just go up and down are simply two discs face to face with a pin through the center. A ball joint for shoulders and such is a little more complex and there a couple different ways to tackle it if you need a functioning joint for your model. But usually I don’t need it to be full functional for model and approval purposes, so I will just drop in a ball as a placeholder for size and location and let the engineers work out the joint. Hinge joints like knees and elbows are really just a series of 3 discs face to face with a pin through the center. The center disc attaches to on limb (the lower leg for instance) and the other two discs attach to the other limb (The upper leg). The trickest part is figuring out the right clearance tolerances when you are 3D printing it. I find it to be a little trial and error and in my experience usually the bigger the pin, the more clearance you need. For instance, if I am using a 3/16" (4.7 mm) pin, I might leave around .08 mm clearance all the way around. But if I am doing something larger with say a 3/8" (9.5mm) pin, I’d probably do more like .10 - .12mm. The material you are printing with can also affect the tolerances as well as other variables. I know sometimes if I get parts that have just been washed after coming off the printer and haven’t dried thoroughly, the extra moisture can make my normally good tolerances a little tight. So it is a lot of trial and error and even when you think you’ve found the ideal settings, you’ll still get a random model that you either have to do a little sanding on the pins because they are too tight, or use a little glue or fun tac because they are a little looser than you thought. I’ve probably gone into way more detail than you wanted, so I’ll stop rambling now:D
How do you make the joints? I’d imagine they have to be very precise. I bet it’s difficult.