Prop Replica Build: N7 Helmet from Mass Effect Trilogy

N7 Helmet from Mass Effect games

     Back in January, I upgraded the Mega Kossel with an E3D Volcano, and I've been running it with a 0.4mm nozzle, so it was time to tryout the 0.8mm and see what all the fuss was about. I've been a fan of the Mass Effect saga for a long time, so when I found Killonious's N7 Breather Helmet (thing:2152838) model on Thingiverse, I decided use it as a test for printing large and detailed objects with the big nozzle.

N7 Helmet parts

     Now, not all of the parts were done with the 0.8, the green and red parts were done with a standard 0.4mm nozzle, but all the transparent parts are printed with the 0.8mm nozzle and 0.4mm layers. Surface quality on the transparent parts is comparable to the standard nozzles, just slightly more apparent ridging from the layer lines. It does allow for a drastic reduction in print times, one of the sections printed with a 0.4mm nozzle took 4+ hours to print on its own, a similar sized part took only an hour with the 0.8mm nozzle, so for making large prints the Volcano is clearly the best option.

Assembled helmet with Dremel tool for friction welding

    Since most of the parts for this build are large and thin, my usual method of using 5-minute epoxy to join the parts would clearly make a big mess, so I pulled out my old model 275 dremel tool and chucked some scrap filament to start friction welding the parts instead. Friction welding can be done with either a 3D printing pen or a dremel with a section of filament loaded as the tool head, I'm using one of the smaller collets to get a firm grip on the 1.75mm filament. Once the filament is loaded, the basic technique is fairly similar to conventional welding in metal, creating small joints to hold the parts together first and them doing a second pass to finish the joint. Once that step was finished, it was time to paint this monster of an object.

Base coat of paint being applied

    As with any large prop, painting is the key to making it look like it's an actual object and not just a model. Since most of the shell was done in transparent PLA, the first step in painting was to base-coat the entire model to look like metal, I've used some silver acrylic mixed 3 to 1 with black to create a nice grey metal look before, so that's what got used for the base colour. After that, it was time to pull out the masking tape and start detailing things.

Masking applied to N7 logo area and waiting for paint to dry

     As you can see, this helmet has a lot of different sections that each need a contrasting colour to bring out the details, so it got masked and painted in stages starting from the top and working towards the back. Now, I'm not following the in-game colour layout properly, that would just be lots of blacks and greys, so this is more my personal idea of how the colours should look and I'm fairly happy with how it turned out.

N7 Helmet nearly finished

     One thing that I decided to try differently on this prop was to apply some varnish to seal the paint against scratching or any weathering that I add later, so I coated it in some spare Varathane that I had in the shop, it actually adds a nice shine that works well for this model, so that was an unexpected bonus.

N7 Helmet with finished paint pre-varnish

N7 Helmet with varnish applied

Designing Custom Lens Adaptors for Vintage Lenses and Modern Digital Cameras

Vintage Lenses with 3D printed adaptors

    Recently I was commissioned to examine a collection of vintage lenses to see if it was possible to make adaptors to mount them on a FujiFilm X-E2 digital camera. The lenses were quite varied, a pair of 16mm film camera lenses, a microscope lens, and Meyer-Optik 400mm telephoto lens.

Lens adaptor for Meyer-Optik 400mm lens

Meyer-Optik 400mm lens with adaptor attached

   The 16mm lenses were a bit different and required custom adaptor plates to link them directly to the camera's mounting ring, so I set about figuring out the dimensions and best way to print them.

Wide-angle 16mm lens with 3D printed adaptor

     The 16mm lens set consisted of a wide-angle lens and a more general telephoto lens that had a damaged mounting ring, so I designed its mounting plate to include some M3 set-screws to secure it.

16mm telephoto lens with 3D printed adaptor plate and set-screws

     Lastly, the microscope lens was the trickiest since it has no focusing mechanism at all, so it's adaptor plate had to serve that function instead by incorporating a screw thread between the inner and outer sections.

Microscope Lens with focusing adaptor

     After further refining my basic design ideas, I'm now offering some basic sizes for sale on Shapeways:

Filament Review: EconoFil PLA MasterSpool refills

Econofil PLA with MasterSpool from Filaments.ca

     I've been following the Master Spool concept with some interest since February, so when Filaments.ca announced that they were adopting it with the new EconoFil line, I decided to get a batch of 9 reloads to try out. On delivery I got 2 large boxes, one containing 8 of the refill coils and the other containing the 9th with an unexpected bonus of Filaments.ca's injection molded MasterSpool to get started with.

EconoFil loaded onto Mega Kossel for testing

    After loading one of the coils onto the included MasterSpool, loading and using the filament was the same as printing any regular PLA, albeit a fairly high quality one, the prints come out with a really nice silky finish that looks spectacular.

Fidget Cube, Dial Calipers and Carabiner printed in EconoFil Green PLA 

    All told, EconoFil PLA is a really nice material to use, not to mention cheaper than Amazon, so I'll be using it as my primary printing material for the future.

Prop Replica Building: Han Solo's DL-44 Blaster

DL-44 Blaster from Star Wars: A New Hope

     After installing the new magnetic bed surface on the Mega Kossel last time, I decided to test it out with another prop replica build. After some deliberation, I decided on Han Solo's DL-44 blaster pistol from Star Wars: A New Hope. Looking around Thingiverse quickly turned up a decent set of files for a static version, (thing:2230835) so that's the model I went with.

DL-44 flash suppressor

     As you can see, the parts printed quite nicely, so I decided to experiment with a couple alternate finishing and assembly techniques. Since the scope is setup to print in two parts with this model, I decided to try some friction welding to join them together instead of my usual 5-minute epoxy.

DL-44 Scope and Barrel after printing and sanding

     Friction welding is fairly straightforward to do, you just need some scrap filament of the type used in the parts and a Dremel with the optional collet kit or 3-jaw chuck add-ons. What you do is cut a small piece of filament, I found about 2 cm (1in) worked best, and stick it in the collet of the Dremel and use it as a sacrificial tool to weld the parts together. It does take some practice and patience to get a good joint but it worked fairly well. Afterwards there was a slight ridge of extra material on the part but some light sanding dealt with that in short order.

Glue-up of main parts

    For the bulk of the main parts I switched back to my normal go to solution of 5-minute epoxy and glued the main body sections together next. I've found that the Gorilla Glue brand stuff actually dries clear instead of slightly yellowed like the LePage stuff, makes it much better for builds like this.

Main Body after gluing with finished scope

    One thing that I did have issues with on the printed parts was the mounting screws for the scope clamps came out really badly, think it was just a slicing issue but looking at the reference images reminded me that I had some M3 cap screws that looked almost perfect in my spares bin, so I drilled out and tapped the parts to fit the screws and bolted things together.

M3 cap screws installed on scope brackets

    After gluing the remaining parts together, the next step is sanding any stray glue off prior to painting it. For this one I decided to layer the pain in 2 coats, a slightly blackened silver for the first one and then the cannon black overtop. This allows for some neat tricks with weathering the final piece since you can just lightly sand the areas that have wear to reveal the underlying paint instead of painting overtop.

DL-44 with first coat of paint applied

DL-44 half painted with initial weathering on muzzle

    After doing the rough coats on the main body and scope, it was time for some masking before painting the handle sides, this would probably have been easier if I'd left gluing them on for after they were painted, but some basic masking tape takes care of things quite nicely.

Masking applied to handle

Painted handle with masking in-place while drying.

DL-44 with basic paint scheme finished

      Once the basic paint was dry it was time to start weathering the prop, so I tried a couple of different techniques that I'd seen used online. I started off with some light sanding with 60-grit sandpaper to create some of the basic scuffing that is seen on the original prop. I followed up with some Scotch-Brite to dull finish to a slightly more matte effect overall and then got to doing some fine detail highlights with a silver marker.

DL-44 with wear marks partially applied

DL-44 Left side with wear marks

    After highlighting some of the surface details with the marker I gave the entire thing one final pass with the Scotch-Brite and then blasted the surface with my heat-gun to seal any residual damp spots. Overall, I'm fairly pleased with the result and I'll definitely be using some of these tricks for future builds.

Finished DL-44 Right Side

Finished DL-44 Left Side

Magnetic Print Bed Surface on a Budget

Mega Kossel with magnetic build plate

     When I rebuilt my Mini Kossel into the Mega Kossel last August, I installed upgraded rod-arms that allow for a maximum build diameter of 250mm (9.84 in), and I've been using a 190mm (7.5 in) piece of glass topped with Buildtak as my bed for the past 6 months, so I've really been using only 58% of my theoretical build diameter. I'd looked at upgrading the bed surface with the Buildtak Flexplate system in the past, but the only circular option currently available is a 300mm (12 in) set, far to large for my frame and 220mm heat-bed. Thus, I started looking at options for building my own custom version.

10-inch pizza lifter from the local dollar store

     Concept wise, the Flexplate system is fairly straightforward, an adhesive sheet with magnets in it that sticks to the printer's heat-bed or build plate, topped with a spring steel sheet with some Buildtak material on one side. For my version, I'm using some steel pizza lifters that I found at the local dollar store in the cooking supplies section of all things, $4 each and a bit of drilling to remove the riveted-on handle and I've got some fairly flat surface plates.

Adhesive backed magnets assortment from Lee Valley Tools

     For the magnetic part of things, I'm using some 6mm rare-earth magnets that I salvaged from an old toy building set that I had floating around, but Lee Valley sells some 1/4" ones that are a fairly close match. 

Bed mounting bracket with magnets installed

Other side of bed mount with magnets

I've designed a variation of the mounting brackets for my heat-bed that puts 36 of them in a ring around the entire bed, massive overkill when it comes to this type of magnet but having the bed surface start drifting loose is the last thing you want on a 3D printer of any type.

Corner brackets waiting for magnets

Brackets mounted on Mega Kossel

     After printing the brackets, I used some 5-minute epoxy to fix the magnets in place, I've found that it does an excellent job of holding parts to PLA prints under most conditions.

Magnetic bed fully installed on the Mega Kossel

     I've been using this bed configuration for the past 2 weeks already and it works quite well. This particular implementation is specific to the Mega Kossel, but if I was going to install something like this on an i3 style machine, I'd make custom brackets that put the magnets in a line along the front and back edges of the bed, then use a slightly oversize sheet of steel for the bed topping plate.

Household 3D Prints Roundup 2

LED candle shrouds

     Been a while since I covered prints that I've put around the house, so here's some of the stuff that's been made over the past year. Starting with the above, those are simple spiral vase prints that have a small LED tea light inside for decoration. Design wise, they're really simple, just a faceted cylinder with lots of extra horizontal rings twisted along it's vertical axis, I used Wings 3D 2.1.5 as my design program of choice here. Filament is MG Chemicals Gold PLA, prints look like natural beeswax in colour, really nice for making decorative shades and such.

Toothbrush Holders

     Not the kind of thing you'd expect to use transparent PLA vase-mode prints for, but the faceted spiraling makes them surprisingly sturdy for this kind of use. Again, custom designs done in Wings 3D, using 3D Solutech Natural PLA this time, all printed on the Mega Kossel.

Birdseed filter in use

Birdseed filter clean

Birdseed filtering funnel

     Next up is something bird related, I've got a couple of budgies that are rather picky eaters, they don't like large sunflower seeds and keep emptying the food dish onto the floor if the find them. My solution to the problem is to design a funnel with a removable filter grate that strains the largest seeds out but lets all of the smaller stuff through. It's a simple design, just a cone with a 2 cm cylinder stuck on the point and hollowed out to about 3mm thick walls, the real trick is that rather than modeling the final grill in the CAD software, I just modeled the outer dimensions for it and used the infill settings in my slicer software to create the grid. I'm using Slic3r for my slicing program and the filter grid is the result of using 10% rectangular infill with zero top and bottom layers.

Towel hook on bathroom door

    And finally, this is the current iteration of the Customisable U-Hook from Thingiverse that's being used as a towel hook on the bathroom door. It's printed in MG Chemicals PETG for strength, the previous ones were in PLA and both snapped after about 6-9 months of daily use, this one is currently at 5 months and counting, be interesting to see how it holds up after a year of use. And in closing, I redid the oven knob from last time, the original part wasn't thick enough on the walls for the adaptor plug and failed after about a year of use. the current one was made in one piece with a thicker walled plug and is still going strong after about 9 months of regular use.

Oven knob V2

3D printing and Musical instruments

3D Printed Electric Violin and Cello

    Over the Christmas season my family discovered some of The Piano Guys music videos and I remembered coming across the O'Cello & Mina Violin files, so I got some transparent PLA and started printing the parts. The designers intended for the parts of both projects to be printed on a standard i3-type printer, but I ended up using the Mega Kossel instead. 

Mina Violin neck freshly printed

Printing the Mina Violin body on the Mega Kossel

   As you can see, printing some of the parts needed some creative positioning of the parts, the lower body of the violin was particularly tricky, I ended up standing it on end, rotated by 30° onto one side and tilted back by 10° to get it to fit. After printing, some cleanup was needed, mostly stripping support material and stringing off, but on the violin the fingerboard came out a bit rough, so I sanded it down smooth then removed the heat induced scarring, as sanding PLA tends to mess up the finish.

Sanded PLA fidget cube

     The solution to the scarring issue is to take a heat-gun and run it lightly over the surface, don't pause in one place or you'll melt the print, and after a few passes the colour will reset and be indistinguishable from a freshly printed surface in colour. I'm using a light-duty 'art & craft' gun, but for the more industrial models you'll want to stick to the low setting, the higher one's will just wreck the print.

Heat-gun from Opus Art Supplies

Heat-treating before (bottom of cube) and after (top of cube)

Finished cube, note the distortion on the thin sections from overheating

    With the printing finished, the next step was sourcing the non-printed parts, I ended up using these piezo pickups from Amazon.ca instead of the default ones on both the violin and cello because the original ones are only available on Amazon.com and don't ship to Canada. The tuning pegs were these ones for the violin, and these for the cello. The strings are D'Addario Prelude for the cello and Thomastik Dominant for the violin, both bough from the local music store. All the fasteners were easily found at the local hardware store along with the structural threaded rods, 5/16" for the Violin and 7/16" for the Cello.

Mostly assembled O'Cello

Stringed O'Cello with Viola bow for scale

     After all that, the actual assembly was fairly straightforward, and they both sound surprisingly good, the O'Cello actually producing a decent level of sound even without the amplifier. The Mina violin turned out to produce a decent level of sound when played with a viola bow, I'm guessing the extra weight compared to a violin bow helps produce more volume of sound? Regardless I'm happy with how both turned out.

Completed Mina violin with pickup