Time Monster Console Room

[d33j r093r5]

Another project underway! This time around it's the groovy 70's, the era into which I was born. I decided to model this particular Console Room, as it is quite different from the other console rooms of the show, featuring a VERY 70's Art-Deco type Roundel. Also, because almost no one ever seems to go for this particular version, either because they don't know, have forgotten, or just because it doesn't seem to be very popular. Anyway...

The goal here is to once again 3D print the entire console room. To that end, I needed to model it first. That requires loooooottts of time looking at screen-grabs, freeze frames, build plans and blueprints other peoples build attempts and information they may have gleaned, and extrapolating and interpolating all that data in order to give as realistic a representation as possible. I have to make note of 2 people on this forum whose incredible work have been invaluable to me in modeling my version of this console room. They are Tony Farrell for his amazing 50th Anniversary Brachaki Blueprints (http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=4825.0), and silverfox for his amazing rendering of the Time Monster console room and console (http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=5419.0).

Anyway, without any further ado, on to the pictures!



The angles between walls are 30 degrees as standard, however the angle between the Main Door Wall and the 6 Roundel wide wall is 55 degrees; it just looked better, giving the room a more closed feel, without scrunching it up too much.





I deliberately created an alcove behind the rear door, so that, once the model is printed, the door can actually slide open and closed, as it did in the episode.




The Main Doors can also open and close. On an earlier 3D print of the 80's console room (http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=5689) the doors were SUPPOSED to open and close, however I made it a tight fit, so they don't quite...    On this one, I have allowed a gap around each piece so they CAN! Also, referencing the Brachaki plans, I notice that the doors were not symmetrical, and actually tapered away at an angle, presumably because they would have had just such an issue with opening and closing! On my model, the front of the doors are symmetrical, however I have incorporated that tapered angle, so they are NOT at the rear.

You can probably notice in this angled image as well that many of the items have split-lines in them. That's because where those lines are is where 2 separate pieces are joined. Done like this so that the actual items will fit on the printer bed! 




The console for this era and room. I have NOT yet modeled the controls, and the ones you see in this image are just pictures placed on top. These images are the work of silverfox, mentioned above, who uploaded the images in his build diary of the same console room (http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=5419.0). I'm using them as references for when I model the controls myself.

I've had to order a very particular shade of green filament for the console. I attempted a trial run with a shade of green I had in supply, but it REALLY doesn't look right:





This being a prototype and all, there are features of it which I have changed to get a better result next time. This is, in terms of design, more screen-accurate than the final will be (the  vertical recessed panels on the underside have been brought forward on the final, you can see on the screen-grabs above. I needed the extra "meat" for assembly purposes.

Well, that's the start... here's now waiting on the filament so I can begon printing...! 

[d33j r093r5]

I've made some modifications to the way the separate pieces will be split. I wasn't quite happy with how it looked , as the lines broke the continuity of the walls in an unsettling way, and making the roundels look untidy. It probably wouldn't have been so noticeable on the final prints, but I felt this way made the walls seem a little more seamless:



Whereas previously you could see a distinct break line down the centres of the walls, now it's difficult to see, unless you're looking for it...



The wall-break now follows the contour of the roundels. Up this close it's still hard to see, but you can see it. In any case, the wall looks like an integrated whole now...




another angle...




view of the main doors. The break-line is only obvious at the left and right edges, and in sections where the roundels don't meet. This doesn't concern me, as it works perfectly well on the 80's console I have made previously.

Anyway, onward and upward...

[d33j r093r5]

Still awaiting the arrival of the new filament colours to start printing the final version of the console and walls. In the meantime though...

I decided to do some test prints of the walls, to see how well they would fit together. I had a lot of experience with this on my first console room, but there are differences this time around. In particular the position and sizing of the dowel holes I use to join the various parts together. I use 6mm dowels and had used the same size hole previously, which gave me a fairly tight fit. There was some tough love applied in 80's console build. It was ok though, it was essentially an interference fit, and they went in easily with a few good taps. A little unnecessary though, so I made my holes 6.5mm in diameter for this build.

Some of the holes are at 45⁰ angles into the joining halves of each wall - the walls that are now split with a wavy line down the middle - and I needed to see if I could actually put it together like that, without tripping causing problems in the joining process.







In these shots, you can see the first test piece being printed. This is the all-important first layer. If things go wrong with your print, 90% of the time it's at this point. Whether your filament doesn't quite adhere to the bed and gets lifted, or you're too close or too far from the bed and the printed material is either too thin or too thick and causes problems on the subsequent layers, or bed isn't quite level and causes you to end up with "ragged"  or gapped printed material, getting this layer down right usually means the rest of the print will be fine... MOST of the time. As you can see in these shots, the first layer printed perfectly!











The final product! It printed quite well actually, but there do seem to be problems. One of the corners warped and lifted off the bed, which is unusual for this material (PLA) and this type of build. I had a similar issue when I printed the test console (see earlier post). I'm not sure why that is happening. However, these are only test prints, and the area affected won't be visible (on the wall segment at least anyway), so I'm not overly concerned at this point. The print looks good otherwise, how it needs to, with the holes in the right places, and the dowels fit perfectly, they only need to be pushed with my thumb to slide in, but with enough resistance that they don't slip. Now, to print the adjoining piece for the proof of the pudding...







... false start! The corner warped upwards and severely in the first few layers of the print, as you can see in the 3rd image. Ok, now I'm a little worried. I'm 3 for 3 in corner warping. 1 of a few things could be going on here:

1) the print bed is too hot. Unlikely, it's the lowest heat (60⁰ C) for any type of material print. For PLA (or Poly Lactic Acid - this material) it's bang on!

2) the bed isn't level enough or I'm too high off the print surface to get good adhesion. The bed is DEFINITELY level, I did a rather exhaustive re-calibrating of it after the console test print, as I thought that might be an issue. I COULD be too high off the print surface on the first layer, but it was fine for my previous print, and looked fine again now. Still, on the next attempt I'll make my first layer thinner and see what happens.

3) this particular PLA is just crap. Ok, I know how it sounds, and I'm hesitant to blame the material, but I haven't had this issue with many other colour filaments I've used. My printer is from China, and the filament I buy is produced by the same company. The printer is a cheap, exact copy knockoff of an already cheap brand. Surprisingly, the printer is actually pretty good! The filament is another story though. Somewhat hit and miss. A few colours behave as expected, correctly at the right temperatures, nice and consistent, others seem to be a little more temperamental. This may well be one of them. The new filament I have coming for the actual final build (white) I know well and it behaves well. The green for the console I had to source from further afield, as it's a rather specialty colour. The source has a good reputation, so I imagine it should print very nicely.

Aside from the warping, the layering was quite nice, and well printed; I can still check the print next to the first one and see how well they line up...










Looks good! The edges line up beautifully, as do the hole position. I can't say for certain whether I will have a problem with assembly because of the hole layouts, but it doesn't look like it. I'll know for certain after another successful print...

[d33j r093r5]

I had another couple of false starts with the printing of the second test piece. I tried changing a few different parameters to see if I could fix that problem with the warping at the corners, even going as far as to remove the tempered glass on which I do the printing, cleaning it thoroughly to get rid of any residue and re-leveling the bed, but to no avail. I swapped over the filament to another colour, and it printed perfectly in a trial run, so I think this may just be one of the quirks of the particular filament I was using, and will continue to use for the test pieces. The reason is that ultimately it won't be an issue, and I have a lot of the crap PLA I need to get rid of!

So, I did the bodgy thing of printing the first few layers of the second test piece, then used masking tape to tape the curling corners down to the bed. It worked! Aside from the first couple of layers, the item printed flat!...



You can see on the far right side where I taped it down... I didn't take another shot of this one printing, but the near left corner needed it too, after this shot was taken...

Finally, we can see something of how the finished items will look:











These are just quarter-walls, to see how they line up and will fit together. No point in printing the full half-walls for test pieces you can see the result of in half the time and half the material! The added bonus is I can flip one of them and show you how (more or less) a full half wall will look when it's printed:







And the man himself, showing off the scale:









... now, I just need to wait for the right filament to arrive. I'll post again as things develop... 

[steve757]

Awesome engineering and three dimensional thinking!  How many hours of printing do you think it will take?  On my heatbed I use "Fructis" hairspray before heating and it holds great!  After a dozen or so projects, the buildup washes right off the glass.  I had to accurize my printer with extra screwposts in between the four corners on the bed to take out warp from heating.  I used #8 machine screws with nuts on them, set in holes drilled in the bed base just inside the perimeter of the heat plate.  They work like tiny jacks to bring the bed level.  Mounting the whole printer on a 2x2- 5/8" plywood sheet with blocks and construction adhesive really stiffened the frame, especially the "Y" table extrusions.  Nice work!

[d33j r093r5]

Thanks for the kind words Steve, much appreciated. TBH I'm not certain. The http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=5689 I printed before was roughly 145 hours of print time, give or take. I'm expecting something in that order of magnitude I guess, although there are far less parts. A lot of the printing is more complex though; the roundels for one thing, and they cover 95% of the build.

I've never actually used hairspray, largely because I haven't needed to! I have a sheet of tempered glass on top of the build platform, which helps to get a nice even temperature across the whole surface, and has fantastic adhesion for PLA builds, and I must admit I do like the nice glassy appearance it gives the bottom of the prints   . Hairspray I understood to be used generally with ABS, as it is a lot more capricious than PLA when it comes to ruining your builds with warping and curling. I played with ABS a little bit, and have used glue-stick glue and a paste made from ABS seconds and Acetone, with inconsistent results. I've heard that hairspray IS the way to go though, but I've been so happy with the results from the PLA without using it, I haven't needed to go down that path yet.

My build plate is fairly stiff and flat, and mounted in 4 places to the structure underneath it, with springs in between so the plate has some give in case of accidents ie head collisions with either the bed or uneven prints, and therefore doesn't damage the equipment. To adjust the height, you need to turn the screws, which in turn raises or lowers a corner of the build plate. It may sound a bit iffy, but it works quite well once you get the hang of it. It's actually useful when prints DO get a little uneven as a result of badly laid down filament, and the head briefly collides with it as it passes over the top with the subsequent layer, it pushes it down and, essentially, re-flattens the build. But that happens rarely, if at all, and has to do with not having leveled the bed properly, or for a while. Once calibrated, it's not an issue. But, I can see how what you've done would be useful if your build plate had some warp in it. I'll have to bear that in mind if I ever find my build platform has warped...  

EDIT: I should point out that the 145 hours DID include stuff-ups, test prints and design and model time. Sorry, forgot about that. Barring all that, probably somewhere in the range of 80 to 105 hours...

[d33j r093r5]

Roundels have varied somewhat over the years, but they are constant and iconic. The Time Monster Console Room Roundels are more unique than most, given that they appeared very briefly in only 2 or 3 episodes of one serial! I kinda wanna get 'em right...

One thing you notice about the roundels on the screen is that, at the rear, they have a somewhat frosted look and a bumpy texture to them. Printing that bumpy texture would end up being a little too fine for the printer, and getting that frosted look... well, there's got to be a better way than trying to print them like that.

I was trying to think how I could go about it simply, and then I remembered, I had THESE!:





These are panels for/from a modular box storage/shelving system I purchased a few years ago. Actually, they serve as display cases for my 5" Doctor Who figures, in various dioramas. But, I have quite a few left over. No, they don't have the bumpy texture, but that was always going to be a big ask. They DO seem to have about the right look to them though; allowing in diffused light, without showing what's behind. If it works as it should, everything should come through as just a blurred, white background...


 

Actually, I think that works out pretty well, all in all...


Here's a side-by-side comparison of the wall panels with and without the frosted screen behind it:





Problem solved! I used 2 layers of the screen material; it just worked better. The 2 pieces are just held together with some glue-stick glue, and they have just been taped on to the back, just to show the effect. Obviously I'll have to have a better solution than that for the final console room.

And now, back to working out how to do the controls for the console, and waiting for my filament to arrive...

[silverfox]

Looking very good so far. I like the genius modular design of the walls so that you can try then in different layouts for your test pieces.
I am a bit confused about why you are waiting for specific colour filament though. Would it not be better to paint it anyway?

I must admit I don't know much about 3D printers. Does the plastic not take paint very well or do you think it would be more robust if the colour was an inherent part of the piece rather than something that could be chipped off?

I think it's going to look splendid when it's all done.

[d33j r093r5]

ummmm... yyyyes, let's go with your answer about it not taking to paint very well...    ...

Actually, there's a couple of reasons:

a) I don't paint. I'm a terrible, terrible, useless painter. Plus I'm lazy...

b) why paint when you can use the actual colour to print with? I think it looks better in any case, at least on printed filament...

The colours I have coming are white for the walls, a standard colour that's cheap and easy to get. The console green was a bit harder to source, but I found it, in a few places from a few different manufacturers.

Painting requires a lot of extra finishing work; you need to sand and smooth the parts, then prime them, then paint them. I've never done or been interested in that. CAD design, engineering, drafting, CNC manufacturing and assembly, that I'm good at, and have a broad interest and a lot of experience. So modelling in 3D and then producing something workable from those ideas is where I'm at. And since I can get the materials I need in the colours I want, I've never felt the need to expand into the painting area...

I'm fairly certain that there are methods and paints available that would do the job, and would not be easily chipped off... it MAY be an avenue I need to pursue if I'm going to print the controls directly onto the console... I'm looking for another avenue... How does that saying go? If you have a difficult job to do, give it to someone lazy; that person will find an easier way to do it... 

In any case, many thanks for the kind words. Coming from you silverfox, that's high praise! 

[steve757]

I got a spool of HIPS, which does not dissolve with acetone like ABS.  This stuff is my new favorite for printing, as it seems to be curl resistant when doing long flat runs, and works at a lower temp than ABS, so less fumes.  Also very glossy finish.  I believe it is also food safe.  Only a buck or so more than PLA or ABS.  I'm going to research the web for console .stl files.....this looks like a fun project for a printer.

[d33j r093r5]

Haven't yet printed with HIPS... in fact I've only printed with PLA and ABS. I'm keen to try PVA, coz it dissolves in water, and is therefore really, really good for using as support material for those tricky overhangs. I have a dual head printer, so I can technically do that... in theory anyway. I haven't had a successful dual head print yet because of ooze and leveling issues. But I digress...

HIPS does sound good, I've had a few reports saying that it builds nice and flat without curling, amongst other things...

I only found one reasonably good console / console room set stl files while browsing thingiverse (and similar sites), but I wasn't happy with the scale, the detail level, or some of the measurements. That was for the 80's console room. That's the reason I went back to scratch and designed my own. If you don't have any luck finding something you like, I can give you my stl files to print with. Currently I have 2 console rooms, the 80's version (from The Five Doctors onward), and this one. I think I may have mentioned these a few too many times already, I'll try and keep the discussion more current...  

There was one other console room that I found recently on one of the various sites you can browse for printable objects, and that was a 4th Doctor era console room aka the one just prior to The Five Doctors console room, that actually looked pretty good. In fact, it wasn't just the console and console room, whoever he is had gone through and done lots of corridors and rooms beyond that. Really impressive work... Sorry, I can't remember where I saw it off the top of my head. I'll see if I can find it again and link it...

[d33j r093r5]

I found it again. Unfortunately, this site you have to pay for the files!    However, as previosuly mentioned, this model is absolutely amaze-balls!:

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/set-1982-doctor-tardis-3d-model/555105

There are other models on the site too, and reduced numbers of files if you don't want everything in the above package:

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-model/vehicle/tardis

Good luck...!  

[d33j r093r5]

Been nutting out the best way to go about making the controls, that's A) going to look the part, B) I can readily accomplish with my knowledge and skill-set, and C) isn't going to cause me too much grief or effort. Anyone who's ever embarked on a project of some kind knows that, in the end, it's always a labour of love, given the blood, sweat and tears that inevitably goes into. Something I've learned over the years working in engineering is that 1) it always takes longer than planned 2) it always costs more than budgeted, and 3) it was a lot harder than it originally looked! The devil is in the details, so I try and pay close attention to them...

Having said all that, I had an idea about cutting "templates" in the various panels on the console. Leaving gaps, as it were, for controls I could potentially add later, whether they printed or otherwise. It would mean that I could at least attempt to make them in the right colours and tones, more or less, and then fit them easily into the correct spot. The alternatives were leaving it as a blank panel and guessing size and position, or printing them directly on the panels during the build. The former has a big "?" over the top of it, the latter could yield unsatisfactory results, and ONLY in the colour of the console itself, which would require painting of some kind on pieces that are delicate and tiny, and already in place, which would make it a logistical nightmare. TBH, I'm open to suggestions on this... Anyway...

This is what the console looks like with the template cutouts:





This is the overall layout of the console. The gaps or cutout regions are where controls or coloured lines on the console are supposed to go. I should say a big THANK YOU!!! at this point to silverfox, once again, for allowing me use of his images and excellent renderings of this consoles panels that he has made in his own version of The http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=5419.0 . Without them, this would have taken me a LOOOOT longer.


Printing the whole thing would have taken a while, so I just selected 1/6 of the console:





... to print. This panel is detailed enough to give me a reasonable representation of what I might be dealing with if I go down this road.


The end result? See for yourselves...:




First layer. Nice and FLAT! YAY!




This shot is kinda gratuitous... I just think it looks cool!  




The finished result...








... not too bad actually! There are elements in there that need some refining, some gaps that just wont work and will have to be rethought entirely, and I'll have to print it slower to get better fidelity on the details, but as a proof-of-concept I think this might be the way to go! How to go about actually MAKING the controls, that's a whole other story! I think I might try printing a couple out ( ) just to see how they go and if I can work with that. I'm worried of course that the detail will just be too fine, and it will just be an awful mess (experience talking again), but I'm still going to try! Again, if anyone has any suggestions on this, or any better ideas than the ones I've come up with, I'm all ears   ...

[d33j r093r5]

I attempted some small components today. For the trial, I switched my filament over to the tiny amount of white filament I have left; I wanted some contrast, and to prove to myself that I'm not imagining things with this green ie, that it really IS rubbish filament, and not me in my incompetence. To switch over is a fairly easy procedure, you just heat up the extruder to temperature, put the motor in reverse, pull out the old, flick it back into forwards again and push your new filament through. Once it starts extruding goo, you're set!

As soon as I pushed the white through, I KNEW it was the filament! The white extruded nice and smooth, consistent, without curling to the sides, in a steady stream, and no oozing. Yay!  

The idea here is to actually get good accuracy, so I slowed the print right down. They're only small components...







... as you can see, so they weren't going to take long in any case.




Obligatory first layer shot...







Holy snot-balls! They look AMAZING! I can't get over how well they've printed. Mind you, this was just my first impression, they're under a blue light, and still stuck to the printer bed. Maybe the result isn't going to be quite so good once I get up close...




... nope, they look great! Even the tiny "orbs"...



... have come out really well! Now, let's see if they will fit into place...



... bit of a tight squeeze, I had to file/cut some of the edges to get them into place... sliced my palm while I was doing it too...  



... aside from that, it works really well...! I can compensate for the "tight fit" in the later prints.



I am stoked with this result! I really wasn't expecting this to go so well. I can now give this console the level of detail it deserves...  

[galacticprobe]

This is coming along swimmingly! As for slicing your palm, I hope it wasn't serious. But I'm sure we most of us have taken a slice or two - dozen - in our model-building over the decades. It's called "really putting your blood and sweat into your work" - in the literal sense, this time - and it makes the build just that much more impressive, and alive with your spirit.

Well done so far! Bravo Zulu!

Dino.