Nice score with that new console room, I've been after one too & as you say they are expensive. So if I may ask? Where did you get yours from at such a good price?

On the subject of your build, to do cables hanging down, you can use a number of things, e.g. coloured string, some data cable with the wires stripped out of it, thin tubing or heat shrink, any of these can work.

Hope this helps.

Chris.

Thanks Davros (never thought I'd be saying THAT out loud, no offence   ), I was considering some stripped back Cat5 cable, but felt that maybe they were a little too thin. Also thought about Heat-shrink, but thought it might be a little too capricious with getting it to behave how I want it to. Maybe some twisted co-ax with some heat shrink could work...? Still thinking about it, thanks for the suggestions .

https://www.zavvi.com.au/toys-animals-playsets/doctor-who-10th-doctor-electronic-tardis-playset/11411981.html?utm_source=ecrm-order-confirmation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ecrm-order-confirmation&affil=thgemail&sendTime=1515717865&ecrmcid=aPxqXoJElmKjvaDpwRdrpVYWD7RdMBg6

This is where I got the new TARDIS playset from. I THINK they still have some. Good luck!

D.

Quote from: d33j r093r5 on Jan 23, 2018, 07:38 am
Thanks Davros (never thought I'd be saying THAT out loud, no offense ) thanks for the suggestions .

https://www.zavvi.com.au/toys-animals-playsets/doctor-who-10th-doctor-electronic-tardis-playset/11411981.html?utm_source=ecrm-order-confirmation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ecrm-order-confirmation&affil=thgemail&sendTime=1515717865&ecrmcid=aPxqXoJElmKjvaDpwRdrpVYWD7RdMBg6

This is where I got the new TARDIS playset from. I THINK they still have some. Good luck!

D.

None taken. I know what you mean & your welcome.
Also thanks for the link, will see how we go.  
Your welcome to call me Chris (my real name) if it makes it easier (LMSO)

Chris.

Edit update: Just went to the site & bought one, cheapest I've seen them, thank you! 

Chris.

D, quick question I didn't think to ask earlier, but is this playset you've just gotten the one with the clear panels and green LEDs that light it? Or is it like the initial release where the panels were actually clear-green plastic? It's hard to tell from the photos.

I remember the initial release did have the clear-green plastic panels. I remember the second release when they changed that to clear plastic but with green LEDs for lighting them. And then there was the re-release about a year or so ago that also had clear plastic panels and green LEDs. So I'm curious, especially if this is re-re-release.

Dino.

Hey Dino, sorry for the late reply, it's been a mad few days here, for a variety of reasons. Anyway, the old playset I purchased about 10-12 years ago I think, so it's part of the original release that came in the old packaging that had a display window with a hole in it so you could press the button in demo mode. It has clear panels and green LEDs. The new one, as far as I'm aware, is from the re-release that happened last year (see photos of the box). It also has clear panels and green LEDs. I wasn't aware that there was a difference of that nature potentially between the consoles, but maybe it's just the result of different runs with different plastics...? maybe...? Aside from the differences I pointed out in my post, there isn't any other difference between 'em, at least as far as I can tell. My son swears that the older one sounds better though...!      

D.

... I've noticed with console room builds that there comes a moment in which you are just "all-in"... it's a subtle shift between "this is a hobby, this is kind of cool, I'm somewhat enthused" to "I'm COMPLETELY committed to this project 110%!!!" ... that moment came over the last couple of days. I WAS working on what was supposed to be my simplest model to date. Nothing too over the top.... ok, I'll just fill you in, and you can see for yourself...

... as I mentioned, I was about to start adding the joins and divvying up the console room so it will fit on the printer beds. I started with joins of the walls to the floors, fairly straight forward, those that followed my other builds know I stick everything together with 6mm dowels. So, each wall has a 6.3mm hole pretty much in the bottom corners. QED.

The walls also join to each other at the "bends", so there are a couple of dowels joining them there as well. Not as straight forward, as there are roundels in the way. Sometimes that's fine, if the roundels line up horizontally, you just go straight between em. The gap is pretty well perfect in this instance. Where the roundels alternate, that's slightly trickier. No problem though, I've dealt with that before too, you just go in at a 60^o angle (more or less), and there's plenty of room at those joins to do that...

The walls also need splitting in 2 as they wont's fit in one piece on the printer bed, so they get split down the middle. Again, this is simple enough for the walls with roundels lining up horizontally in the centre of the wall, we can do a straight split down the middle of the wall, and the dowel holes go straight across...

... these images will give a reasonable idea of what I mean. They show the holes in the bottom where they join to the floor, the holes on the left side are straight where it joins its other half, and the holes on the right where it joins the adjacent wall at 60^o...

 



Then there are the walls that alternate their roundels the WHOLE way across... a straight split looks ugly, and the split is obvious if you do it that way. Fortunately, I've already dealt with this in previous builds as well, you do a serpentine split down the middle, and you run your dowel holes through at 60⁰, as previously mentioned. The effect of a wavy split wall with angled holes looks weird and cool, and you wonder if it will actually work as means of attaching the halves. Here to tell you the effect is amazing, based on previous experience...:




... they actually slide together really well in this configuration, and they kind of POP into place, and line up perfectly. And you can barely tell there's a split there...:






... you can see the straight split in the adjacent walls easily enough, but I bet you're having to squint to see the wavy split...     ... anyway, here's where it gets a little hairy...

... as I said, I use 6mm dowels for joining. I can buy em in packets of 150, 6mm x 32mm fluted for a couple of dollars from Bunnings (I hear our friends over in the UK had a few stores open up there recently! G'day from Oz!). It's a cheap, easy, 5 minute car trip and assembly solution. Suits a lazy bum like me!...

Unfortunately, given the size and scale and proximity of the roundels of THIS model to each other, the gaps running between roundels is only about 3.23mm...         erk... not really liking the direction this is taking...

... I have several options:
  1) redesign the wall. This means also redesigning the other walls. Potentially it means redesigning the whole model. Bugger that for a game of soldiers.
  2) Only redesign the roundels. This still means doing all the walls, but maybe I can live with that...? I actually started down this path. It got messy and complicated, and it ruined the look of the whole thing. I dumped that idea after about 45 minutes...
  3) Not join these walls. I mean TECHNICALLY, they're still joined to the model via the floor, AND the adjoining walls... it's not like they're going anywhere... and I could always stick a couple of extra dowels in through the floor if I'm worried, right...? Well, first off, no... on the walls where the roundels alternate the whole way across there's just no room for any extra dowels in the floor, and I deliberately didn't put extra in because the walls are supposed to hold themselves together. Secondly, that wavy split joined by angled dowels was a Eureka moment for me a few builds ago, it just worked so well, and I wanna include it!
  4) The solution I finally went with, and you would think it was the easiest and simplest to begin with: find thinner dowels!

... ok, here's the thing; you can't buy ready made dowels any thinner than 6mm, and I'd always had difficulty finding thinner ones that didn't come in a half metre length or longer, that had to either come from over east or over seas. It was only in desperation that I went browsing to see if there was anything... lo and behold, there is a stockist here in W.A. that seems to have magically come to my rescue! I found 3mm dowels at a place about 20 minutes drive away! So, of course, I got them to deliver it!     ... they sold them in packs of 20, and they're 30cm in length, so I WILL need to cut em down, but cutting 3mm wooden dowels to length is a feat I think even I can manage...   I'm expecting delivery in the next day or so...

... having sourced my solution, I was confident to go ahead and do this:




... you might be able to see the wavy split now, that I've turned everything invisible. And in the centre you can see the 3mm dowels. YAY!!    

... having done the walls, I turned my attention to the two daises, and their connection to the floor... slight problem here too: the daises are only 12.5mm thick. That's not enough meat to connect them to each other effectively. In any case, the dowels are 32mm long, standard. Fortunately, I made a very thick floor for this console room, 35mm thick as it happens. I've never even done a floor before. Lucky, hey?   So the solution is simply to connect the 3 in one pass. We can take up about 10.5mm of the thickness of the top dais, the entirety of the lower dais's 12.5mm, and it will then permeate the floor by about 10mm...

... and this was about the point that I went a little nuts. I spent a day or so on what happened next...

... I realised that I could evacuate a large portion of the floor under the daises. You don't see it, the daises don't need the whole floor to sit on, just a thick enough edge, and leaving all that room means that the bottom of the plinth of the TARDIS console doesn't have to "just" fit, it can actually have lots of breathing room... so... I did this:




...  the 3 holes are the dowel join points. The cavities on either side are just the excess material I can remove and not have to print. Save time and filament, don't affect the design or function. Win-win. The outer cavity was originally larger, extending much closer to the buttress connection positions. However, there are join points running through the floor, coz it needs to be divvied up as well. What you see here is as much real estate as I could realistically save without compromising the joinery...




... as you can see here. I know it looks like a lot of things cross each other and intersect. Don't worry, they don't. Getting all those join positions sorted and lined up and working out what would work best in dividing up the floor took a lot of time as well, probably a whole other day besides. Anyway, that's when the REALLY crazy idea hit: Why can't I evacuate most of that floor space? People make hollow plastic toys all the time! We just need to make allowances for what's already there, and we can free up the rest of the space. The "top" of the floor can act as a cover, lined up by the dowels in the corners of the walls... etc, etc...

... i could drag this out even further than I already have. To cut a long story short, THIS is what I ended up with:



... the long beams to the centre represent positions where the floor will be divided into different pieces. The cross pieces in there represent positions of dowels. The round section obviously already has a large cavity that needs little if no further attention. Note that the round section is raised higher than the rest. It doesn't need a cover (provided by thae daises) and if it was the same height, then the central ring would have an unnecessary floating cover...

... I MIGHT have left it at that. It was 2am after all... but I had another idea. Each of those covers really only has one connection point; the wall joining dowel holes in the corners. I seemed kind of flimsy. However, where could I put any more joins? The covers are only 3mm thick, the dowel would need to pass right through it and would look... well... rubbish, to use the forum friendly language...

... pictures might be easier here:






... it's difficult to see here, but those mount points in the centres of the cavities only go up about 22mm above the floor. This is so similar mount points extending down from the top meets them to form a complete mount point...




... these extend down 5mm from the top... ... now, you'll have done the math: 22mm + 5mm only = 27mm. We need at least 32mm for a dowel (a 33mm cavity is what I usually put in, to allow for discrepancies). Fortunately, the floor is an extra 5mm thick, and the roof is an extra 3mm. So, the holes in the centres of the mounts extend down into the floor by another 4mm, and the ones in the roof extend up another 2mm. Now, 22 + 5 + 4 + 2 = 33mm. And we have 1mm to spare on either side...    ......

... *sigh* ..... however...

... deciding on this course of action means, I need to print the top of the floor upside-down. You can't print it right way up, otherwise, as mentioned in an earlier post, you just have geometry hanging in the air above your printer bed with nothing to support it. But, you may also recall, the top of the base floor has all those wonderful pipes on it! You can't print it that side down either... same reason, and the pipes won't like being printed directly onto the bed given the nature of their geometry...

... it was a simple enough solution: remove the pipes from the top and print them separately. Something I had not intended to do. You know, coz I like to keep things simple. I think this was the moment I realised I was "all-in"...  




... the top of the floor with the pipes removed. Please note the extra odd sized holes dotted around the place. These are further testament to my increasing insanity...




... and the pipes... at which point, I needed a way to line them up where they're supposed to go once they're printed... remember those odd holes in the floor...? Yup, that's where the pipes that "looked" like they went into the floor, now actually DO go into the floor!! You'll notice that the pipes that seem to go into thin air are slightly lengthened at the terminus...




... and you can see the ends of others that are extended into the floor... so, the other extensions are for...

 

... going into the walls! Which brings me Full Circle back to where I started from: putting holes in walls... you can see from these images where the pipes will go into the walls... there are 4 wall attachment points and 4 floor attachment points...

...

... AND 2 Dais attachment points  




... you know, I'm really tired. I seem to recall sleep. I seem to recall it was a GOOD thing...

... this is where I'm currently at. Sure I would have missed something as there was a LOT over the last couple of days, but that's the long and short of it. I still haven't sub-divided the floor, and I haven't assembled all these parts into a cohesive whole yet, so there will be more updates to come before any printing takes place...

... oh, and I know I whinge and moan a bit, but truthfully I enjoy the creative process and (somewhat!) pushing myself to see what I can come up with ... AND get away with... the easier the better mind you ...

... the next few days look like they're going to be mad busy as well, so I may not update until after the weekend. Until then, enjoy...

D.

UPDATE EDIT:

I realise, looking at it now, that my floor cutouts look somewhat religious in nature. This is entirely unintentional, especially as I am in no way religious. I'm sure it's fine...

D.

Hi! Until you made this comment

Quote... as I said, I use 6​mm dowels for joining. I can buy em in packets of 150, 6​mm x 32​mm fluted for a couple of dollars from Bunnings (I hear our friends over in the UK had a few stores open up there recently! G'day from Oz!). It's a cheap, easy, 5 minute car trip and assembly solution.

I had no idea you were in Australia, (thought UK), so welcome from another Aussie, South Aussie that is. This is looking real good too, looking forward to seeing the walls when printed out.  

Also with your dowel problem, you could always have the dowels printed as part of one of the walls, so you have ready made dowels to join the walls if that works for you.
Hope this last bit makes sense.

Chris.

I seem to recall bumping into 1 or 2 other Aussies on here, but my short term memory is a bit shot so I could be mistaken. In any case, I'm in Perth, so not too far away. Closer than the UK at any rate...

... on my very first console, which was the very first part of my very first console room - in fact, it may well have been one of my very first prints! - I tried to print the joinery as part of the console sections; it actually didn't go very well. They were rather a mess, and kept snapping off. See my http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=5689   . It's one of the reasons why I wanted to print those cables as part of the floor, nice, flat and low to the ground, I know what the print quality may be like, and how brittle they are... as it is, I will print them on a sacrificial base and try to remove them afterwards. Fingers crossed. In any case, I learned that printing holes was a lot more reliable approach, cleaner, more consistent, and dowels are a nice cheap, easy option...

Also, the thinner the printed "dowels" are, the more brittle they will be, and the worse the print quality. Additionally, printing them as part of one of the wall sections would mean that they are effectively suspended in space during printing, being halfway between surfaces... so that's a no-no. But nice lateral thinking, I like it! Cheers Chris

... and Happy Australia Day!      

D.

Quote from: d33j r093r5 on Jan 26, 2018, 03:18 pm
Also, the thinner the printed "dowels" are, the more brittle they will be, and the worse the print quality. Additionally, printing them as part of one of the wall sections would mean that they are effectively suspended in space during printing, being halfway between surfaces... so that's a no-no. But nice lateral thinking, I like it! Cheers Chris

D.

I don't know anything about "printing" of bits, just thought it would make life easier, if they are suspended & this is a "no-no, what if you put "a small thin easy to remove" support at the end of the dowel if that would work? Like I said I have no idea how it works. Just a thought & good luck with it all, look forward to seeing more.

Chris.

Hey Chris, it's fine, suggest away, they're all welcome comments, and it's entirely possible you may hit on a solution I haven't thought of. I don't expect anyone to be experts on any of the methods I use, I'm not even an expert, just an enthusiastic amateur. I can only speak in the context of my experience. And feel free to ask any questions you like; you won't know unless you ask.

Even with a support at the end of a printed dowel, the rest of the dowel is still suspended; the entire dowel needs to be supported for the print, and printing support leads to its own problems, mainly in removing it and trying not to damage the piece you want to keep.

There are printers that have 2 extruders, in which you can print support from a different material using the second extruder, namely one that will dissolve when you wash it in water (speaking about a material called PVA, or Poly Vinyl Alcohol - not to be confused with Poly Vinyl Acetate, which most modellers will be aware is a type of wood glue). Technically speaking, my printers have 2 extruders, but I have never got them to work effectively with each other for a variety of reasons. That's actually fairly commonplace too, most dual head printers don't really perform the way they are supposed to 95% of the time, it seems only very professional, high-end, expensive printers have proper dual head printing solutions that combat a lot of the problems associated with it. My printers are cheap, Chinese knock-offs of what was already a cheap, every-man printer kit. But I can work with that...

I can print support with a single extruder, however it's of the same material that the actual parts I want to keep is made out of. This means I need a way to effectively remove it after printing. As I mentioned, that's difficult, and you can damage your part in doing so. Also the finish of the part where it was stuck to the support looks rubbish!...

... getting back to the point in-hand, it IS possible to do what you are suggesting, but not practical or realistically workable from my frame of reference. It would make the task somewhat more difficult, and give unfavourable results. The wooden dowel solution works a treat, it's cheap, effective, simple, and the results are excellent from past experience...

... as an idea off the top of my head (but never explored, so I may be talking nonsense), grub screws might even be a better option in some ways; they come in all the colours and flavours you could ask for, they hold together really well, and could provide extra rigidity. However, it would probably make design and assembly more complicated (which I'm not in favour of), and disassembly would probably be a nightmare... pros and cons... thus far, wooden dowels seem to be winning in the pros category...

... I AM dreading the printing of the floor pipes/cables at this stage, because in terms of the logistics of printing, they resemble the printed dowels you mentioned in a lot of ways. They're long, conical objects, printed essentially without the context of a larger build for ANY kind of support, although they will be flat to the ground, which is something, but I've had verrrrrry mixed bag result before from similar type prints. What these have going for them is that they're typically fatter than printed dowels would be, giving them extra weight and stability; also much longer, which adds to that. And I intend to build them on a wide, mesh-like "raft", which should give more stability, and a better platform to adhere. However, I have that same problem with support I mentioned earlier...

... so I have a few unknowns, and the results may not be workable. But keep throwing me suggestions, they're all appreciated...!

D.

... ok, sooooo... I didn't make it through the weekend without getting on and spending some time on this... essentially, have devoted another day to it... I must have wayyyyy too much time on my hands at present...

... that being said, this has actually gone remarkably fast... my date stamps indicate that I embarked upon this on the 14th. So,that's only 2 weeks in reality. And, believe it or not, I have been busy doing other things as well...

... we're pretty much at printing stage. Subdivision of all the parts is finished, with a few minor hiccoughs, but easily resolved. Actually, most of those were just me not paying attention; the prep work was pretty much all ok, just the execution I botched things a little, which meant re-doing a few things.... I'll just tell it with pictures I think...

I began by breaking up the floor into front and rear sections, as the dais area has no "lid" so to speak, and so sits higher than than the rest of the floor:










... all those holes are the attachment points for the other sections of floor. This piece was further subdivided...






... 3 sections which essentially are all the same as the above, and...




... a further 2 sections like this. There's no getting around the size of these pieces I'm afraid. If I had a larger printer bed I could print larger sections. As it is these will have to do. In any case, the divisions shouldn't be particularly noticeable on the finished build, I've done my best to conceal the breaks...

The Rear section...




... which was then subdivided into 8 subsections like these:






... most of this work has little to do with design, which was the hard part. This bit is just the busy-work part of it, doing the job by rote almost, which is the hard bit.    

... once that was all done, it was time to create a floor sub-assembly, which I will use to replace the floor part in the main assembly...





... then, the "lid" of the floor was also subdivided into 8 segments to match the 8 of the lower section...






... and then these were all added to the sub-assembly...




... look not too bad, if I do say so myself...



... gratuitous shot, more or less showing the individual components of the sub-assembly... you get the idea... I had a few false starts while incorporating the floor sub-assembly into the main assembly, largely through the loss of some of the relationships between parts, but they were reasonably quickly sorted, and...






... Robert may-happens to be one of your progenitor's siblings!     ... you can see in the shots of the completed sub-assembly and in the full assembly that the pipes / cables are no longer on the floor. As discussed earlier, these will now be printed separately from the floor.

I then started tackling the dais sections... here's where the more annoying hiccoughs occurred. As briefly as I can...






... I first divided up the lower dais into 8 sections. I would have preferred less, but unfortunately the geometry of the piece meant it would only fit in 1/7ths or greater. 1/7ths is a pain in the proverbial, so I went for 1/8ths. It actually turned out for the best, because the dais has natural 1/8ths graduations, so the cuts can be easily concealed. I made a bit of a bungle though, I thought I couldn't use the 3 holes in the daises to connect to the floor because the cuts would impinge. I spent a great deal of (wasted) time playing around changing the numbers of holes and their positions. Thing is, you change it one one, you have to change it on all 3. And then you realise that you've now made it impossible for assembly on one of the other pieces!...

... long story short, I wasn't watching closely enough. It would have been fine to begin with as assembly take place across subdivisions, as well as between parts, and I'd simply forgotten what I'd already prepared. I spent a lot more time putting it all back together the way it was originally...   c'est la vie...





... you can barely notice it's been cut up into pieces at all...!




... another gratuitous shot, but shows how the assembly is achieved...

... the Upper Dais could reasonably be split into only 2 pieces...




... which means a) it only has a split on the sides, which I think may actually be present on the upper dais in DOTD, so... more serendipity. It's good, I like it when things just happen the way they should by accident. I mean, obviously it's better if you plan it that way, but I do enough planning methinks. i'll take the win when I get it by accident as well, ta muchly... ... and now I've rambled on about how wonderfully lucky I've been, I've completely forgotten what b) was supposed to be... oh well...  




... the assembled pieces...





... and how the assembly looks inside...

I also split the insert for the lower dais, as that wouldn't fit on the printer either...




... however, where the dais is split along the radiating lines, I chose to split these between the segments. It does 2 things: 1) hide the splits in the dais, and 2) didn't really want to split such a thin line beam down the centre with nothing else for support, so these will hold up better this way as well. Also, the splits are a lot shorter this way...

... after that, I incorporated them into the lower dais sub-assembly. Was just easier that way...




... 2 things to note: the inserts are shorter now (not sure if you can see them). The didn't need to go all the way to the end of the dais, as that's going to be covered by the upper dais. Also, the joining hole goes through where one of the striations runs (don't worry, again, you won't see it once assembled). The leg of the insert is shorter still at that point. No reason to put a hole through it, just complicates matters. Anyway, the hole is too large, it bisects the leg of the insert completely! Aside from that one segment, the rest are identical... small detail, but they say that's where the devil is...    




... I used this image already, but it shows the full assembly WITH the dais sub-assemblies as well. Did you notice? If not, good! That means I'm doing my job properly!

... splitting the pipes was fun, for a given value of "fun"... it was a pain in the... well... anyway, I had to make sure I was splitting them into pieces that would fit on the printer bed. With them being irregular shapes there was a lot of twisting and fiddling to find how best to split em up... I got there in the end though...




... the splits are probably a little difficult to see, so...






... I made a couple of unnecessary blow-up images for you. I promise, the REALLY interesting stuff IS coming, once I start printing. Which, I can pretty much do now, everything is ready to go! Technically, I could have started before now, but there's been so much else going on I was putting it off until I could focus just on that, and not the modelling as well...

... anyway, that's enough from me for now. I'll post next once I've printed something...

D.

WOW! this is really looking great, I didn't realize there was so much involved in printing parts, just goes to show how much prep work is required.Glad someone has the patients to do it. good on you for taking this on. Keep up the great work. 

Chris.

... in and of printing parts on its own, not so much. I mean, there are things you need to be aware of, like the temperature of your extruders and heated bed (depending on what material you're using, and from which supplier), the extents to which you can print to on your particular printer etc. You need to watch your speed of print also depending on what you're printing. And, of course, other things that I've mentioned, like over-hangs and support. But, once you've been doing it for a little while, that just becomes rote. It's like using any CNC machine for a given length of time, like a router or water-cutter (which I worked with for the better part of 20 years) or a milling machine; once you've learned it and had some practice, you almost don't consciously think about the operation or how you operate it, you just do it. Same with 3D printing. In effect, you can go onto thingiverse or yeggi or pinterest or any one of 100 different sites and download a printable file, and just print it. Most prints like that are just single colour, statue like models. There are others with parts, but the process is still much the same...

... I think you're referring more to the development of the parts, in particular the development of these parts for this model and how I want it to work, which is a whole other thing on its own. Yes, that can be quite involved, depending on the complexity of what it is you're attempting to make, and how you're eventually going to manufacture it. That requires some planning and forethought. Again, with practice, that becomes easier too, but design-work always has that element of "involvement", regardless of what it is or how it will eventually be made. I didn't need, really, to hollow out ANYTHING on the base, just put join holes in where I want them, split it up and print away. I suppose that in and of it self is fairly involved, but that has more to do with the limitations of my printer. But I wanted to save time and material, so I invested a bit more time into the design in order to achieve that.

In any case, thanks Chris, really appreciate the kind words and support. I will do my best to not disappoint...  

D.

... in the words of Charles Dickens (as played by Simon Callow): "On with the motley..." ...

... it's been a while since I fired up the printer, let alone using 2 of them. I wasn't certain what results I was going to get, or if I could get them to work properly at all... I'm kind of getting ahead of myself...

I decided to start off with this piece:





... or, at least, its mirror image. It wouldn't have mattered which. The point was, it was the end piece of the floor, it would be relatively quick to print, and it had the rectangular holes in it for the legs of the buttress. I wanted to see if the legs would pass through / sit well enough to begin with, in case I needed to alter the remainder to fit better.

When it came time to print it, and I exported the file to software used for lining it up with the print bed, I discovered something that was slightly horrifying. The part didn't fit! It hung over the edges. Nooooo, I couldn't have made an error like that, I went through and checked all the parts beforehand, divided them up specifically so this wouldn't happen! I went back to the original part, overlaying it on a sketch of the printer bed, attempting to rotate it to see how I'd made it fit before. Clearly, I had not! It didn't matter what I did, the extents of the part hung over the edges.   So... now I had to go back and check ALL the other parts to see if I'd done the same thing.

... this is a gut-wrenching moment. See, even if I haven't divided up the pieces correctly, then I have to re-divide the WHOLE thing from scratch. Which means, I'll have to re-do all the joins, possibly even add new ones. It's a loooot of work to re-do all of it. Even if it's only THIS piece (and its mirror on the other side), it's still a pain, because now we'll be introducing extra breaks, potentially where we won't want them, which would mean re-dividing the whole thing anyway to compensate for that...

... as it turns out, I divided the rest up correctly. And these 2 parts were only too big by a few mm. Which, if I'm very lucky, I can compensate for. I always allow a few mm shorter for the build-plate, as I don't really want it to print right to the edges, or potentially even off the side. So, I increased my build-plate template to be exactly the dimensions of the printer bed. And, incredibly, it just fit! So, no changes...!

... it did mean I would need to watch the print carefully at the start, make sure it didn't print over the extents, and adjust the position of the program if it did. After a few false starts, we were on our way...

I actually made a small start up video to demonstrate the firing up of the printer(s), but then realised I'd have to upload to youtube and then link/embed it in. I had a Youtube channel aaaaaages ago, but haven't logged in for about as long. Seemed like a bit too much effort, and the last few days have been a bit draining; lots happening, nit just printing... anyway, I digress...:










... firing it up...      










... on the way...      






... the all-important first layer. Once this is down well, you're pretty much guaranteed that the rest of the print will be fine. Not 1005, things can still go wrong unexpectedly, but it's reaaaaaally unlikely...






... a few layers in...









... last couple of shots before going to bed. It had started to print the main underside at this point. This would still take another couple of hours. Plus, it then had the hole-boss to print on the top as well... So I called it a night...

... and arrived to find this in the morning:




... looks perfect!










... and pretty much is. This couldn't have gone any better ... notice that the top-side is fairly smooth and somewhat shiny? This is an effect of printing on glass. The shiny side is essentially the top of the floor-base. It would normally be shinier, but I used hairspray to help adhesion to the printer bed. It's actually worked out well, it gives the floor the kind of texture I was hoping to give it, a matte-yet-shiny look, like a vinyl floor (somewhat). The yellow markings in the corner are actually small bits of masking tape, which I use on the corners of the print bed to hold down the glass surface to the heated bed. Because this piece prints right up to the extents (almost), it naturally printed on top of the masking tape as well. Don't worry, that will come off... Overall, this print took about 5 hours...

... having done that, I was keen to see how it looked with the buttress. I also needed to know if the hole sizes were good enough. The dowel holes were perfect, but I knew from experience they would be. The rear buttress hole was fine, but the front one was a smidge small. I widened it on the subsequent one (the mirror image) and proceeded to print...

...just a quick note on that point; as these pieces are essentially the largest to go on the bed and print to the extents, I needed to change the printer settings in order that they would print on the bed. Decided it was best to finish these sections off first; then I could return the settings to normal and get on with printing other parts...

... I took lots of photos of the print in action, but the final result is really what y'all want to see:






... and the 2 pieces, side by side...








... the 2nd part only took 3 hours and 42 minutes. I sped the printing up when I saw that the printer / print could handle the faster speed without compromising quality...

... I then started on the bottom sections of these parts. Remember, these 2 prints are just the lids of the hollowed out floor sections. I figured it was also time to fire up the 2nd printer. I'd been getting it print-worthy over the course of a day. The print-bed on this machine didn't have a piece of glass like mine, and the protective coating for the print-bed was looking a bit ruined. I peeled that off and replaced it with some 3M Scotch Blue Painters Tape, which lots of people use for adhesion in 3D printing, but which I hadn't before. I acquired a couple of rolls along with the printer, so I decided to see how that would work with printing on the new machine...




... so far so good...





... eeeeeew oh... not good... that's a dead print right there. I haven't levelled the build-plate properly, obviously. Cancel the print, peel off the dead-print, re-level the bed, try again...

... or 2....

... OR 3...!!!

It was either the 3rd or 4th go, it started to look right...





... nice! First layer down, we can let that run on!





... the base section of the first hollowed out piece printing. It's already been going for a good 2-3 hours by this point...






... and starting the solid layer... very happy with progress... having the 2 printers going means I can (effectively) halve build times, and have parts needed to test against each other completed and ready concurrently rather than waiting for them to finish consecutively...






... and the wall section printing nicely as well...






... the "floor" of the hollowed out section is done, now printing the "walls"...








... last shots before heading off to bed...


... and come the morning:




... oooooooooh, shiny!






... this one too...

... if you're wondering about the "trails" of filament you can see stretching across the part, it's nothing to worry about. In most prints you end up with "artefacts", either little dabs of plastic clinging on to a surface like wasps nest, or those thin tendrils like spider webs stretching between end points and the next start point. They remove very easily...






... the removed pieces, with some cleanup of some of the edges... needs a bit more work, but they look good in any case...

... base and lid together...




... but how do they assemble...?






... looking good...




... perfect! Or, at least, as near as dammit...! ... well, I know YOU can't really tell, but I assure you, it's assembled nice and snugly... Next!




... ok, I'd forgotten I'd taken this one. This shows the two joined pieces looking like one piece...

...

... think you'll like the next few shots...




... Ta-Dahhhh...!








... TA-DAHHHHH...!!









... ok, the last shot is a bit gratuitous, but I wanted to show the "cable" entry point on the wall...

... This is actually turning into quite a long update. I was meant to do this about 1.5 days ago, but couldn;t get around to it, and a whole lot more has happened since... so, I will post this update, and continue in another...

D.

... ok... so... where was I...?

I'm going to TRY and be a bit briefer this time...

Firstly, a gratutious shot of what we have thus far...




... and for the rest...

... I began the second floor "base" section on the first printer, and turned my attention to the wall that would sit on top of it for the second. I didn't take any pictures, but I had a hell of a time getting it to work. I wasted 2-3 hours trying to get it to print nicely. The first layer just wouldn't behave. I couldn't figure it out, it kept failing in the same point every time, it just wouldn't adhere, and made a right mess of it. I levelled the bed again, raised it higher, lowered it down, changed the print orientation, changed the print direction... no joy. Finally, out of desperation, i wiped the surface down with acetone. That shouldn't have worked, especially on that blue tape, which is supposed to adhere really well. But it did!       The nearest I can figure is that the surface in just that spot got some grease or oil residue on it, maybe from my fingers, and the PLA was phobic to whatever it was. The acetone obviously got rid of it, and the print just started to work again! Maybe a little TOO well, I had a bugger of a time peeling the wall off when it was finished. Ended up ripping off the tape. Wasn't a problem, I removed the rest of it and re-applied a fresh batch...




... the base section from the opposite side...








... commencement of the next wall section. Not sure if these pictures are from one of the many failed attempts...





... the base section about 55% complete...





... the obviously finally successful wall print finally underway...


... and to cut a long story short, next morning:








... it was at this point I noticed that the underside of the base had warped slightly, probably because this "point" was right at the edge of the printer bed, and may not have had enough direct heat from the bed to prevent it from curling...




... it's not going to matter. You don't see this corner, and it won't prevent the model from assembling...

... also, those 3mm angled dowel holes...? Well, where they needed to fit was always going to be tight. It left a gap in the wall right where the edge of the dowel hole meets the roundel hole...




... it looks messy, but I can re-drill that if it's too tight. And again, you won't see it once the walls are joined...





... not much to see from here, which is good, it's what we want...





... from this angle it's a bit obvious.... hmmmmmm... hopefully it won't be SO obvious once the dowels are in and the wall is joined to its other half   ... ahhh, we'll see, I'm sure it'll be fine...





... and what I did to the printer bed getting it off! Man, it was stuck! The first one came off really easily. Like, almost ridiculously easily given the surface morphology of the tape. I can only think that the acetone altered the coefficient of the tape surface and made it grip even better for the second wall. For future reference: if build doesn't adhere to tape, just replace it. Don't use acetone because the headache will be worse...!

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... I like building up to these reveal moments, but I'm sure I'm annoying the moderators and administrators with my waste of space in doing so. Anyway, this is what we have so far. The build is shaping up nicely. At this rate, we should be done by about the middle of next week!  Looking good methinks...







... currently, the next 2 prints are on the machine. We have the first adjoining wall section for the left hand side we've already printed, and the first 1/3 of the central section of the floor; I want to stand the console where it's meant to line up to the centre, and join the outer base section to it to make sure it all lines up and centralises the way it's supposed to. After that, everything that will have needed testing will be done, and it's just a case of finishing off the remainder of the prints, and assembly...

... see you at the next update...

D.