NormL

Ahhhh!

I know from bondo'ing my fenders that the plastic does not sand easily. I was thinking of glazing putty and sanding it, I don't know if that is a chroming issue. I guess I could always re "future" it Maybe you are correct and I should have chosen a different print. The Atom is Shapeways WSF, the Scarab valve badges are Alumide and maybe FUD a deposit (smoother) style would have been a better choice. Deposit printing does not have the heat capability or strength that I felt I needed.

I am going to have to defer to your expertise here. I have never chromed plastic. What destroys or is problematic in their process? Bob did have the Atom badge in his hands and his issues were porosity and smoothness. I was reading all about the Alcad chrome product on here and I was going there if ChromeTech did not work. My friend has spend quite a bit on this car right now, so, I really want to chrome these if possible. Thanks for your input

Well now that is an interesting thought. I have always viewed it as detail removal device. You could do the too wide lines narrower and the too sharp edges smoother, but, I am thinking that making too shallow valleys a bit deeper is chasing your own tail. No, it wouldn't work, ... I have gone back and forth with Shapeways many times, they have a different set of standards for polished and the model must be bulked up from a plain print. In other words any gains made would have already been lost in the "bulking" process

No they do not. They are beaten into smoothness by being shaken in plastic beads about 5 mm across. You do lose the sharp corners in the process. They are now smooth to the touch, but, you can definitely feel the printing ridges. You posted my fear that any scratch or surface blemish will show. I am determined to get this to the Chrome guy, but, I want to give the parts the best chance for success. Is there the modeling equivalent of glazing putty?

Yeah, fairly obvious. That does not cover the various types of motorsports though. If you ask me the returns are ridiculously low, but, one would hope that it is low for all equally. Can't bet on that though. It does point to popularity of other types other than the two that have their own forums. I didn't think of a representative term for the motorcycle bunch other than cycle, which is why I used it. I am sure there is spill over of other meanings in the return

I had the assumption that most of you have that drag racing and Nascar are the most popular types of motorsports on the forum. So, I did a little test and at the main forum I typed in some test words and looked at the number of responses. They are in reverse order: Cycle 146 Formula 144 Racing 137 Drag 130 IMSA 124 Nascar 104 Lotus 099 3D print 093 This proves nothing, but, it is interesting. The "Formula" responses did not look like some were pertinent. Also the drag responses were slanted regarding clothing conversations IMSA has to be specific and so does Lotus and Nascar. FYI

I was asked by a friend to print some badge's for the valve covers of his new ride. I have already sent one set down to ChromeTech that got rejected for porosity and roughness. They were just a straight WSF (sintered nylon) print with no sealing or polishing. I now have the new revised parts in hand that are polished alumide. Alumide is also a laser sintered nylon, however, it has aluminum in suspension to better handle heat. Alumide's heat capability is roughly twice that of WSF. The one in back is one I raised from a photo of an Ariel Atom that I want to stick on the back of my Touareg. OK, from a different thread I know that Pledge "Future" is the sealer I should be using and these parts were ordered polished and are much smoother than the first generation. I am not concerned about those issues, the issue that has me concerned is the obvious layering of the rings that occur in both badge prints. I had modeled them on an arc and that may be the "my bad" on this issue. Anybody have an opinion on if I should try to fill it and sand smooth? I have chromed many full sized bumpers back in the day and you just took them in and they made them right. I doubt that ChromeTech is going to any effort to make these right as there is no money in it for them. You can feel the ribs with your hand, but, they are very slight after the polishing (bombardment with plastic pellets)

We'll that certainly was not the expected answer! I never would have thought of going to Target. Thanks for the tip and it makes perfect sense now that I think about it. Have you used it on WSF?

All joking aside, I am thinking that do you need a printed / CNC section if you want to be the forum that grows that content. My 2¢, or at this point 4¢

What about 3D printed parts or cars ... Sorry, I had too. Might be a little early for a laser scanning section.

What is "Future"? Most of my prints have been sealed with bondo and I am unfamiliar with this product.

Maybe I should go in a little further since you are going to have to share 3D information on this forum, ... well fairly soon. A pdf utilizes a "Universal 3D" format know as .u3d there is a commercial package for this Tetra4D or you can make the .u3d in a freeware program MeshLab. MeshLab will convert a lot of formats. Once you have your 3D design as a u3d file and you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat version 8 on you can import it. Not all versions work so I will place a u3d if I can for you to test your version. Mine is Acrobat X and it is tools - content - multimedia - 3D The forum would not let me attach a ".u3d" so I renamed it ".doc". Rename it .u3d and you can place it in Acrobat. Jack24.doc

Yes, now that you mention it, the files would almost always have to be re-scaled.The wire frame is the Triangular Irregular Network (TIN) of either a surface or solid. If you have a TIN drawn as a solid and it is water tight then apply some software magic and print. For the most part, even though it can represent a solid, a TIN is considered a mesh or a surface. A surface has no depth or thickness as a solid does, as when in a game you are at the edge and things are a little wonky and you can look down the edges of the panels. A surface or cannot be printed as there is no thickness, you can add thickness and print. I hope that answers your question ...

As the maker of the pdf you hold the keys, but, in general they have a very limited number of polygons and are demo purposes only

I am not having difficulty on how to make the front wheels pivot and steer without so much slop that is is anything more than a direction suggestion system. The only workable solution that I know will work is that I use snap in components to make the steering actually functional. I really don't want to call the idea on the steering when I can make a storage spring work, but, I may have too. The suspension slop is livable now that the entire shock system is one piece with a pivot at the rocker. Basically replace all three wheel joints with ball and sockets. I still can't believe how much energy (power) can be stored in that spring. I have figured a way that might get the steering done as a static print. I can't help but notice that the two rear tires can deflect up to 15° of arc with pressure and they immediately snap back when the pressure is released. The rear tires are not designed to have deflection contained within the nylon. I am thinking that I can get the needed deflection within the flexibility of the nylon. I have the upper and lower hub joints designed in my head and I am still working on the linkage.

The single biggest problem is the one we were told to ignore and that is accuracy. As I alluded too, another issue is that most the game models I have seen are modeled to surfaces and not solids. This does not sound like much, but, can be painful. For instance, the Atom model that I have going on in another thread, the tires are surfaces as I had no intention of printing them. I am using some off the shelf Pegasus tires and made some surface representations of them as place holders. If I forget to turn them off the printing software just ignores them, anyway. Basically if the model is a 3D solid, it is just a simple software handshake and make sure it is within your printing minimums and water tight. Some of you undoubtedly know, but, you can save 3D data in pdf's. I have attached one of the 1/24th scale jack I did as a sample. Just click in the picture and rotate, pan and zoom with your mouse. There is also the ability to comment and measure and turn items off and on if it has been set up for it. Jack 24.pdf

Technically you could just take the file and change it to something for printing (this step my not be necessary) and then print it. Then more realistically, you need to make sure it meets the printing minimums for the scale and type of printer. You would be lucky if you could just print it without some modification. For a printer you need a water tight solid and the gaming industry uses solids and surfaces both, I believe.

A couple of more shots: Something that has not been brought up in the 3D printing discussions happened on this print. The wheel braces (the metal fingers that hold the rim) did not all print the same width. This is because a laser sintered print does react to gravity on the molten plastic. Kind of forgot about that.

Mule 2 is here: Yes, that is the broken remains of mule 1 in the back. The wife stepped on it. If you consider it was used as a shoe it did not come out that bad and I never heard a cry out at the time of the incident, so, WSF must be spongy and soft on bare feet. Issues: The suspension does work. It holds the car up and the springs compress when pressed. The Atom guys will tell me I have it set up way to stiff. Definitely the bias is off the front is much softer than the back. The steering does not work, oh it moves back and forth, but, there is way too much actual slop at the wheels to call it steering. It might be better called gentle nudge or hopefully guidance. I am going to have to think of a solution for this as if I make a solid attachment of steering shaft and wheel it will be too much articulation and be almost immediately a breakage point. The Team Dynamic 1.2 Pro's look great With the stiffening of the tray under the seats the frame is very robust now. No I still don't think it should be used for stepping on though. The revised articulation of the back wheels has made them very sturdy. The energy storing spring was a success. Too much success actually, it stores a ton of energy and is all stored up before it gets to my release mechanism. The entire drive mechanism has one big failing and one little one. Too much slop between the shafts, I need to either provide more support for the driving shaft or link the support between them or both. The energy storage system as designed does not work as the push shaft near the tire just pushes on the plate until the shaft moves the plate out of the way. The spring to force the drive shaft gear into the spring gear is too worthless and weak One of the rear shocks is having issues getting rid of the unused printing powder and the shaft only goes in partway.

I followed one of the links to www.moddler.com and saw the level of detail they bring to the table. Now I want to go back to the scan cloud and make all of the parts to make a very accurate 3D Atom. I am assuming that they are very expensive, so, a very small print and just cast it in crystal for now

Cottage, ... isn't Kodak gone or almost gone?

We are singing the same tune. This industry will give you guys a entire world of new things to complain about though. The 3D models the game industry uses are conceived to a different standard than you will hold them too. The few I have looked at are not very dimensionally accurate.

The big issue with sending someone a digital download is printer perimeters. How thin can it print, bounding box, does it need a support matrix, is it extrusion, sinter, deposit, .. etc. Not saying that it can't be figured out, but, the low end printers need a lot of fussing with right now