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Yeah, no, acetone will NOT dissolve PLA. You'll need a cyanoacrilate super glue type adhesive just to glue it together. The only plastic that will be susceptible to an acetone base would be ABS plastic. You'll be fine using just about anything you can come up with off the shelf for priming/filling and what not.

 

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The only thing you can use is Methylene Chloride on PLA.  It is NOT for the faint of heart.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloromethane

 

It can be deadly if inhaled or absorbed through the skin.  Its also carcinogenic.

 

It is NOT SAFE FOR HOME USE.  In any manor.  You need full body protection (hazmat suit) as well as a respirator (and I do not mean a freaking dust mask) just to handle the stuff.

 

Vapor smoothing PLA is simply not safe. 

 

ABS, however, is very safe and easy to vapor smooth using heated acetone.  In fact an ABS glue is easily made using scrap parts (preferably white or clear or in the color of your item) by dissolving the supports, scraps and mistakes in pure acetone and allowing it to sit for a few days.  Shake it up and you can use the goo to invisibly glue your parts together. Technically its welding since the ABS is dissolved by the acetone and the goo is simply a bridge/filler.  But most folks don't respond too well when you say you welded plastic parts together.

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So, printed it up. The beams that are to hold the armatures in place do need to be scaled back a bit. Over extrusion, not withstanding, they fit in when using blender, however, a printed piece has to have a tad of clearance to effectively slide into the slot. Short of hammering in the beams they will not fit if printed. I will see what I can do to get them to a looser fit without having to scale the other pieces out of range. 

 

Pictures are pieces before assembly and after. 

 

This is the finished purple progen ship thus far ;) Will be adding paint and other items at a later date, when some of my other projects are completed LOL

20180522_064827.jpg

20180523_152420.jpg

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looking good !

 

don't know if that's a final glued down construction, but the arm segments are slightly out of place there. see att.

 

 

i still need weapons for it, so i might reorder 2 new ones, doesn't seem to be diffucult to figure out now i know what to expect. in hindsight it was a bit too optimistic thinking the beams would print 100%  accurate when the blender geometry leaves basicly no room for errors. also think a trip to the local hardware-store might be worth it, there should be some kind of wooden rods which could do the job instead.

 

don't know about you, but seeing a mocked up model in real life just brought a stupid grin to my face :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

assembly.jpg

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Not glued yet, no. Just the wings, hull and body are glued there the rest are 'balanced'. I'll try to remember to update here once I've figured out the dimensions you'll need to adjust your STL to ensure they fit together more properly! 

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gathered all the bits for the Tradesman i think (hull2/wing3 seemed the "easiest" combo). some unidentified parts named "hinge" though (foreground)

 

will need to drive my coworker's TT at some point and take some screenshots.

 

also, blender's built-in shaders look pretty awesome on the imported W3D's, if only ...

 

TT.jpg

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I'm so impressed with the direction you all are headed.  I didn't even think about printing the parts and assembling it post print.  This way you could print all the parts for a particular ship, in all its evolution.  Assemble your model ship as you progress through the game. 

 

VERY VERY IMPRESSIVE!!!

 

 

just saying,

Mim

   

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picked up some of that cyanoacrilate super glue you mentioned Alurra:  "Loctite Super Glue 3 Precision"

 

fixated the parts with some rubberbands/clamps and let it sit for a while (there wasn't any immediate adhesion like w. normal plastics) it seems to be fairly sturdy now.

 

also picked up a cheap plastic 7mm stick/cylinder type thingy which fit nicely.

 

tbc

 

 

 

 

 

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On 5/23/2018 at 2:26 PM, alurra said:

So, printed it up. The beams that are to hold the armatures in place do need to be scaled back a bit. Over extrusion, not withstanding, they fit in when using blender, however, a printed piece has to have a tad of clearance to effectively slide into the slot. Short of hammering in the beams they will not fit if printed. I will see what I can do to get them to a looser fit without having to scale the other pieces out of range. 

 

Pictures are pieces before assembly and after. 

 

This is the finished purple progen ship thus far ;) Will be adding paint and other items at a later date, when some of my other projects are completed LOL

20180522_064827.jpg

20180523_152420.jpg

 

I just came to visit, now I want to print a Progen Warrior :D

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  • 1 month later...

All 3D Models are copyright protected art work from the original designers.

You cannot print them out and sell them...

 

Of course you can ask if the other player here can print you something completely different and contact you via PM for that very matter...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Mim,

 

mine was around 30 EUR to get printed (i don't own a printing machine)

 

Alurra here could prolly make an actual estimate of raw material costs.

 

but yeah, as zackman mentioned, models are still protected by copyright laws, so private use is prolly the only thing you can get away with.

 

i've been spotting "fake" warhammer 40k models being sold here & there though, not sure if that means companies aren't actively tracking & trying to sue ppl for copyright infringement. (my guess is they are.)

 

will be resuming my own work (sanding /primer / filler ) at a later point, summer heat is kinda killing my motivation atm. :)

 

 

 

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On 7/26/2018 at 9:56 AM, TempestNWK said:

Mim,

 

mine was around 30 EUR to get printed (i don't own a printing machine)

 

Alurra here could prolly make an actual estimate of raw material costs.

 

but yeah, as zackman mentioned, models are still protected by copyright laws, so private use is prolly the only thing you can get away with.

 

i've been spotting "fake" warhammer 40k models being sold here & there though, not sure if that means companies aren't actively tracking & trying to sue ppl for copyright infringement. (my guess is they are.)

 

will be resuming my own work (sanding /primer / filler ) at a later point, summer heat is kinda killing my motivation atm. :)

 

 

 

Wow you paid a lot for that, Tempest ;) Materials cost is minimal at best depending on the type of plastic chosen/used. The biggest consumer is the time to print the item, which depending on the size could run anywhere from 3 hours upwards of 12 hours. I suppose I could take the time to tweak the file a bit more to lower the polygons which would produce a quicker print, however likely it would not look as clean and might actually lose a bit of the detail. 

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7 hours ago, Mimir said:

$35.00 US  +/- isn't that terrible.  If I still worked I would not hesitate on paying that.  

 

BUT!

 

I still want my own printer. 

 

Just saying,

Mim

 

They aren't that expensive if you're willing to put your 'kit' together, Mim. Can pick up a decent one for roughly $200 US .. ;)

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OK, interest has been reignited.  Does anyone have the ship w3d numbering from the mix files? It seems I have lost most of my notes on what w3d files are what.  Any help would be appreciated. Also I have no clue how I got the resulting files into .obj files.  Soooo Help?

 

Just beggin'

Mim

 

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This is what I remember so far:

1. Use unmix to get individual files out of mix ( each mix in separate directory)

2. use gmax with w3d script to read w3d files

3. can use export to .obj to get them but is a multi process with multiple cut and paste.  I don't think I did this before.

----------------------------------

I need to know what is the various ship parts (w3d) that make up the ship as it ages.  I have some but think I may have skipped some.

 

There was a tool I think from either Westwood studios or Renx? (can't find this again btw) that allowed for reading and writing w3d files into other 3d formats.

 

I seem to remember other Westwood games being modded but these sites either are closed or way under the radar.

 

If the tools exist in our repository is there any way possible for me to get temporary access again to download these? Please?

 

I'mmmm sooooo confused!

Mim

Edit.........

I found Renx but it seems the ftp site at Westwood is blacklisted as a virus/worm/trojan  infested site.  Dang!!!

 

 

 

 

 

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Mim,

 

posted a short summary on the previous page a while ago.

 

theres a single big problem though to summarize it :

 

the W3D (or converted) files are in no shape or form "ready for use" by 3D printing software.

 

hence you want to learn how to use your modeling software of choice (i picked blender cause i already had a wee bit of knowledge there)

 

 

 

out the top of my head, concerning the ageing process / naming convention:

 

e.g.: SPW23 (Progen Wings variant 2, age 3)

 

S - Ship

P - race        P / T / J

W - ship-part      H = Hull / P = Profession  / W = Wingtype

2 - variant (1-3) in case of SPP prefix you'd get : 1 / 2 / 3  ; trader/warrior/explorer

3 - age  (1-3)

some bits are harder to find, such as the Sentinel solar sail type thingies, there doesnt seem to be a variable for profession solely.  (sentinel sails would be SPP33)

 

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Thank you very much...

 

I did find some of my old notes and was able to get w3d files into Blender.  I used to have all my apps and files in a zip file... I kept a copy on a thumb drive as well as on my web site... but ! Both went the way of the Dodo.  The ship encoding helps tons.

 

As they say back to the drawing board.  

Mim

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