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Latest Project - Tobor the Great


Brian..

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Marco, I'll post here when I'm in a better position to deliver. The worst part of Tobor is the painting. What is it about silver that makes the results looks so crappy? The prototype is painted in chrome and it took days to dry. I may offer it in bare grey plastic for people to finish themselves. A kit form would take just ten minutes to assemble.  3D printers are remarkably accurate.

 

And I'll give those correct feet a go.

 

John, Fusion 360 is quite astonishing. My jaw hit the ground when I saw an expert using it. It's difficult to abandon everything I learned in Designspark, but the end results should be worth a 3-month learning curve. If there was demand I'd be happy to start a CAD section.

 

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Its hard to know if there is enough demand for the CAD section until you give it a go. Might bring in new members and ideas. Might be the new section is just a collection of you tube links for videos that show the best bits of CAD design to start with. Might be just you and Me there all alone.

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Been building model kits all my life, the only paint worse than silver is gold.  I recall model cars I painted in either seemingly never dried to the touch.  

 

What are the properties of gold and silver that make them so gloppy and sticky does anyone know?  White is another quite sticky paint to apply I suppose that's why we never saw many white tin robots.

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Brian

The reason for the crappy look is simple:  The lining of the print is relative rough and when you spray it silver, the little particles in the paint crawl between the lines
and accentuate them, makes them even more visable.

only solution is print in high resolution. i am not sure what resolution your printer is capable of, but go with the highest.
The higher the resolution, the less crappy it will look like when you paint it silver but paint it in general also. the better the print, the better it looks when painted.

And Yes Fusion 360 is THE CAD program to go with, its the follow up of 123Design that i used in the past, Fusion is really amazing !, invest some time in it and it will pay itself back triple :)

 

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Built/painted this 40+ years ago (minty Captain Action doll under there $2 yard sale find) with aluminium paint over DAS modeling clay.  Had it nice and smooth with first coats until I touched up a few areas with fine sandpaper then resprayed.  Just like you say Marco the paint settles in between all those tiny gaps.

 

gort1.jpg

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Yes, Marco, 3D printers and metallic paint do not make good partners without hours of sanding, priming, sanding, priming......... The professional prop makers say that it's 10% printing time and 90% sanding.

 

I can probably achieve better results by altering the nozzle and the settings on the printers. It just takes so much longer - days rather than hours. I've started printing a Tobor at a higher resolution using silver plastic to see if I can get a better finish without extra work. I'll post some close up pictures of the results.

 

For a shift step in quality we need different technology - resin, probably and I'm looking at an affordable machine. The future is sticky and smelly!

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Hey Brian,

I have mentioned this before. 
Sent me over the files and let me do a high resolution print on them for you.You can see the difference than and will find out that on these parts some light sanding and spraying them in metallic silver will do the job.

You will see that the lining in the prints is not really an issue than anymore because they wont be there anymore :)
would be a great experiment so see if we can make a perfect robot here :-)

so shoot ! :)

Marco
 

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Sanding aside - some thoughts re; Brian's query silver paints drying poorly.

 

No flogging me if this has already been noted, but many metallic paints incorporate a slightly different solvent blend - the voc's (volatile organic compounds) / solvents might behave differently with some of the 3d printed material?  

 

Also, knowing the behavior of some metal pigments - if during airbrushing you need to adjust the flow by adding solvent, you might adversely affect the paint / resin ratios further?   That might lead to slower drying times in itself, or you may be creating a blend that is less compatible for the printed product itself.

 

Again, not sure if you've already covered that - good luck!

 

** Edit **  as well, if not airbrushing, but in fact using a regular brush - the same compatibility issue may arise if the brush is clumping and you are having to thin / treat your brush.

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On August 18, 2017 at 0:55 PM, robothut said:

I was able to make my scale Tobor walk with proper feet so many years ago Brian so I am sure you can too.

http://www.robothut.robotnut.com/ToborWalking.html

remote control unit in scale.

http://www.robothut.robotnut.com/ToborRemoteScale.html

full scale and small scale.

http://www.robothut.robotnut.com/ToborScalePage.html

 

So many use that Fusion 360 program, I may have to give it a go as well. We may have to start a 3d cad area of this web site so we can talk about using these programs and shair what we learn.

WOW!  That looks incredible!  I would not even know where to begin  onsuch a project!  Any video available of him walking?

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Welcome, Dr Needles. The prototype walks well, no adjustment was necessary. That makes a pleasant change! I'm just working on a high resolution version with more accurate feet, a additional dome component and with lighted eyes. I've just purchased some of the tiniest LEDs that you have ever seen in your life. You could fit four of them on the head of a match and still have room. I'll post a video when the production version is walking. I bet those new feet will cause problems, though.

 

 

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