Tutorial

thingiverse

At the start of an internship I was tasked with: 1.) seeing if I could get their Makerbot 2 Replicator running with decent outputs, and 2.) to see if I could 3D print "to scale" models of very complex mining arrangements at this time 3D printing was something I had very recently been introduced to, and I had no idea about the feasibility of such a task. This submission is a series of trial and error techniques I discovered and implemented in order to produce this mining structure (I don't want to give too technical of terms because the less that is known is better for me). Anyway as you can imagine this structure is built from structural steel beams which at actual scale are less than 3" thick. This poses a huge problem when scaling down 1:50 because the layer thickness is less than the Makerware can recognize in some instances. What I had tried to convey when I first posted this to thingiverse back in 2015 was how you can manipulate files in Blender and other softwares to achieve a "scale model" so that other employees can scale, edit, and print whatever models they please. The tutorials I wrote assume you have never 3D printed before and are very rudimentary in terms of your first 3D print through printing a complex structure as demonstrated in the pictures. With this updated description and a couple added photos of what I was tasked with versus what I was able to print (given a small bed size and limited controls over print parameters in MakerwWare) I hope you can appreciate the project that truly brought me into the world of 3D printing and additive manufacturing in general! As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns please reach out to me. ***** NOTE: this tutorial was created over 3 years ago now. Many things have changed including the ownership of Netfabb basic. I am glad to try and help anyone out with questions but please be understanding. Thank you!