X-Wing Fighter w/working x-wing

thingiverse

Inspired by these works:http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:98450http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:86078http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:163460 I went for a version with working wings and a bit more of the subtle details. Im trying to think of a reasonable way to get the action of the old Hasbro toy (where R2D2 is a button that opens the wings). but that may not work out - I have some ideas but the parts may be too brittle at this size. The model is kind of small and has walls as thin as 1mm especially on the engine intakes, so if you have a larger print head you want to scale up the STL when slicing. I used a .5 nozzle and printed this scaled to 120% A video of the wings in action.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cIwGtLQSE4&list=UUv76kPCwPU0nUMBZmwEQC8w&feature=c4-overview 2/26/2014: Modified R2. Modified inner wing engine. Separated canopy from nose top ( first version still exists ). Added window detail to canopy. Added detail to back body. Added detail to wings. Added wing front and back details as separate parts. Added detail to nose top. Decreased body slot size for wings to limit x-wing open range. 2/27/2014: Pics of detail parts for wings and new wings engines. Fixed hole in right nose cone 3/1/2014: New build pics 2/27/2014 changes. 3/2/2014: New engine exhaust and pics. 5/10/2014: New pic of incomplete paint job. Instructions For .5 print nozzle I needed to scale the STL 120% before slicing or the parts were too fragile. It turns out the size at this scale is more of what I was looking for when I started. Everything was printed with supports and I kept the number of items one each print moderate so layers don't get too much time too cool as other parts are being printed. The body is easier to deal with in terms of support material removal if those parts are printed upright. For assembly I fastened top parts to bottom parts for the nose and r2d2 section, then the nose cone halves to each other. Once they were dry I connected nose cone to nose and nose to r2d2 section. I then attached the bottom body section to the r2d2 section- this gives a platform for the wings to rest and where the wings must be placed before the body top is attached. The engine parts turn out best if printed upright. The cannon parts print best laid flat. The cannon tips are are tight fit so I put a few drops of acetone (printed w/ ABS ) in the cannon tip holes and let it sit a moment -This made the hole able to stretch without cracking. If using acetone, once you have the tips in you have to align the tips fairly quickly or they will be pretty much stuck the way you placed them. Most of the STLs are already in the best orientation for printing but not all..the body top and body should be inverted to avoid support material in the "armor" slots (those plates on the sides and bottom) The top detail that sits behind R2 should butt against the r2 shape so that it is being attached to both a part of the topR2D2 section as well as the top body. For the wings, print flat side down. To assemble you take the top wing of one side and the bottom wing of the other side and push the tabs on the wings into the slots on one of the "axis" parts. The axis is just a cylinder with slots that keep the wings parallel and flaps to reinforce the orientation. The flaps on the axis get glued to the wing and allowed to dry making sure to keep everything "straight". When two wings have been connected it should appear that the bottoms of each wing shares the same plane. -If this is not good enough the wings will not close flat. When the two sets of wings have been assembled then will fit into one another and should be movable into the x-wing configuration. The hole in the "axis" parts as well as the hole that is revealed when the top and bottom body parts are assemble are for the insertion of an axel that keeps the wings in place and gives them a pivot point. There is also a hole in the "back" body part. I used a piece of 3mm PLA filament as the axel. I fed it through the wings first and lined everything up within the body bottom. Looking at this I "eye balled" the final length of the filament and cut it. Then I placed the top of the body and then the back of the body, being sure to feed the PLA axel through its hole. Then I trimmed of any PLA that protruded from the body back hole and covered the whole thing by attaching the "body back detail" part. While it probably doesn't matter a whole lot there are details on the wings engine covers and they can be put on "wrong" -the right way is so that the "2 little boxes" face toward the body of the vehicle. The engine exhausts just get glued to the backs of the engine covers so that they hang off a little. As long as they're even they look ok.