About 3D Model Tech

I am an avid model railroader for truly my whole life. I have been in S Scale ONLY since 1987. Fewer products are commercially available than other scales so I am used to making things I want for my own use. Learning Solidworks was the beginning of a new “life” and how I did my modeling forever. The RP technology and my modeling meet at my constant interest in how things are made. I have been married since 2002.

In 2013 with the help of a friend I was looking at getting a $40,000.00 commercial printer that had the best resolution at that time as a part of my other company Pennsy S Models. I made a fake partial boxcar to test print. We just could not get the test samples to satisfy us and match the finish of plastic models. They still had a grainy texture with layering. The technology was just not there yet. Luckily that idea faded and did not happen. Ironically a few years later I had that test print in my shop. I picked it up and it just crumbled with the slightest pressure!!! I could imagine what could have happened to any products I made and sold if they disintegrated just by picking them up. They all would have been looking for me and wanting their money back!

That is when I decided to go out on my own and do something smaller. In October 2014 I was heading towards starting a 3D printing business for hobbyists when I got a full time job in November 2014. Getting a full time job was the correct decision. The 3D printing would have failed to produce any significant income. It would have failed fabulously. Shapeways was just starting to become big. I could not have competed with them.

The Original 3D Model Tech

In spite of working full time in October 2014 I went along with my previous plan and I bought 2 printers for my pwn use. One was a 3D Systems CubePro Trio that was $4300. It looked really cool. What a total piece of junk that was. The nozzles clogged a LOT. I finally could not get them to unclog and sent to back for repair. I sold that after 6 months at a huge loss without barely using it. I will never buy a filament printer again. Photos 3 is one of the few things I got it to make. I grossly overestimated what this printer could do.

The other printer I bought was a FormLabs FORM1+ that was $3500.00. My fiend described this as “bleeding edge” technology instead of leading edge technology. The company releases their product knowing it is not fully developed and makes the buyers give feedback (complaints?) as to what it wrong with it so they can fix it for later releases. From the steep learning curve with less internet groups support like we have now to where I got good results I had about 9 months of use until the prints failed more than were good. And the resin was $150.00 a bottle. You had to use it in about a month which is a LOT of printing or the resin thickened causing print failures. I basically just stopped using the printer out of frustration. 9 months of parts made for $3500.00 was unacceptable to me. Later FORM came out with newer and bigger printers but to date are priced will above most other brands.

My Original Set Up 2014

Shapeways

I used Shapeways for about 8 years for my occasional printing needs when I did not have a working printer. They filled the gap pretty well. Besides their annoying strict printing restrictions on small items and high prices on some things I had no problems with Shapeways. The quality was always good. I even opened a Shapeways store that sold a few items a year. In June 2024 Shapeways surprised me and closed.

With the mostly failed $8000.00 costs of owned printers I avoided all thoughts of getting a printer again. Until now…..

A New Adventure

My Facebook feed consistently had an ad for a resin printer. I usually don’t buy things advertised on Facebook. Finally I asked about the quality of that printer on a Facebook 3D printing group and got very favorable replies. There was a special price on top of the reduced price – amazingly for $200.00!!!!!! How could I get hurt for $200.00? It was slightly an impulse purchase.

Photo 1 is just removed out of the box on 8-30-24. Nothing has been assembled yet.

In spite of being identical in size to the FORM1 the Anycubic can make much larger parts.

Added 9-17-24

I quickly went from none to 2 printers. The smaller unit is going to be set up for printing a blue wax resin for brass casting.

Revised 9-28-24