M3D Mini 3d printer for $350

nvrr49 Sep 15, 2015

  1. nvrr49

    nvrr49 TrainBoard Member

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  2. RBrodzinsky

    RBrodzinsky November 18, 2022 Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter In Memoriam

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    Kent, just read your blog. Nice review of findings so far. I was really interested in how this little printer would do, so am glad to finally see some real life examples of its quality and limitations.
     
  3. subwayaz

    subwayaz TrainBoard Member

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    You spurred my interest. How difficult is it to give it a picture to produce or how does that work exactly? A picture from different angles or what? What format must the files be for the printer to recognize them and reproduce?
    Thanks for the info ahead of time
     
  4. SLSF Freak

    SLSF Freak Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    It's still pretty "difficult" to get a good model from picture taking - it can be done by taking lots of pictures from several angles, but there's a ton of cleanup that needs to be done to get it ready for print. The final file format these printers use is g-code, but the working file the 3d artists send to the "slicer" program (to create the g-code) is typically an STL file exported from any number of CAD software.

    Kent's earlier posts inspired me as well, I got a Printrbot last November that I'm pretty happy with. Maybe I can come up with some interesting train related objects to print to share. It's one thing to see print samples on the web, but when you get train related samples like Kent has shown us, it gets exciting for sure!

    -Mike
     
    subwayaz likes this.
  5. nvrr49

    nvrr49 TrainBoard Member

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    I generally draw everything in SketchUp, then export the drawings as an STL file for printing. SketchUp has very good video tutorials online, so if you follow those, it is pretty easy to learn. Sometime there are drawings in the SketchUp warehouse that are a reasonable starting point, but they are never 3d print ready, and, at least for me, they serve as inspiration, and I use them as an outline to draw my own item.

    There are also websites, like pinshape.com and thingiverse.com where one can download 3d print ready files. I have not found anything there I wanted, but there are thousands of items that people have designed and offer up. My barrels, in HO scale, are up for purchase for $1 on pinshape.com
     
  6. nvrr49

    nvrr49 TrainBoard Member

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    SLSF Freak likes this.
  7. nvrr49

    nvrr49 TrainBoard Member

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