I have done some initial prints on my M3D printer, https://printm3d.com/. More pictures and analysis can be seen at: http://nvrr49.blogspot.com/2015/09/m3d-printer-1-test-prints.html The red barrel was done on the M3D, the black one on an Afinia H480, http://www.afinia.com/3d-printers/h480
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.
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
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
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
I printed the shelves on the wall in this HO scale piano store diorama on the M3D. They were actually printed in red ABS, and painted. It paints easy. For more details on the piano store, including the pianos that were printed as Shapeways, see this link: http://nvrr49.blogspot.com/2015/09/pianos-ho-scale-3d-printed-at.html
Here are some HO scale concrete blocks I designed and printed on the M3D printer. More details and pictures can be seen at http://nvrr49.blogspot.com/2015/10/m3d-printer-3-concrete-blocks-in-ho.html