Post pictures up of your Props, or a link to your prop gallery on Ghostbusters Fans.
By grogking
#4893835
Thanks for clarifying for me Chris :)

You mentioned you use solidworks, as a fellow 3d printing guy, how difficult is solidworks to learn for designing 3d prints? Do you have any tutorials you could recommend?
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By MrLithium
#4893838
grogking wrote:Thanks for clarifying for me Chris :)

You mentioned you use solidworks, as a fellow 3d printing guy, how difficult is solidworks to learn for designing 3d prints? Do you have any tutorials you could recommend?
For me Solidworks is super super easy. At this point it's almost like an extension of my hands. That being said, I have about 8 years of experience using it. Given that though, I was 12 when I learned so it must be pretty easy to use haha. Engineering firms mainly use it, I'm not sure if it's "for" the average consumer. I have access to it because people in my family are engineers and I'm currently an engineering student so I have the student version. However, Autodesk/fusion 360 is very similar to solidworks and it's much cheaper. I believe more people use that.

To answer your question more directly though, I find it very easy to use for designing for 3D printers. It's less what you're using to model the shapes and more keeping in mind how the printer is going to print it (support materials and all that stuff) But since you already have experience with printers, you should be fairly familiar with what types of geometries will be challenging or impossible for a 3D printer to make. That part definitely goes a long way when it comes do designing for parts that need to be printed.

Regarding the tutorial aspect, I'm self taught. The only times I've really looked at tutorials is if I need to do surfacing (complex surfaces). But whenever I do need a tutorial, I go to this channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SolidworksTutorials Their videos are fairly easy to follow.

Most of what you do in solidworks is extruding. The modeling itself isn't hard, the hard part comes in when you're trying to imagine what the 3D shape is that you want to model looks like so you can model it.

Cheers!
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By xoff00
#4893840
Looks awesome! Your files look much cleaner than the other versions out there!

One note: you can easily use an Arduino Pro Mini or Nano which has the same pinouts as a normal Arduino (the Mega has more, but you don't need that many) and is a tiny fraction of the size of the Mega! Plus, they're only a couple of $ on ebay.
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By MrLithium
#4893842
xoff00 wrote:Looks awesome! Your files look much cleaner than the other versions out there!

One note: you can easily use an Arduino Pro Mini or Nano which has the same pinouts as a normal Arduino (the Mega has more, but you don't need that many) and is a tiny fraction of the size of the Mega! Plus, they're only a couple of $ on ebay.
Thanks! I try to keep my models clean.

I've considered using the mini but it doesn't have enough digital IO pins for the LEDs I need. I figure I need at least 20 individual pins for the LEDS let alone the Potentiometer and servo pins. If you look carefully enough, you can get knockoffs of the mega for under $10 ;)

Thanks for the suggestion though!
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By xoff00
#4893843
For all those LEDs, an I2C expander like the SX1509 works great (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13601) -- I'm using 2 of those for my Particle Thrower, where I'm using individual LEDs for the bargraph.

Certainly not ragging on the Mega, but most of my projects are extremely space constrained so I avoid most of the full sized Arduinos.

Can't wait to grab the files!
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By Chris Brewin
#4893848
MrLithium wrote: For weathering I do something a little bit different than most people it seems. What I like to do is use gray filler primer as a base and then sand it smooth. After that I paint it and let that dry for a few hours. Once that layer of paint is on, I take sand paper and lightly touch the edges to scratch away the top and reveal the gray underneath. I have an example from a thrower that I did about a year ago:

I am personally not a big fan of the silver paint that is used to weather things. For this one I might experiment a little bit and give it a silver base coat, let that dry and then give it the flat black and sand that away in areas where there would be wear. I love the painting part, it always takes the prop from the "planning" to the "finishing" stage and it makes me feel good.
I think most go with silver as a faux-stainless-steel. It's what I plan to do for my pack, along with a few other bits. I ask about your plans for the PKE because I'm not sure if the intended material (were it a functional piece of equipment) under the whole thing would be metal, or if only parts of it, like the control panel and screen housing, would be. Not trying to "question your motives" just simply curious about your take and plans.

In preparation for building my pack and finishing it, I've been watching a LOT of prop finishing videos on YouTube from guys like Adam Savage's One Day Builds which he does for Tested, Bill Doran from Punished Props and Cosplay Chris' "Chris' Custom Collectables" ... One technique I'm interested in trying is using what's called a liquid mask; it's a tube of liquid latex that you can apply to an object, let it dry, paint over it, then peal it off, like peeling white glue off your fingers, and it leaves the under-surface visible. For the pack, part of my reason for doing an "undercoat" in metal is so that there is a metal finish shown below any parts that naturally get weathered.

Anyhoo, can't wait to see further progress :)
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By MrLithium
#4894144
Hi guys! Sorry it's been a few weeks but I've been doing school stuff getting ready for finals. I have a short update for everyone!
So I had to reprint a few of my parts because tollerances were off and they didn't quite work for what I had designed but I redesigned a few parts and reprinted and the arms now work perfectly! I haven't printed out the gears for the servo but it's possible I might have to reprint the top shell as well because the servo motor seems to sit crooked. I hope I don't have to but it's possible.



I also added the ribs on the back!
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Sorry for such a short update! I was a little demoralized by my printer having issues again but I fixed it!
I'll update again once the servo is working
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By slicerd1
#4903575
This thing is looking great. I am fortunate enough to own a matty PKE but still would like a 3d printed working PKE to take to cons and not have $300 hanging on my belt. Also working on getting a copy of solidworks installed as my former favorite 123D Design was just decommissioned.

Hope you continue with the updates eventually!
#4953219
MrLithium wrote: May 19th, 2017, 1:05 am So today I added the access ports for the electronics on the model. I added the potentiometer knob slot for controlling the lights,
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Next I added a port at the back for the SPDT slide switch for the main power.
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Finally I ordered stuff I needed to give life to this thing.
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Here's how the electronics are looking
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Amazing work on the 3D modeling! Do you have the 3D files posted for these, build instructions, or parts list. Also did you ever finish the build? Curious to see how it turned out!
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