Some great news for the 3D Printing and Customizers! Printing has now become more affordable without dropping tons of quality and $$$! OLO is a UV 3D Printer that uses your smartphone. They say that it can use just about any phone that has a digital screen. Supporting all the way up to an iPhone6S size.

UV has always been know to be one of the better quality methods of printing as SLS and ALS tends to leave tons of impurities. IT will be interesting to get this printer in hands to see if it delivers as they say it does.

It has two modes of printing one at “quick-mode” .12mm and a .036mm.

If you compare this to “um” which average SLS and ALS do 60um. This comes in around 36um’s! While this is slightly more than Shapeways Frosted Ultra Extreme… (Theres uses a 16micron layering) which is difficult to convert and comes around .016mm of detail…) So more than half!

Either way this printer starts at $99. The liquids sound like they will be VERY competitive and come in tons of colors. This may be what I use to start prototypes and then migrate to a 3rd Party printer like Shapeways/Sculpteo…

The space this allows for is rather small, but for Transformer parts… It should be plenty! My 5MM Hands, and future 5mm feet add-ons should print nicely in this. And at the rate of “testing” taking weeks, this will take hours…

OLO has been fully funded and is nearing the 1 million dollars of funding. (They needed $80,000!)

So go check it out!

OLO KickStarter!

3DPrintron has a wonderful head sculpt that they have done that is now starting to show up all over the net.

Really the only thing this head requires is a slight amount of paint and your all set. Overall there is some significant improvements giving him a bit more of an IDW look tuff guy look.

This alternative head for Megatron by @3dprintron really is a thing of beauty. #mtmte pic.twitter.com/QVTR1nWAMj

— Llama God (@TheLlamaGod) October 19, 2015

Interested in getting it? Then go to Shapways and have it printed!

If you like the more “rustic” appeal use the lower quality ABS plastic, as it is cheaper, but also will give that more dirty look as LlamaGod’s depicts. If you want a more smooth finish then you will want to go with the Frosted Extreme Detailed.

So while this does not necessarily fit the normal MO… It however is really cool and the results once lit are absolutely beautiful!

An MIT group has developed a method of printing in glass. While the concept is much the same as blown glass, it can take a computerized nozzle and print all sorts of shapes. More than that the resulting products which typically fit vases, bowls, and so forth refract light in some amazing ways. It is however limited to layering, so getting highly detailed may not be as easy or possible. Glass also tends to be rather difficult because it “melts” and the shape may change slightly when cooling.

Less of me and more of the video below…

GLASS from Mediated Matter Group on Vimeo.

Source: mit.edu, mashable.com

Combiner Wars Optimus Prime has received some of the most criticism for being really a overall terrible voyager figure. This year we received a Leader Class Megatron and Galvatron (Same mold.) But yet we only received a (ish) Voyager Optimus Prime that combines. This upgrade set from Beezleboss Studios brings the figure to a closer size of a Leader Class (no conformation yet…) However even still it looks incredible!

This is so far the second group / person I have seen to work on moding him. And let me say this one is the ONE!

Source: Weibo (Beezleboss Studios)

So as it has become abundantly clear and I think Hasbro has taken notice to how many 3P, 3D printed, and so forth add-ons have been thrown at their Combiner Wars figures… Hasbro’s hands and feet straight up are ugly! Combating this for the first time… They have given us a new set of feet and hands for Victorian.

TFW2005 shows a few nice detailing pictures of “Ankle Tilts!”

So I took on this project about a couple months ago. And finally feel like its at a place where I can show some of the results so far. Now I have not dirtied him up yet, as I am going for a slightly clean look for the moment. So its definitely a lot different from Darkcave Customs version.

Take a look!

Basically I used several things here…

• Rust Oleum (Ultra Cover Paint+Primer) Colonial Red, Metallic, and gloss black
• Americana Acrylic paint (Might be looking into some other brands…)
• Darkcave 3D Printed Ironhide head

I tried using another black paint I think it was Krylon and it did not do well on the rubber parts of Hound. It was sticky and did not seem to dry very well. I ended up spraying over it with the Rust Oleum, and then finished with some acrylic to ruff it up.

The Acrylic paint I used here is very cheap… Some of the paint went on very smooth while other colors I had to fight. Which may be I need to shake it up and blend a bit more with water to soften it. Otherwise I am fairly happy with some of the results. I am going to smooth out the yellow a bit more as I had to go thicker than I wanted to due to the paint not working with me…

So if you have ever researched or tried 3D printing you know the process pretty much is slow as heck! Really 3D printing is not even 3D… It simply reduces 3D down into a 2D plane and prints layer by layer. This process can take hours if not days to complete and thus not efficient and even has so many imperfections its not a solid method for future productions.

Carbon3D has developed a method that uses light, oxygen, and liquid resin that can print within minutes. Not only this, but they are able to produce quality objects of different materials and types that could compete with injection mold processes.

Watch the video and go to their site for more info! 

So some really good news! Today I finally was able to work a little bit more on my upcoming project CW-Feet. PerfectEffect has released theres and people are now receiving them… Which still brings my intrigue to push a slightly different set of feet giving a different option. Not only an different option but the option to only get the feet or the hands.

More good news… Today I have been able to reduce the feet cost by over $11.00! If you know anything about 3D Printing it is expensive! This basically means that you will be able to purchase both the hands and feet for about the same cost of PerfectEffect’s! And if you can find a coupon (which they happen to come around from time to time) it might even be cheaper!

To be even more competitive my plan is to create three different sets of feet. Giving you options! Extending this goal a bit more, the plan is to even provide 3 different scales for each. Which will provide a larger, middle, and smaller set. So if you like the bulky look then go larger. If you want slightly larger than CW Hasbro feet then middle will work nicely! OR if you want a set that is smaller (about the same size of CW Hasbro feet…) Then the smallest will do.

These feet will also have a henge on them so they can angle and keep the feet flat on the ground. Total parts right now is about 4. However this number will increase as I need to separate the feet so they can hook in the henge. So gluing will be required!

Anyways I am behind on this project greatly. Unfortunately I will not be printing my first test round this week, so this leaves me in mid June to end of June release on the v1.

I feel these are ready for general use. While they still have minor things they far outweigh the results. Being this is a 3D print and not a injection mold these are not for kids or for hardcore playing. Fingers are double ball joints.

These MUST be painted/spray painted even with a primer of the color you are wanting them to be in. If you do not paint them / primed the fingers will be extremely lose! After primed fingers may still be on the lose end so use clear nail polish or Pledge Floor Cleaner (SC Johnson Pledge Floor Care Multi-Surface Finish 27 OZ).

There will be more versions of these hands in the future so keep on the look out!

As you can see these hands do have a 5mm Port – however the Menasor sword is to long to handle it. No worries! The hands can still hold it using its regular fists. Mine need to be tightened just a bit more, but work just fine.

Shapeways has announced its Frosted Extreme Detail today on their blog. Along with this comes they are now removing “Frosted Detailed on April 29th” as this has been known to have many issues. Yellowing, and even the starting to deteriorate.

This level of detail is expensive starting designs at $5.00 and $5.99 per CC… So this is going to really be more for smaller models, which would be really great for faces, and smaller details minitures.

Today we are excited to announce our newest material, Frosted Extreme Detail! It uses the same resin and printer as our popular material Frosted Ultra Detail (FUD), but it’s almost twice as detailed! Frosted Extreme Detail, or FXD for short, 3D prints using 16 micron layers (vs FUD’s 29 micron layers). This means 3D prints that have unprecedented detail and surface finish, sharper edges, less stepping, and stronger walls and wires. It’s perfect for the most demanding miniatures, figurines, and molds and masters for casting.

 

Design guidelines are the exact same as FUD, so all your existing FUD designs are printable and you can get started designing amazing new things right away! Pricing for this material is $5.00 startup and $5.99 per CC. The difference in price compared to FUD is that the thinner layers take longer to print and use more material.