This topic contains 16 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by 
redvers 4 years, 6 months ago.
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After I first assembled my Tronxy and set it printing, using some cheapo- left-over filament I had lying around, the result was a little like this:
Note the banding and “zits” on the print. This is because a) the filament was old (and probably not perfectly dry) and b) the printer hadn’t been perfectly set up, I just went with the default settings and hit print.
After spending some time with the guys at rigid.ink (sadly no longer trading in filament) I got my machine “dialled in” for their filament – it ran slightly hotter (230 degC I think instead of 190-220) and I had to change my extrusion settings (109% for perfect adhesion) and the results were like this:
(yes I know it’s a different colour, but you should get the idea!)
The horizontal layer lines are far less pronounced and there’s none of that nasty “zitting” (the corner edge only looks rough in the photo because of the poor light I took it in – in real life, it actually very smooth). But you can still see visible layer lines, even on a highly tuned machine, using (relatively) expensive filament.
That said, it worked for me; I printed about five of these. Two I just painted and drybrushed – the layer lines were definitely visible (but not too distracting). On the other three, I used a car filler-primer, then sanded the flat sides down; layer lines were gone completely, but I also lost a little bit of the sharpness on the details.
In short, getting your machine “dialled in” for your filament is crucial to get the best results. But you may be happy with not-the-absolute-best-but-good-enough. Quality of filament is massively variable and makes a massive difference to the final print finish. Don’t skimp – cheap filament is almost always a pain in the arse to work with and often creates “zits” (where moisture in the filament expands and pops as it goes through the nozzle) or dimples (where the filament isn’t a perfectly constant thickness along its length, so thinner and thicker sections print differently).
That said, I still got a perfectly serviceable corner sofa and locker to use as scatter terrain at 28mm, even when my printer was far from perfectly tuned.
(I’ve since re-printed these pieces as hollow resin and the finish is much nicer though!)
Just wanted to come back and say thanks for everyone’s input here. With your help, I was able to design and get printed a couple of test pieces to see if my thinking was along the right lines. I also stumbled across Treatstock, an online market place where you can upload designs and get prices for them to be printed. I didn’t think that the prices were too bad and much cheaper than buying my own printer 🙂
My first effort was a ‘flat pack’ building with floor and walls designed separately and then glued together. This seemed to work if albeit a little rough and ready looking
Thinking that taking this approach meant that I was not really utilising the benefits of 3d printing, I downloaded FreeCad and taught myself the basics and went for something a little more complex, again to test out how I could make this modular and how small I could realistically get detail to print. I ended up with this:
It has a couple of small issues. The linking slots are a little tight and need a file. The door detail didn’t quite work out and I need to leave some more space so that the detail is visible. And the chimney is probably a fraction too small to print correctly. But otherwise, I think this is going to be the solution to create a unique village from Tuscany for my Flames of War.
Here’s the two attempts and I’ll definitely be ditching the flat pack option.
I appreciate that you all work on far more detailed prints than this but to say thanks for your help, if you do want to print your own Italian buildings, I’m more than happy to share the STL files for this and the more detailed designs that I have planned. I’ll fire up a project to cover the progress!
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