5th Element Stone Lamps

[D-Ring]

Making replica stones from the movie 5th Element. Separated into two pieces for each stone. the only thing im worried about and not sure is all the overhangs from the grooves. Any suggestions on that, doing support for all that is gonna be a pain to clean afterwards.

[Jimustanguitar]

Do the grooves as a rounded profile instead of a square cut so that you have a gradual overhang instead of a 90 degree drop off.

[Batteau62]

Very cool! One of my favorite movies Did you do the CAD? Any chance of getting the .stl's? I'm with Jimustanguitar, large fillets are our friend with this type overhang. Post some pics when you print them

[D-Ring]

Ill have to look into rounding the corners on the inside of the grooves, using sketchup right now and still new to it so learning how to do everything. I will post pics when I print them and if they turn out will share the stl file. Im actually installing stuff inside so that they are fully function with each element and will be lamps that turn on with the element (match/lighter for the fire, water for water, stone (with a magnet inside) for earth, and blow on the air one) so they are just like the movie

[Tinyhead]

Wicked movie. Those would look really cool in a wood or stone filament.

[D-Ring]

So cant figure out the best way to print the parts with the grooves, having trouble with sketchup getting anything curved and trying not to need supports for it. Anybody got any ideas for how I can get the grooved part printed without supports?

[Captain Starfish]

Print them in ABS as a set of mitred walls with one layer thick/wide bit holding the sections together, "inside" facing down onto the bed. Douse mitre cuts in acetone, fold it together, no support required.

[Batteau62]

I don't use Sketchup(highly recommend looking at DesignSpark mechanical) but I found this in a search:
http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... rners.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
looks like it might be what you're looking for. I also like Captain Starfish's approach of mitred single walls with some assembly.
Full functionality is an awesome idea! Best of luck

[626Pilot]

Ill have to look into rounding the corners on the inside of the grooves, using sketchup right now and still new to it so learning how to do everything. I will post pics when I print them and if they turn out will share the stl file. Im actually installing stuff inside so that they are fully function with each element and will be lamps that turn on with the element (match/lighter for the fire, water for water, stone (with a magnet inside) for earth, and blow on the air one) so they are just like the movie

Draw an arc where you want the fillet to start and extrude it across. Should work perfectly. It might even delete the extra interior faces for you, if it's in a good mood.

Condolences, though. Sketchup has made a horrendous amount of extra work for me. Its internal resolution limits make it crap the bed a lot on smaller parts. Great for architectural scale stuff.

I have been printing similar parts, but the support just makes it so ugly and it takes forever to remove the "interface plastic" where the support touches the rest of the object. I've been thinking about going dual-extrusion and using PVA, so I can just hose it down and not have to spend half an hour screwing with it.

[D-Ring]

So just an update, I found an extension that allowed me to do the arcs around the corners and updated the designs. Printing the earth stone right now so will see how it goes. Already was able to print the clean bottom section of the wind. And my calibration is mostly good, need to adjust the z height a little and the tower calibration is off by .01-.02 milimeters as inbetween two towers it lifts up a little on the base layer. Still prints fine and only very minor flaws though. Happy with the quality

[Captain Starfish]

Be interested to see how filleted grooves look. My suspicion is that part of the appearance is caused by the hard corners and this will suffer, but it certainly makes printing them easier.

[D-Ring]

I just added a quarter circle to the bottom of each groove (printing upside down due to bottom have a notch in it for another piece to slide into). The earth piece turned out nicely Ill try and get a picture later to upload. With the size of the grooves and the way the curve is, it isnt very noticeable from the front unless you go and close at an angle. There's a couple parts where it split a little or a string didnt adhere on the overhangs. But nothing major and the entire thing is usable for my project. Still trying to fine tune the tower heights some and find the perfect z height setting.

Got a weird effect where the nozzle lifts some inbetween two towers. The points next to the towers are pretty close to the same height as the center but it does seem to lift directly between two towers.

[Captain Starfish]

Glad to hear it worked!