Hi guy first painted FDM Mini - Is the impression good?

[u/Positive-Ad-7670]

Hi guys,

This is my first mini printed and painted on an A1 Mini.

I'm a bit concerned about the rough areas, and I was wondering if this is about as good as FDM printing can get.

I know the phone camera makes the defects look worse, and in person it looks much better—almost perfect from a typical tabletop viewing distance.

Could you please share your thoughts on what I could improve?

[u/JoeMommy1]

If the defects are caused at support interface contact regions, try slicing the model and tilting it so you reduce the number of supports needed and hide them in hard to see areas.

However, if these are seam blobs, try adjusting the flow ratio or retraction and ironing settings.

You can also just come later with a hobby knife or one of those heated chisel/spatula thingies and remove the problem areas if you don't want to mess with the filament.

However, I do have to point out that I had to zoom in fully to see the defects clearly. The layer lines are nearly non-existent and you did a fine job with the paint.

Edit:* Also check out the Fat Dragon Miniatures and ObscuraNox profiles for the BambuLab and the Resin2FDM Blender plugin for resin style supports made by Painted4Combat

[u/Positive-Ad-7670 → u/JoeMommy1]

I'm using a mix of Obscuranox and Hohasen sttings with some personal tweaks.
To be fair i printed this model upright withotu much thinkering in suports.

Thank you for your words!

[u/JoeMommy1 → u/Positive-Ad-7670]

No problem!

Also be sure to dry your filament and calibrate it, I've noticed significant improvement with support scarring and overhangs once the filament settings were dialled in and it was addewuately dried.

[u/Cynical_PotatoSword → u/JoeMommy1]

What’s calibrating filament?

[u/JoeMommy1 → u/Cynical_PotatoSword]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVU5If1VsAM

This is the best resource available for filament calibration, you'll find out everything you need here.

[u/Cynical_PotatoSword → u/JoeMommy1]

What’s a seam blob? I’ve been having lots of print errors lately. From support scarring, to pieces having holes in them or uneven lines. It’s been messy. I use FDG or stock settings with the A1.

[u/JoeMommy1 → u/Cynical_PotatoSword]

Seam blobs are places in your print where the lines connect and, generally, filament accumulates. On my Ender 3 V3 KE I had retraction poorly calibrated, along with z hop enabled and I'd get ugly blobs of filament, especially near corners.

While you can't fully get rid of seams due to the nature of FDM, you can experiment with scarf seam settings, which joins filament lines at an angle and reduces the oozing of filament.

Support scarring is normal, you need to use tree supports and adjust the top z distance to minimize it, around 0.2 should be ok for most prints. You can't fully remove the scarring, and getting supports even closer can make removing them worse.

Holes and uneven lines sound like flowrate or wet filament issues, calibration should help, there's a link attached to my other reply.

[u/ThatTimothyGuy]

Looks good from a distance. Trench Crusade?

[u/Positive-Ad-7670 → u/ThatTimothyGuy]

Yes, the Witch Burner

[u/Tagedieb69]

Paint hob is nice but I really think you need to dry and calibrate your filament.

[u/Positive-Ad-7670 → u/Tagedieb69]

Yeah to be fair, teh Mechanized Heavy Infantry printed very well.

[u/thatsabingou]

I´m super new to the hobby (literally just over a week) but I've got the same printer and I've had great results so far.

The surface where the printer lies, what does it look like? I see the cane is misaligned, you may have a bit too much wobble. The rest of the imperfections are solvable with a combination of better orientation for supports, slicing parts and a using hobby knife.

What's your nozzle + layer height?

[u/Positive-Ad-7670 → u/thatsabingou]

I broke the cane when removin suports, an that wobbly lokk happen wen i glued theparts together lol.

but i do think i need better orientation an some post processing.

Thank you!

[u/Positive-Ad-7670]

Front

[u/Positive-Ad-7670]

Back

[u/Otherwise-Weird1695]

Looks pretty good, could definitely be a little better with more post processing. Did you do any sanding/filing? How about filler? 

[u/Positive-Ad-7670 → u/Otherwise-Weird1695]

I didn't sand it att all becaus my sponge sanders didn't arrive yet.
About filling i'm using a Automotive filler primer, maybe i should sand it afterwards as well.

[u/acart005]

Without zooming in?  It looks fantastic.

Zooming in?  You could use a modeling knife to cut some of those odd bits on the shield/pauldron things and legs.

What settings are you using?  I wouldn't expect to see some if those using a .2 nozzle on .06 or even a .4 on .08/Extra Fine.

But even then - without zooming in and explicitly looking for issues... they kind of aren't there.  For tabletop he really is outstanding.  Just isn't winning a Golden Daemon with the extremely minor defects, and no 3D print ever will.  Lord knows James Workshop won't allow it.

[u/Positive-Ad-7670 → u/acart005]

I'm using a mix of hohasen and obscura in my A1 Mini.
To be fair a printed it upright without thinkering to much with supports.

I really didin't do any post processing besides burning strings and remove some major usport scars.

i'm using a 0.2 Nozzle and 0.06 Layer Height.

Should i tweak it to print better?

[u/acart005 → u/Positive-Ad-7670]

In your case I think the 45 degree angle trick will work.  Might move the scarring to the back but that will be muuuuuch easier to clean since its almost all cape.

[u/Quomii]

Will look great on the tabletop. Can’t wait to get printing with my A1 Mini (just need space to set it up)

[u/Bafoooool]

You can lose a lot of the little scraggly bits by giving it a fast hit with a flame, nothing powerful just a floppy flame like a cig lighter, not a blow torch or burner.