bry

You can recycle plastic for re-use, though I haven't built a recycler yet. It's one of those backburner projects I never get to. Still no paint work; we had snow again this morning, and it's looking like this winter is never going to end.

It is; most of the print is using a 90% hollow with 10% honeycomb infill and 2mm thick walls profile. A few parts were 0% infill (completely empty) and some had more infill but were unnecessarily heavy for no more strength. I've gone through as much plastic in failed and test parts as I have usable pieces, but it's been a fun project. The final weight is a few pounds heavier than I was hoping for, and I suspect this is the reason Yamato gave up on their own version. I haven't done much new since the last photos, but one of these days I'll take it outside for painting now that it's looking like the winter might actually be over for real. A bit of paint, some 2D-printed decals, and final assembly is all that's left!

Heh! I had a similar reaction as I first stood it up all together. I hadn't weighed it until you asked, but she's coming in at just over 6 pounds at the moment with about 95% of the parts printed. Not too bad for this size, and only ~ $100 in plastic at that weight, but I was aiming to keep it lighter. Oh well. For now, I'm keeping the hips as-is. The ball joints are solid even with the cannons mounted; I didn't resize the sockets at all so they already fit very tight, and I also printed them very low resolution, as well as the lower hip socket part (you can see this in the pictures - the layer lines are clearly visible) so the layer lines tend to interlock like tiny teeth; it moved with effort but you have to pick up the Monster to pose the hips - they're that tight. I just need to redo the lower knee joints with equal strength; I made them far too loose to hold up the body. Shoulder-elbow-wrist assemblies are about done. They might be a little loose as well, on the initial print. Still need to tap some metal hinge pins to see if that tightens them up enough. Paint arrived; I went with flat olive drab but it looks more like actual military paint... it would probably be perfect if I wanted a perfect scale model with weathering, etc, but I think I'd prefer a bit lighter to give it more of a 1980s toy feel. I'll hit some of my test-print parts to see how it looks.

Thanks! It feels good to finally start putting the pieces together. I think I'll be re-doing the legs a bit. The ball joints in the hips are nice and tight, but one of the knee joints has too much slop, and since I mirrored them this happens on both sides. It's fairly stable at the moment but this is definitely a heavy model - even with 90% empty space inside! - and in the last 2 photos it's actually kind of squatting down, which was the only way I could get it to stand in a convincingly menacing pose without doing exactly as you say: 'bow or reach for the sky.' With the cannons on, it topples forward on its nose so some weights will need to be placed in the bottom of the feet, too. I could probably sell off a scratch-and-dent copy with all of the parts I've redone! I don't know what everybody's talking about with the colors; this is an authentic clown-squadron Monster

More updates. Printers have been running full time, and a lot of that time has been dedicated to this project. Most of the pieces come from the delta due to the size... getting close to the end now!

Yeah, Shapeways is astoundingly poor pricing compared to home printing. Part of that ridiculous price is I uploaded the model as 1 piece, so the only printer they have large enough to print a 3 foot tall model is the metal printers, so you can divide the cost by 10 for their cheapest plastic option, but $7000 is still dumb. I have less than $30 or so into this Monster so far. I was really hoping to get it done a long time ago, but wow did this holiday season get busy and the post-holiday isn't letting up yet.

Mechapilot77 - Yes, I'm printing this on my personal printers. These are homebuilt reprap printers - a prusa and a delta - not Makerbot, so they're much faster and higher resolution machines than the commercially made prebuilt ones, not to mention substantially cheaper. You are correct, most of the pieces are PLA, but the knees are ABS and I have a few test pieces printed in nylon that I decided not to use because of the higher cost for material, when the additional strength wasn't needed. The majority of the Monster is printed, but I do have a few metal BBs and steel rods for the arm articulation.

Update update update! Just a small one though; I haven't had any time at all lately; pretty much every waking moment is scheduled for three different things and none of them are hobbies, and too much of the not-supposed-to-be-awake time is also too busy! I have put the spare minutes I find to use, though. Here's a few quick shots of some of the things I've printed off: This is the left arm (or, the rear half, anyway) and ratcheting assembly, with a handful of test prints. The arm assembly has an integrated ratchet that has worked well in testing. It's rather large, but uses BBs as bearings and allows nice locking unidirectional movement with substantial weight handling. The ratchet is countersunk completely into the arm and connects to the elbow assembly with a hex key. A similar assembly connects the shoulder to the body. This allows for free movement in one direction with absolutely no movement in the other. Not great as a 'toy' but for a display unit it allows posing without worry of any sag. Motion for the "elbow" link between body and arm is simple pinholes holding metal rods that are press-fit and hold position with friction alone.

Thanks! Aluminum would probably triple the weight; I'm mostly concerned with weight on these pieces as they need to be self-supported. The cannon front is too hollow - it was printed with 0.5mm walls and 10% infill so it's incredibly light but broke into 3 pieces in a drop-test. The butt section was printed with 2mm perimiter walls and 40% solid infill and survived the drop-test but is also heavier. I think a 1.5mm / 20% combination should deliver featherweight and still be strong, but we'll see. I have no idea when I'll be done or taking orders - and at 1/60 I wouldn't be able to print many anyway without building a new printer dedicated just to this model - but a 1/350 version would only be 110mm long from cannon to back and 63mm tall, and a 1/700 model would be half that. These are sizes that Shapeways would be able to handle and I could get those uploaded immediately if you aren't worried about articulation.

Thanks! Look into building a Reprap, check out the reprap.org forums - right now the Prusa i3 is probably the best frame to start with, and there's well-priced kits out there with all the necessary parts. Once you have your first printer, you can print more, and source locally for the parts that you can't print. I don't recommend buying a pre-assembled printer ever... not only are they far more expensive, but you'll still need to fix it and maintain it constantly - as you may have noticed just from this project. Nothing will teach you about your printer quite as well as assembling it yourself.

Milkautico - If you want your own copy of this print now, it's on Shapeways! http://shpws.me/pAVo I kid of course, $75,000 is enough to buy your own top-of-the-line professional printer; I was just curious what Shapeways would charge for a job this big. They're doing their best to push people into buying home printers!

1st cannon done. Had to split in halves as I don't have a printer with a 2-foot print volume. The front end of the barrel has some definite artifacts and came out pretty ugly. The buttstock half printed much cleaner but there was one band of a few bad layers in the middle that's pretty obvious as I was playing with settings on the fly trying to figure out what had made the first half print so poorly. Long story short I have some delta arm issues that lead to weird oscillating effects when printing circles at high speed, coupled to a loose skate and possibly another loose belt. Printers are a full-time hobby on their own, but at least I should have most of this sorted out now, and will make some new delta arms as I thing these are too tight leading to a bit of the wobble/oscillation. I'm going to completely reprint the front of the cannon after a few smaller calibration test prints before I move on to be sure the machine is OK; I don't have another machine that can print this big so I have to get the one running 100% for the cannons, arms, and torso.In the interim I should work on the smaller arm bits on another machine. I hope to update again in the next day or two... Sorry about the delay! I swear I'm trying to get back to that 1-part-per-day goal.

Printing something that large isn't going to be affordable via a service - Shapeways wants $75,500 to print my 1/60 destroid monster, and an ARMD at that scale would be substantially larger. If you're looking to print a model that large, it makes economic sense to build yourself a printer and make it yourself.

I could sell a few I suppose. It takes up too much printer time to mass-produce, but once I have working files I could easily crank out more with the push of a button. I was already thinking of selling off this one, as it's turning into a lot more Destroid than I have the room to actually display.

Thanks! Other hip done. I'm really falling behind on my 1-part-per-day personal goal. Next up is some of the smaller parts; I'm avoiding the mostrously big (pun intended) torso and I'll hold that off off for last.

Whoops, no pic: Here ya go!

Right hip done. Fit is tight. This one audibly clicks when the joint is rotated, and that sound is incredibly satisfying, exactly like a toy should sound. I must have played with the hip-thigh joint for an hour last night, just click-click-clicking it up and down. Holds position very well also, so ratcheting mechanisms are definitely the way to go, and I'll need to redo the rest of the legs with these improvements. Loving it.

Extremely helpful, thanks!

That's not a bad idea. I think I might be able to put together a simple ratchet mechanism that would be friendly to print, and still have a reasonable amount of load-bearing strength. No update today; still drawing up the hip / balljoint area and printing up more printers.

Slowed the print time waaaay down and actually got a decent print this time. 11 hours later.... Two knees! Drawing up the hip assembly now. Thinking a ball-joint is best, but may need some keyed alignment nubs so it doesn't just freely rotate. I may print the femur ball slightly oversize and just sand it down until it just barely fits snugly without being too big, but also without moving easily. Next update might be a fews days off; I'm still drawing this up and want to print the body in as close to 1-piece as can be managed, so I'll be conceptualizing this for a while.

Well, printing takes most of the weight and cost issues away, but I'm definitely recognizing the problems they ran into, and I don't stand a chance of attaining Yamato's level of articulation. I'm surprised Yamato didn't print the Monster; I know they printed their valk prototypes.

There's actual meshed gears in there, yeah. You can see them in the failed white knee piece above, but the more recent 'completed' knee was far too blobby in that area to get any real detail so it has no gear teeth. Still tuning temperatures and feedrates so the white pieces are far from decent quality prints. I'm also thinking a pin-system to lock a pose into place might be useful, considering the amount of stresses that will be placed on the arm joints. Researching the Monster for better detail, I found that Yamato had actually prototyped a 1/60 Monster at one time. Their completed prototype really shows how big this thing will be once it's all done. I just wish somebody had taken up-close pics of the joints... then again, theirs was propped up so maybe they had issues there as well.

A mostly-complete thigh. Tuning is a little better but this is obviously still a placeholder part

Thanks! Your massive-scale project is inspiring. The 'knees' are feeling too weak to support much weight already, so I think I'll need to go back to the ankle joint design I had started with, which was over-tight but holds its position well once you manage to wrestle them into place. I'm currently still fighting my backup printer, but here's a joint test from a failed thigh print (thigh-to-knee feels too loose, but the thigh-to-calf gearing meshes well and I think should help hold the final mecha's position when posed, so at least I got some of it right and can leave that little portion alone). You'd be amazed at how lightweight you can 3D print these models. Both feet added together weigh substantially less than the valk behind them - it's mostly hollow inside. I definitely need to reinforce these joints though; the redesigned knee articulation I went with after feeling how tight the ankles were is barely tight enough to support the knee on its own. I still don't know how I'll get the arms and cannons to hold position; most of their weight will be unsupported several feet in front of the model...