SENOVIS 1/4000 & 1/8000 SDF-2 "MEGAROAD-01"

[oshanmacross]

56 minutes ago, arbit said:

 

Don't worry, but out of respect, please don't sell.

I wouldn't think about it....

[Anasazi37]

18 hours ago, oshanmacross said:

Right, 1/4000 is about 12-18 inches long?

The city section alone is about 9.5 in (239 mm), so yeah, likely no more than 18 in long in total.

[Bolt]

@arbit how is yours coming along?

[arbit]

5 hours ago, Bolt said:

@arbit how is yours coming along?

Hi. Thanks for asking. I was on summer vacation. Just came back from the mountains.

[Bolt]

31 minutes ago, arbit said:

Hi. Thanks for asking. I was on summer vacation. Just came back from the mountains.

Noice🌄

[Hikuro]

Parts minus clear pieces are done on mine, only got filler on a few pieces prepped. But the temps are still in the triple digits so I'm not going to really be touching this hard core for maybe another month or month and a half. I also got other projects I'm working on like the 1/20 VF-25. 

[oshanmacross]

It's the clear parts that are an issue, I've seen printing clear parts with industrial grade printers and its a friggan crap shoot.

Edited August 13, 2022 by oshanmacross

[Anasazi37]

1 hour ago, oshanmacross said:

It's the clear parts that are an issue, I've seen printing clear parts with industrial grade printers and its a friggan crap shoot.

I spent several weeks getting my consumer grade resin printer dialed in for handling clear parts, It was a big headache, but in the end worth the effort. My biggest issue was wavy lines of small "champagne bubbles" running vertically through printed parts. Took a lot of work to get that resolved. Result for a printed canopy after some progressive wet sanding and a quick dip in Future:

I've since printed a lot of large clear parts of varying shapes and sizes and they came out well. All will need progressive wet sanding and dips in Future to make them look great, but that's to be expected.

Just took a quick look at all the glass parts for the SDF-2. Most are pretty flat and those will be easier to print. I think the domes will be the most annoying because you'll have to use a bunch of supports and then do a lot of sanding to get rid of the small pock marks they leave behind after removal, but the sanding will work.

[Thom]

Would it be easier to print a buck and then vacform the clear parts from it?

[Anasazi37]

43 minutes ago, Thom said:

Would it be easier to print a buck and then vacform the clear parts from it?

In some ways, yes. I looked into that for the parts that I've had to print and it's my current backup plan. Most consumer grade vacuformers are too small, though. I was starting to build a larger one when I got my printer dialed in. You'd basically have to print the parts, with supports, such that the acetate wraps around the edges well enough during the vacuform process that you can then cut away the excess and still have the ability to "push" the parts into the frame.

[Thom]

I wonder then if you could adjust the STL, printing the central city in regular resin, but breaking up the wraparound framing and glass into three or four pieces that are all printed in clear, then masked after clean-up to paint the frames.

[Anasazi37]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

I wonder then if you could adjust the STL, printing the central city in regular resin, but breaking up the wraparound framing and glass into three or four pieces that are all printed in clear, then masked after clean-up to paint the frames.

Interesting idea and worth considering. For the 1/4000 version that would require a lot of clear resin, which is generally more expensive, but there are two bigger issues. First, the frame sections are quite long and actually exceed the range of most consumer grade resin printers, so you'd have to break the merged frame+glass parts into even more parts so they'd all fit. Second, the glass extends back into the main body of the ship and in two cases is floating on top of some additional city-like structures, almost like the three domes. You'd have to find a way to extract the glass and the surrounding frames from the main body so you could print them. Makes my head hurt thinking about how to pull that off.

No free lunch with this printing project, I guess. Any method you choose has pros and cons.

[Thom]

11 hours ago, Anasazi37 said:

Interesting idea and worth considering. For the 1/4000 version that would require a lot of clear resin, which is generally more expensive, but there are two bigger issues. First, the frame sections are quite long and actually exceed the range of most consumer grade resin printers, so you'd have to break the merged frame+glass parts into even more parts so they'd all fit. Second, the glass extends back into the main body of the ship and in two cases is floating on top of some additional city-like structures, almost like the three domes. You'd have to find a way to extract the glass and the surrounding frames from the main body so you could print them. Makes my head hurt thinking about how to pull that off.

No free lunch with this printing project, I guess. Any method you choose has pros and cons.

I hope you find a way that works best for you! Hey, at least its available.😁

[arbit]

17 hours ago, Anasazi37 said:

I spent several weeks getting my consumer grade resin printer dialed in for handling clear parts, It was a big headache, but in the end worth the effort. My biggest issue was wavy lines of small "champagne bubbles" running vertically through printed parts. Took a lot of work to get that resolved. Result for a printed canopy after some progressive wet sanding and a quick dip in Future:

I've since printed a lot of large clear parts of varying shapes and sizes and they came out well. All will need progressive wet sanding and dips in Future to make them look great, but that's to be expected.

Just took a quick look at all the glass parts for the SDF-2. Most are pretty flat and those will be easier to print. I think the domes will be the most annoying because you'll have to use a bunch of supports and then do a lot of sanding to get rid of the small pock marks they leave behind after removal, but the sanding will work.

Nice canopy! What's the best resin for getting a clear result, without yellowing.  (I use Elegoo translucent, which comes out a bit yellow for larger parts, although I have noticed that small parts may appear yellow the first day, and gradually become more clear as they cure.)

[Anasazi37]

26 minutes ago, Thom said:

I hope you find a way that works best for you! Hey, at least its available.😁

Agreed. I look back on where this hobby was circa 2000 and we were lucky if someone was able to carefully handcraft parts and then successfully cast them in resin during limited production runs. If you missed out on those runs, you were out of luck. Some true artistic masters emerged during that time period, like John Moscato and Mike Salzo, whose craftsmanship continues to be exquisite. We're now living in a print-on-demand world, which brings with it new opportunities and new challenges for folks who want to build awesome-looking models in ridiculous sizes. The fact that I can print and assemble insanely detailed versions of the Aliens Drop Ship (with matching APC) and the Last Starfighter Gunstar, both at 1/35 scale, much less the SDF-2 at 1/4000 scale, boggles my mind. Struggling with how to print the clear sections on this beast is a problem I'm happy to have.

16 minutes ago, arbit said:

Nice canopy! What's the best resin for getting a clear result, without yellowing.  (I use Elegoo translucent, which comes out a bit yellow for larger parts, although I have noticed that small parts may appear yellow the first day, and gradually become more clear as they cure.)

I've found that Elegoo translucent never really comes out completely clear. They've prototyped a crystal clear resin, but haven't released it yet. So I'm using Anycubic Basic Clear for now. It can yellow a tiny bit during initial cure, but if you leave the parts alone for a few days afterwards, the yellowing goes away. To make the Anycubic resin work with my Elegoo Saturn, I switched over to NFEP film in my tank (made by Siraya Tech) to reduce stickiness during lift, lowered the lift speed to 20 mm/min, set the bottom exposure to 45.0 sec, and set the regular exposure time to 4.0 sec. My goal was to minimize the possibility of creating small cavitation bubbles during lift and so far it seems to be working. Does it require all of the changes I've made? I don't know, but I'm in "if it isn't broken, don't mess with it" mode right now. I'm happy to wait a few more hours for a print job to finish if it means I only have to run it once. Below is a screenshot of my settings in Chitubox.

@Jasonc uses a different clear resin, Siraya Blu Clear V2, and he adds some blue dye to mitigate yellowing during initial cure. Blu Clear V2 is supposed to have pretty good anti-yellowing properties on its own, but I haven't been able to test that claim. I have some, but for me it's been more annoying to work with because it's a lot thicker. I'll get around to testing it at some point in the future, but for now the Anycubic resin seems to be working fine.

[Jasonc]

On 8/14/2022 at 8:37 AM, Anasazi37 said:

Agreed. I look back on where this hobby was circa 2000 and we were lucky if someone was able to carefully handcraft parts and then successfully cast them in resin during limited production runs. If you missed out on those runs, you were out of luck. Some true artistic masters emerged during that time period, like John Moscato and Mike Salzo, whose craftsmanship continues to be exquisite. We're now living in a print-on-demand world, which brings with it new opportunities and new challenges for folks who want to build awesome-looking models in ridiculous sizes. The fact that I can print and assemble insanely detailed versions of the Aliens Drop Ship (with matching APC) and the Last Starfighter Gunstar, both at 1/35 scale, much less the SDF-2 at 1/4000 scale, boggles my mind. Struggling with how to print the clear sections on this beast is a problem I'm happy to have.

I've found that Elegoo translucent never really comes out completely clear. They've prototyped a crystal clear resin, but haven't released it yet. So I'm using Anycubic Basic Clear for now. It can yellow a tiny bit during initial cure, but if you leave the parts alone for a few days afterwards, the yellowing goes away. To make the Anycubic resin work with my Elegoo Saturn, I switched over to NFEP film in my tank (made by Siraya Tech) to reduce stickiness during lift, lowered the lift speed to 20 mm/min, set the bottom exposure to 45.0 sec, and set the regular exposure time to 4.0 sec. My goal was to minimize the possibility of creating small cavitation bubbles during lift and so far it seems to be working. Does it require all of the changes I've made? I don't know, but I'm in "if it isn't broken, don't mess with it" mode right now. I'm happy to wait a few more hours for a print job to finish if it means I only have to run it once. Below is a screenshot of my settings in Chitubox.

@Jasonc uses a different clear resin, Siraya Blu Clear V2, and he adds some blue dye to mitigate yellowing during initial cure. Blu Clear V2 is supposed to have pretty good anti-yellowing properties on its own, but I haven't been able to test that claim. I have some, but for me it's been more annoying to work with because it's a lot thicker. I'll get around to testing it at some point in the future, but for now the Anycubic resin seems to be working fine.

I do include the blue alcohol dye because I also add 10-20% Saraya Tech Tenacious. It has a clear but slightly yellow tint, which doesn't affect the blu clear v.2 too much, but I like being a bit cautious. Tenacious mix adds strength, but also flexibility, which is a property that is needed in some parts like a canopy. Those setting looks quite good. I've noticed that I have had to use a longer exposure time going from the Anycubi Mono X 4K to the Elegoo Saturn 2. I am still waiting on the Elegoo Jupiter, but I may end up biting the bullet and getting Anycubic's Photon M3 Max, which has about a 7K resolution. 

What I do like about Anycubic, is that their build plate doesn't use a ball joint to level, but 4 screws, which secures it extremely well, and doesn't require leveling all the time. I know I'm going off topic, but I will probably try these settings on the Saturn 2 to see how the canopies come out on my end using the same resin you are.

[Anasazi37]

5 hours ago, Jasonc said:

I do include the blue alcohol dye because I also add 10-20% Saraya Tech Tenacious. It has a clear but slightly yellow tint, which doesn't affect the blu clear v.2 too much, but I like being a bit cautious. Tenacious mix adds strength, but also flexibility, which is a property that is needed in some parts like a canopy. Those setting looks quite good. I've noticed that I have had to use a longer exposure time going from the Anycubi Mono X 4K to the Elegoo Saturn 2. I am still waiting on the Elegoo Jupiter, but I may end up biting the bullet and getting Anycubic's Photon M3 Max, which has about a 7K resolution. 

What I do like about Anycubic, is that their build plate doesn't use a ball joint to level, but 4 screws, which secures it extremely well, and doesn't require leveling all the time. I know I'm going off topic, but I will probably try these settings on the Saturn 2 to see how the canopies come out on my end using the same resin you are.

Hope the experiment goes well!

[arbit]

I applied a light gray dry brush to give it more of a space ship color and bring out some details. Still need to add a ton of tiny city lights to bring it to life.

[Bolt]

Nice job! Looking good!

[tekering]

22 hours ago, arbit said:

Still need to add a ton of tiny city lights to bring it to life.

Wow!  How are you possibly gonna add lights...? 😮

[arbit]

10 minutes ago, tekering said:

Wow!  How are you possibly gonna add lights...? 😮

Ha ha. Not real lights at this scale. Only painted lights.  But this is a proto-type test model for a larger lit model hopefully.

[arbit]

WIP continues...

Edited September 3, 2022 by arbit

[oshanmacross]

Anyone doing a build dairy for this beast perhaps on another site?
I just got mine over the holiday and still figuring out methods for the clear parts.

[nightmareB4macross]

Post a picture of the parts. Are they really foggy? Or do they require a lot of filling of print lines?

[oshanmacross]

Here are the parts, In the past working with traditional resin parts I've had realy good luck finishing with nail manicure polishing boards.
Then finishing off with NOVUS Plastic Polish.

[505thAirborne]

From this scene in Flashback 2012 the Megaroad-01 dwarfs the SDF-1, for an accurate 1/4000 build it would have to be pretty damn big... correct?

[Bolt]

That view has always confused me !

It seems like the Megaroad should be the foreground and the SDF-1 the background.  Otherwise the Megaroad is friggin huge !

[sketchley]

3 hours ago, Bolt said:

That view has always confused me !

It seems like the Megaroad should be the foreground and the SDF-1 the background.  Otherwise the Megaroad is friggin huge !

• SDF-1: 1,200 m long
• Megaroad-01: 1,770 m long

Given the size of the cityscape in front, the Megaroad-01 is a bit on the large size.  However, the SDF-1 is way too small in that Flashback 2012 scene.  Chalk it up to artistic licence to emphasize the scale of the Megaroad-01?