The first model I designed in Trimble Sketchup and it took me about 45 minutes. The print was about 5 1/2 hours, but this was in a quite high resolution and not challenging the printer speed wise. I dare say I can get this down by an hour or so.
There are no fine details on the model as Sketchup doesn't cope well with small objects. I'm contemplating leaving these off and maybe having a detail pack designed on another package at a later date.
The next piece has been the bane of my life. This model which was designed by ffaat is on Thingiverse here. This is a Mighty/Planetary Empires Tile for my blogger buddy Kaelo over at the Battle bunnies. I've gone through about 15 tries till I printed this one. The source file is a parametric file (meaning it's drawn mathematically rather than with lines), which I had to spend sometime understanding. Also the model didn't like the normal square infill grid, so I had to change to triangles. So I had these and a couple of other different issues to work out, but I know what's going on now (I think). This is the good one with the best of the rest.
Have you got a 3D printer? Thinking of getting one? Let me know in the comments below.
The long hobby war continues...
