1 hour ago, buckero0 said:

Are the filaments hard to replace or can you get those from Amazon as well?

You can get them on Amazon. There's lots of manufacturers of PLA filament, I'm still trying to figure out what brand I prefer.

So I've been printing a lot. Here's all the parts so far to the modular Imperial Walls 2.0 set from Imperial Terrain, along with a raised landing pad.

Here's the landing pad close up, with a Shoretrooper to give scale:

Did you ever play Jedi Academy II? they had similar places .

I see your goose is down, is everything okay?

1 hour ago, buckero0 said:

Did you ever play Jedi Academy II? they had similar places .

I see your goose is down, is everything okay?

Yes, I've played that game. Been a very long time since I played it though, barely remember anything about it.

That's actually a second goose. That one I printed in different colors for each part so no paint needed. I also took a digital file of a standard infantry base for Legion, resized it, and printed it out as a base to attach the goose to. That goose is a gift for a friend.

A week from this Sunday a friend should be visiting and we'll play a game of Legion with all this new terrain. Looking forward to the Empire crushing his puny rebels.

I look forward to hearing your perspective on the terrain in play.

A question: have you been magnetizing the pieces? I like the idea of being able to snap pieces together in different configurations and have them stay put (more or less) on a battlefield, but I concede that it's probably not really necessary for things like the larger wall sections.

Another question (or three): You've been printing quite a bit; how are you liking it so far? Are the prints (and printer!) living up to your expectations in terms of detail, value, and utility? And finally, how would you describe your progress and learning curve so far?

22 hours ago, SFC Snuffy said:

I look forward to hearing your perspective on the terrain in play.

A question: have you been magnetizing the pieces? I like the idea of being able to snap pieces together in different configurations and have them stay put (more or less) on a battlefield, but I concede that it's probably not really necessary for things like the larger wall sections.

Another question (or three): You've been printing quite a bit; how are you liking it so far? Are the prints (and printer!) living up to your expectations in terms of detail, value, and utility? And finally, how would you describe your progress and learning curve so far?

Magnetizing:
If a print has a slot to add a magnet, I've been doing that. A lot of the Imperial Terrain brand's stuff has magnet slots.

I'm enjoying the printing process. It's fun to just watch the printer go, and I've always been rubbish at scratch-building terrain, so this is a great medium for me. Eventually I want to learn 3d modeling and start making some stuff of my own.

The prints and printer are overall living up to my expectations. I see slight visible layer lines, but I knew that was going to happen with a plastic 3d printer instead of resin. The printer itself has required a little maintenance. I've had to deal with a clogged nozzle twice, but that was easily fixed by doing a "cold pull" or "atomic pull" process. Even with the layer lines, detail has been great. I wouldn't print miniatures that i want really fine detail on, but for terrain especially it works great. Value, if I look at what it would cost to purchase already made terrain, this is definitely cheaper. I don't know if I'd say the printer has paid for itself yet, but I'd think a break even point would be coming soon.

Learning Curve and Progress
So it took a bit to understand slicer settings, and how to get the best results out of my specific printer, but now that I have those dialed in to a good place, slicing is pretty simple. The more I use the machine the better i understand what will and won't work. I'm still trying to land on a brand or two of PLA filament that I like best.

On 6/28/2020 at 6:32 PM, oreet said:

So far, the biggest issue I've run into is bed leveling.

Get yourself a BL Touch. Quick, cheap and easy upgrade. And print yourself a Hero Me (Gen5) cooling fan duct: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4460970

Only other upgrades I'm planning on for my Ender-5 Pro eventually are for when I venture beyond PLA (all-metal hot end, glass plate and enclosure) as well as a 3DChameleon specifically for printing lithophanes (once CMYK PLA becomes available here in Europe).

I've been trying to wrap my head around the BL Touch since before I bought my printer. The bed is leveled by 4 manual screws (one on each corner of the print bed). If one of those screws is way off in terms of leveling, I just don't understand how an electronic device can adjust this. There's no motor attached to those screws to level it by itself. It seems like what this does is just compensate for a poorly leveled bed, adjusting the z axis in the middle of printing a single layer to force the printed object to conform to the unlevel print bed.

Latest print is a Dice Tower from Corvus Games Terrain. The top of the tower looks a little funky because there was a nozzle clog towards the end. The top is rather brittle and i could easily crush it with my hand. It will do for now, I'll eventually reprint the tower part.

Here is a video of it in action:
https://imgur.com/Gxq262C

Looks like you are printing non stop

however Its sounds strange you get nozzle clog several times in a short period of time

Did you try change the nozzle or just "cold pull" method.

I get few weeks ago with my ender3 some under extrusion/nozzle clog, the reasons for this problem is "multiple"

But I get the bad habit to switch off the printer immediately after print is complete (its better to keep the hot end fan running until temp is below 40)

I change nozzle, and cut the last 20mm PTFE tube and from now everything is OK so far

So I think the culprit for the clogged nozzles is the roll of black filament I bought. It seems to only happen after prolonged printing with that roll. If I use any of the other stuff I have, I can print without troubles.

I have not swapped out the nozzle yet, I've just done cold pulls which have been working so far. I am probably going to swap out nozzles the next time I get a clog.

Right now I'm working through all the parts to this set:

https://imperialterrain.com/collections/stls-for-star-wars-legion-terrain/products/desert-carrier-by-jesus-digital-stl-file

So we had a game on Sunday, and here's the table setup after the game (the TIE Fighter wasn't in the game, it was printing while we were playing). The only terrain on the table that I did not print are the river and pools to lava, the official barricades from FFG, the Imperial Tank's crates on the landing pad, the 2 stone arches (the ones not going over the lava river), and the red crystal clusters.

...and here's some mid-battle photos:

E-Web Ready to put a hurting on the Airspeeder:

Stormtroopers preparing for those filthy Rebels:

Sniper says "I see you" to Han Solo through the rock arch:

Rebels charging the Imperial base:

Han leading the charge (in the end, he took out almost this entire squad himself, Chewie helped):

Wow, that mini-sandcrawler is bigger than I thought!

Nice-looking terrain, sir!

That's great, keep it going!

Reminds me when I got my printer last year and couldn't stop printing for weeks. 😀

So many temple ruins...

8 hours ago, SFC Snuffy said:

Wow, that mini-sandcrawler is bigger than I thought!

Nice-looking terrain, sir!

Yeah, it's bigger than I expected, which is great.

We're talking about making a house rule for movable terrain. So far the idea is after the command phase, the Red player gets to make the sand crawler make a speed 2 movement, but cannot crash into any player models.

We're probably going to try it out next time we play and see how it goes.

3 hours ago, L_A_D said:

That's great, keep it going!

Reminds me when I got my printer last year and couldn't stop printing for weeks. 😀

So many temple ruins...

I've been slowing down the last week or so, because I only have the one table and limited storage space in my game room (although I plan on adding more shelving to solve that).

On 7/28/2020 at 9:13 PM, SFC Snuffy said:

Wow, that mini-sandcrawler is bigger than I thought!

Nice-looking terrain, sir!

Here's some photos to give a better sense of scale on the mini-sandcrawler. The door on the back is hinged, and the roof is removable.

Taking a break from the Imperial Terrain products I've bought, and trying out a modular walkway system I found on Thingiverse. One issue I have with my current terrain is when I use the lava river, I don't have any good ways to cross the river, so this system will hopefully solve a few issues:

1. The industrial look will help flesh out the Imperial Mining Facility theme I'm trying to go with on the table
2. Give ways for units to cross the lava river
3. Create chokepoints on the table
4. Add more ways to encourage different elevation levels on the table.

Here is the set I'm working with:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2814307

And here is what I have printed so far. Added Darth Vader to scale:

After posting that photo, I realized this one would be more useful. The long walkway bridge easily crosses the river, and with some modifications to the stairs files, I could make a small set of 2 or 3 steps to go from the platform up onto the landing pad to help tie things together.

6 hours ago, oreet said:

After posting that photo, I realized this one would be more useful. The long walkway bridge easily crosses the river, and with some modifications to the stairs files, I could make a small set of 2 or 3 steps to go from the platform up onto the landing pad to help tie things together.

Far be it from me to step in the way of you stretching your 3D modeling skills, but the walkway in the middle (the one with the railing) might be an easier if not more-elegant solution. It looks as though the pegs on the end of the walkway slot into the square holes around the edges of the platform. One end could have those pegs rounded off with a little sandpaper and you could drill corresponding holes around the perimeter of your landing pad. It looks as though the incline shouldn't be too bad, allowing models to remain relatively stable.

Just a random thought!

So I've been printing more pieces to this platform set, and so far here's everything I've got completed and assembled. As always, Bossk is here to help with scale. Mostly because his paint job is the one I'm the happiest with so far out of my Imperial and Rebel armies.

I use a 0.5 nozzle, which speeds up printing by an incredible amount. I get pretty good detail that is easy to cover any defects with paint. But the difference is I was able to print the entire landing pad in a day vice 2.5. I also cut my infill to 5% which saves a ton of plastic and time as well. But I will give full props to Imperial Terrain, their models are excellent and easy to print. If you are having problems with bed adhesion spend the 30$ and buy a glass bed. A glass bed and a hint of cheap hair spray you will never have a bed adhesion issue again (sometimes it's the opposite lol, and you fight to take the prints off). I did have to jack my bed heat to 70 though because of the time it takes to heat the glass and maintain it throughout the print.

I'd post pics but my ability to post is low as I was showing off my custom built gaming table in the Armada forums... so no space left.

Thanks. I'll consider a wider nozzle when I need to replace my current one. Next print job I slice I'll give 5% infill a shot.

So here's the settings I've been using, and I've had almost no bed adhesion issues for the last few weeks/months using the magnetic bed:

0.4 nozzle, 0.2 layer height, wall line count 4, top and bottom layers 4, 10% cubic infill, 210C nozzle temp, 70C build plate temp, 60.0 speed with Top/Bottom speed 15.0, Initial fan speed 33, Regular Fan Speed of 100 starts at layer 4, most items use no build plate adhesion, some i'll add a brim.

I used to have some clogged nozzle issues, but I think that was from using cheap filament. I switched to only using PLA from Hatchbox and Gizmodorks, and so far I've gone through 2.5 kg filament without a single clog, which was unheard of using the cheaper Amazon stuff I was using.