Creating pinshape printable versions of FDM technique prints

How to Use Pinshape
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Hi all,
I’m brand new to here, got invited by a message from a user on thing***se.
Some of my best new models are solids that I print with a few base layers and then a single fat perimeter, no top layers. To print on powders with laser bonding is a technique I’ve never had experience in setting up.

Here are some things I can easily do in Slicer, Cura or Mattercontrol:
Scale: all axis or individual axis.
Choose different fill styles including empty.
Choose number of perimeters and top and bottom layers.

To print a Vase for example, I have an openscad algorithm I wrote to skin a tubular solid with edge joined triangles according to formulae I insert to modify the radius and height in various mathematical patterns.
This produces a non simple model for anything above 1 layer high. It fails in slic3r, but Mattercontrol has no issues with it, I typically print 3 to 4 bottom layers and one fat perimeter. I get great adhesion and the model looks good, feels robust.
Sometimes I decide I want to scale a model, so I simply adjust the axis and reprint, no problem. This should be an option for customers on here, there will be interior decorators and architects, householders who want a quite precisely sized version of models on here.

Use of non solid fill styles is of great benefit on FDM printers as lighter parts may be made with similar strength and less volume of material. Jewelers will be doing this with gold as soon as it’s available.

Voronoi processing gives some of these advantages as a preprocessing step but not if we are still requiring the full unbroken skin.

Can pinshape provide any of these features and if so, as designers, how do we enable the options as preset and/or with ranges for customer selection?

Graham

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Hi Graham,

Thanks for the great questions. These features and certainly in our pipeline for future implementation. We certainly see the importance of being able to reduce material usage as a means of reducing print cost, and know that scaling will be helpful to many people. At this point, we don’t have those features implemented, however. Part of the complexity in these more advanced features comes from our decision to support multi-file designs, meaning we need to develop a user friendly interface for dealing with all of thee options in a way that satisfies our users. Thanks so much for the suggestions, we will keep them in mind as we plan our development.

If you have any more thoughts, we’d love to hear them!

Thanks,
Nick

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I’m in a similar situation, as an FDM owner buiding things for PinShape and other sites, you just have to accept that this is a different process and that the things you do in one won’t work in the other.

For example, SLS can do prints without regard to oritentaion or need for supports that is a major concern in FDM. Even supported printing often doesn’t yield the sort of results that SLS can do with ease. In fact the point that some of these tricks don’t work in certian slicers are evidence of the fact that while they’re cool they shouldn’t be relied upon.

For some of the things you talk about you can create geometry that simulates the effect you’re looking for. I don’t know how to do it in OpenScad but in Blender the solidify modifier can be used to create solid walled objects from hollow geometry. I do it all the time…

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minkowski of an object with a modifier shape and subtracting the original object from the result would give that result in openscad. :slight_smile: