3D printers

T pot 2

Active member
Just been watching the news on BBC this morning and the subject of 3D printers was being aired. Daft question time, would it be possible with one of these to have a model negative of a cave (positive would be the open cave passage hosted in say a survex program) in a size that could be put on a shelf etc.

T  pot
 

graham

New member
I discussed this with a company that produces 3d models about a year ago. He could have easily done this from a vrml model, which can be generated by Therion.

Trouble was it was a tad on the expensive side, though I don't remember the exact cost.
 

manrabbit

Member
Best way is to use two resins, one clear and another colour to represent the passages. You could even go as far as using other colours to represent different types of passages.
 

Subpopulus Hibernia

Active member
Something like a chamber would be easy enough to do, but a set of passages on various levels would be quite difficult because you'd have to design in support material to stop the passages deforming as they're being printed.
 

ChrisJC

Well-known member
Also note there is quite a difference between the somewhat romanticised idea of hitting 'print' and an arbitrary shape emerges and the reality.

The low end models (e.g. ?2.5K) will eventually produce what you want, provided you diced it up into small parts for the printer to create, and then glued them together afterwards.

The industrial stuff (e.g. SLA, SLS) will do it in one go, but might cost you a few hundred (to a few thousand) for the result!

Chris.
 

T pot 2

Active member
Thanks guys for the replies, seems it is possible to have a 3D cave on your shelf with a little jiggery pokery perhaps, but at some cost. Looks like a few more years will have to lapse before 3D printing will be cheap enough to make my daft question come true.

T pot
 

Roger W

Well-known member
When you think of what modern 2-D colour printers can do now, compared with the old dot-matrix jobs we had when I started computing...

It won't be that long before we have some affordable kit that will scan a cave as you go through, then print out a 3-D model in the pub afterwards!
 

Duncan Price

Active member
T pot 2 said:
Just been watching the news on BBC this morning and the subject of 3D printers was being aired. Daft question time, would it be possible with one of these to have a model negative of a cave (positive would be the open cave passage hosted in say a survex program) in a size that could be put on a shelf etc.

I refer you to CREG Journal 81 where there are three articles on the technology and its applications to caving (including 3D cave models).  The topic has been discussed before here and this thread contains a lot of useful references.

I have seen items of cave diving gear (line spools and arrows) made by a home 3D printer.  I would be concerned about the mechanical integrity of the output from cheap home printers though we've had stuff made by rapid prototyping for work which have been very good quality.
 

caving_fox

Active member
You can buy kits to build your own printyer (usually contasining tiems made by a 3D printer!) they don't cost that much (unless you're thinking in terms of stingy cavers). They are limited to about a cubic foot of volume. As above support lines are a bit of an issue, but generally not that bad. It is becoming ever more mainstream, prices falling rapidly and support much more widely available. ten years ago this was still a barely imagined concept, A couple of years ago this was strictly for dedicated nerds, now you can buy them almost off the shelf although its still for early adopters.
 

Alkapton

Member
I think Maplin sell a kit for just ?600ish.  It can only print one color at a time.  To make model with different colors you have to print separate  parts and glue them together.
 

Subpopulus Hibernia

Active member
Makerbots are a fairly reliable commercial kit, easy to put together and good print quality.

RepRap printers are open source 3D printers, you can get this as a kit, though it's possible to build them yourself if you have access to a 3d printer already so you can print the components. It uses other bits of open source technology like Arduino boards, and driver software. My housemate built one this year, easier to build than I would have expected, though you'd have to be reasonably technically minded and quite patient.

If you're not keen to build or buy a 3D printer then there's companies online like Shapeways that will take a digital file, print your object and post it out to you. They print in umpteen different materials, including metal (not cheap)

I've though about using the printer to make caving related stuff myself, but I can't see a huge amount of applications beyond small clips and the like.
 

IanWalker

Active member
Have access to a 3D printer at work. Anyone got an electronic survey in suitable format they want to share...?
 

Bob Mehew

Well-known member
marysboy said:
Have access to a 3D printer at work. Anyone got an electronic survey in suitable format they want to share...?

No but I do have a stl file of a bear's skull found in Claonaite.  Would you be interested in trying this?
 

IanWalker

Active member
Thanks Bob, will investigate file types and get back to you.

Got two offers now (one by PM) so think that's enough for now...

Ian.
 
BBC - when home 3D printing goes wrong

_69321572_bad_print_composite2.jpg


_69320092_rich1.jpg


_69324630_squiggles.jpg
 

TheBitterEnd

Well-known member
"Technology is the word we use for things that don't work yet"

It will come. At the moment these things are relatively easy to put together but fiddly to get set up properly to get good print quality. There are quite a few on line services that will print your models for you and these are probably the best option at the moment. The plastic filament is pretty expensive so whether you do it yourself or online the cost is fairly high.

See this for an alternative approach which may be more "true" to caving:

Markus Kayser - Solar Sinter Project
 

kdxn

New member
Not exactly printing, more laser burning.
Here is an alternative way to show a cave in 3D.
GG main chamber, shaft and shakehole in crystal.
9629123693_ccb91e25d7.jpg
 

NigelG

Member
Out of sight, that's where.

If the model was from a LIDAR data-set Jib Tunnel (not "Gib") is hidden by solid rock to laser range-finding, just as they are from our own sight, although we know it is above the rather diffuse aven to the right of the Main Shaft representation. Similarly its entrance is obscured in the shakehole part of the survey by the boulders outside. Its relatives, & North Passage, etc. are similarly invisible.  Adding Jib Tunnel, Rat Hole etc would mean dragging the survey equipment into them.

My question is from what material was the model made, and how the laser cutting achieves set depths - I know laser through- cutting of shapes from sheet material but I've not seen this application before.

As an aside, the name Jib Tunnel commemorates the passage being used for the first winched descents into Main Chamber; the "jib" being a beam placed across the pitch head... somehow.   
 
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