3D Printing for Wargamers: Introduction
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2024
- So you've heard about 3D printing and wondered if you could use it for your wargaming hobby. But you don't have any experience and have never used a 3D printer before. In this series, Steve walks you through his 3D printing journey as a complete novice, breaking down exactly how you can start printing miniatures and terrain at home. For this introductory episode in a multi-part series, Steve explains how affordable 3D printers will revolutionize your wargaming hobby.
Stay tuned to Little Wars TV for the next part in our 3D printing series and go to www.LittleWarsTV.com for all our latest news. - Ігри
Really glad I stumbled across this series. Debating whether 3D printing is something I want to get into but there are a lot of opinions out there. It is really helpful to see a straightforward layout of everything involved pro and con.
A fairly impressive intro to the wonders of 3d printing for Warhammer, and nice Prusa. :) will be watching for more from you, despite your disclaimer that the series is less for us with printers and exp, cause we can all only benefit when we continue to share knowledge! Keep it up!
Can't wait for the rest of this series! I've been half-assedly looking at 3d printing. And that intro was hilarious.
Really looking forward to this series. The tech has really improved.
Thanks for starting this series. Several of us in the local area keep talking about taking the plunge but haven’t worked up the nerve yet
Just what I need to hear seriously thank you
So well put together. A perfect introduction!
Thank you very much for your suggestion.
Thank you for this series on 3D printers. It is the single most helpful video series I have found on UA-cam since I've been researching 3D printers. It probably helps that I'm a gamer and will be using my printer for the same things you are.
You're very welcome!
Love the introduction!
I've been sitting on the fence about getting a 3-D printer for years now. Thank you for making this series
well now you can make that fence
great video! I've instantly subscribed. I'm actually a 40k gamer but this is such a good concise and approachable introduction I had to subscribe. Just got a Monoprice mini V1. Have been messing with settings on cura today and think I'm starting to get the hang of it. Really excited to print a load of terrain and maybe even some miniatures.
Thank you so much for this, I've just built my own fff printer after going through a lot of research. This video series was a great introduction into 3d printers. Awesome channel, great job.
Glad it was helpful!
As a teenager who got into wargaming and 3d printing I am glad I found your channel
We're glad you found us! Welcome!
Very informative thanks Steve and co
Very motivational. I've always been interested but unsure of where to start. Great video, thanks!
Very interesting video! I known nothing at all about 3D printers and will be following your series with great interest.
Thanks for sharing.
Well, looks like I'll be spending 200 or so here soon! You did answer my question about the sizing of models though. So thank you for that!
Great video. I am so glad to see more from LittleWarsTV. Keep them coming guys!
Prof. Otto von Pompus... just great... Loved it Steve
It's the part I was born to play!
If he's British, Prof Oliver Pompensmyth would have been better.
Get on with it man! My painting pile is shrinking! I must have more!This has been most interesting, thank you.
Amazing channel! Love your content, you seem genuine who loves what he's doing!
I really enjoyed talking to you about this topic at HMGS Cold Wars 2019 and I'm excited to see what you have in store for us in this series! I'm starting to use a bunch of 3d printed 28mm vehicles in my games and this might finally convince me to pull the trigger and bring production "in house".
A couple guys in our club are all considering following Steve's lead and pulling the trigger, as well. This might push me over the edge.
Do it Greg, you won't regret it! With a little time and tweaking you'll be able to get the same level of quality you were showing me at Cold Wars.
Thank you for the information, been thinking about a printer for awhile now
I have a 3D printer and was printing 1/72 for dioramas then is started watching your channel and had an idea to print them then I saw this video
pretty darn cool - great video. very informative
Great video Steve, thanks! This is definitely on my radar when I finish the Gamer's Den. I see that the Prusa printer is currently the top rated machine out here. I am blown away by the quality of the models you have made. Looks like the solution to collecting more buildings and terrain for sure.....now what to do with all of that foam board I have...LOL. Cheers!
I can't speak highly enough of my Prusa. It has been a true workhorse and well worth every penny I spent on it above and beyond what I could have gotten other printers for. Look for more discussion of what the Prusa brings to the table as compared to another printer I own in the next episode!
This is pretty exciting!! Can't wait for one of my friends to get a 3D printer!! ;)
Thank you, really useful (and interesting).
EVEN NOW (2020) ITS A GOOD VID AND HELPED ME DECIDE THANKS
Looking forward to more. Subscribed.
Thanks! The next part in this series will hopefully be dropping next week.
BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!!! - NOT, that was a great intro, especially since I just got a 3d printer myself for wargaming. I look forward to your series on this. Thanks
Nice suite
Much needed series. Thanks. Waiting for full color 3D hi-res printers; so I don't have to paint anymore either. ;)
Haha yes THAT will truly be a game changer. May have to wait a few more years for that one...
Grab a Mosaic Pallette. Haven't tried one out though.
www.mosaicmfg.com/
That intro was awesome lol
Definitely interested in the rest of this series. I would also like to see close ups of the models printed out. I say that because some printers create models with very obvious layers that ruin the looks of the piece. Your models look great from what I've seen so far but I thought I saw some of those nasty lines on one of the Pz IV's. (They didn't actually look that bad btw.) That's by no means a deal breaker because , though visible, the lines may not have any substantial effect on the actual surface. If they do, perhaps that can be alleviated with a surface primer or some thinned putty. I LOVE the idea of being able to do a fleet of Star Trek ships like the D-7's, Saratoga and Larson class you had displayed on the table. Or even better, some personal 15mm vehicle and troop designs for SciFi forces I've had kicking around in my head for years. Yes, Please continue this series and spare us no details. Thanks very much. So glad I subbed last week lol.
You'll see a bunch of close-ups in the next video, and there is no doubt even at the thinnest setting, the layers are visible at that visual distance. For me, though, once I prime and paint and put on the table at arm's length, I really don't see them anymore. Everybody's tolerance for this sort of thing is different though!
I know nothing about 3d printing. I'm not convinced that I'll make the jump just yet, but very interesting video.
So disppointed, no Scotch was supplied. :-) This is a good item. I am looking forward to the rest.
I'm looking forward to this series, but please be aware, I presently believe this is witchcraft!
As a practicing Witch, I concur, but it is use of the craft waaaaaaaaay beyond my current abilities. Blessed Be! I may have a friend who will make great use of this information though so shall forward your video on to him.
Epona TwoSpiritHorse can you do a Wicca blessing on my new printer so I can drop the inevitable miscasting that I’m expecting to have. Now do you bless the printer or the .stl files? This could be a new source of income for you. Lol!
Filament is actually 1.75mm, and is readily available through Amazon. 3D printers are available from just under $200 to the sky is the limit, but for our hobby you can get a good one for about $250. I won't get into brands, but most are from China, except for one large firm from Europe. I have managed to print most of my 15mm armor for NATO and the Warsaw Pact from my printer(s). Yes, I do have more than one, but that is merely from starting and getting a better one when I could afford it along the way. Not sure if there is way to contact me directly, but if there is, I will be more than happy to answer questions.
Great video. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series. I bought a Creality Ender 3 a month ago and it has been printing almost non-stop since. I’ve recouped the cost of the printer and material already with the savings I’ve made over resin or MDF and plastic kits.
I'll talk a bit about the Ender 3 in the next video. There is simply no doubt it's a solid machine that seems to have helped 3D printing become more mainstream with it's very reasonable price point and relative ease of use. If any current terrain manufacturers out there aren't planning on how to deal with the impact of 3D printing on their businesses, they are making a huge mistake.
I agree, I can see most other kits going the way of the dinosaurs eventually. Resin is expensive and heavy, MDF is light enough to freight halfway around the world but isn’t highly detailed and plastic kits can be fragile and aren’t always built for wargaming with removable roofs. Living in Tasmania the freight on anything from Europe or US is prohibitively expensive, anywhere from AUD20 up toAUD70, so a two story building that I print for less than AUD15 (that includes the initial file purchase) would cost me approximately AUD50 in MDF or plastic kit locally and resin would be around AUD100. Big savings!
Wow! Ok, Steve you have re-sparked my interests in 3D printing. Sooooo...my sons bought me a Tevo Tornado this past Christmas. For me, what a steep learning curve. Seriously, didn't know squat about X, Y or even Z axis. Needless to say, I haven't printed anything for gaming as of yet. I'm still farting around with leveling the bed and printing test cubes. Very disappointed as I have stopped messing with the printer as it sits on a desk in another room. The support from Tevo is essentially from Facebook...ugh! So, I'm hoping your series of videos will help me through the basic steps of set-up and execution. Maybe I missed the obvious or doing something wrong.
The unfortunate aspect of 3D Printing is that there are a lot of printer models out there, and each have their quirks. I don't own a Tevo, so I can't really help with some specifics, but it is an i3 clone and thus similar to other clones like the Ender 3 from Creality. As such for specific help I'd check out some of the more detailed videos out there focused on the Tevo or Ender 3. One place I'd recommend checking out is the UA-cam channel "Tomb of 3d Printed Horrors." Tom (the presenter) does a nice job of getting down into the more technical details you may be needing (including leveling). Good luck!
Was going to add this same comment. I was surprised by how steep the learning curve was. In the forums you see a bunch of comments about how 3D printing is a hobby in itself. I wasn't looking for another hobby! I suspect that had I spent more $$'s (like the Prusa Steve has), my experience would have been better. The good news is, once you get your machine dialed in, it is fairly amazing - especially the ability to scale models to exactly the size you want. Don't think you missed anything, but keep at it and you'll likely get over the hump at some point.
Very, very interestingggggggg
I have a balco prusa clone but haven't used it as I couldn't get my head round the setup 😢
I am so close to clicking that button and head into 3D printing.... interesting stuff. Given they run for hours is there a noise issue and does it use a lot of electricity?
Boots on the Table with GamerDom electricity use seems minimal, and noise will depend on what printer you buy. They can range from nearly silent to rather loud. I discuss this a bit in episode two when comparing two FDM printers at different price points.
Do you guys play any games using the bolt action or flames of war rule sets??
Great video. Where did you get the .stl files for the Larson class destroyer and the Klingon D-7’s?
thingiverse.com -- which is the first place I look for anything I want to print. I designed the stands myself in Fusion 360.
Do We a list of 3D printers for this year?
how many times does it malfunction during a print job and you have to start over
where do you start for 6mm tanks?
Gaslands is not historic! It's prophetic.
I'm running an Ender 3 and a Photon. The photon is pretty amazing. While there is some post processing to do, and clean up is a serious pain in the butt, I find the DLP printer to be easier and more reliable than the FDM. There's a single axis (z), you tell the slicer the layer height and exposure time. The tricky part is getting the supports just right. The best thing is it prints the whole layer at once, so printing half a dozen doodads takes the same amount of time as a single doodad.
With FDM, there are waaaaay more moving parts, way more variables, way more things that can go wrong. But it is a lot less expensive, and vastly cleaner.
I've been close to getting a Photon a number of times, but ultimately decided to stick with my FDMs for now. Mostly it's due to not being sure what I would really use the Photon for as I'm printing mainly terrain pieces at this point.
I print all my terrain in PLA. The photon I use for minis and props. Heroforge minis printed on the photon are phenomenal.
I am quite happy with the photon. Miniatures I print with it are at least as good as say, Reaper's bones. They're more brittle though. Mine was less than $400 on amazon. They go on sale frequently.
That is the same brand and color I use for filament.
Tropical Wargaming the price is right, and it shows off a lot of detail even unpainted. Better yet, it seems to print really well on both of my printers!
What model printer do you use
For that extensive collection of miniatures behind you, where did you get the stl's? And for the ones you designed yourself, have you, or are you going to, make the stl's available?
Stu.
BNSF3012 Nscale episode 3 is where I discuss where to find good STLs and I have all the info on where I got the files. As for the one’s I designed myself, they are not currently available, but if I get a chance to clean them up a bit, I may put them out there.
Going to be a great series, thanks. Do you have a source for STL files for vehicles and infantry? I'm interesting in 6mm scale modeling
I'll be discussing good places to get STL files in part three, but I will say that historical infantry is...tough to find. Vehicles and terrain for historical gaming is easier, and anything can be resized (as mentioned in the video). For really fine 6mm stuff, though, you'll likely have to get a resin printer to get satisfactory results.
Thingiverse.com is my go to.
That is certainly always my first stop!
How much you can print with 1kg of filament? Well i got 3 imperial knight titans.. and still got much left for 2more..
Its 1.75mm actually. Did you use PLA?
Glad 2019 found you. 3D printing has been reliable and inexpensive for years now...the Ender 3 alone has been out for over a year.
Balderdash! This is heresy I tell you! I knew that Scotch habit would have terrible consequences.
To be really pompous, never end a sentence with a preposition. Should have said "...with which they are enamoured". Just kidding! Funny intro, can't wait for the rest of your series.
Great! I notice you didn’t mention figures? Is there a reason for that? I don’t need 1000 Pz Iv but could do with 1000 figures!
I actually touch on this in the next two episodes. In short, while there are TONS of STL files out there for fantasy and sci-fi figures, historical figures are not nearly as common. That’s why I’ve pretty much just been printing terrain and vehicles so far.
where do u get your files from
A lot of different places- some paid, some free. Episode three of the series will delve into some of the best options I've found out there.
which printer do you recommend? and at what price is it?
haha he says at the end he would help people choose their printer so nevermind
@@jacksont.7792 Indeed, the second part of the series will focus on the printer options, various prices, and what you get for the money. Steve has two different printers at very different price points, so it's a great comparison.
@@jacksont.7792 Yep, next episode will be all about choosing the right printer for you. Stay tuned!
Did I miss someone correcting him? It is 1.75mm plastic filament not 2.75mm
2 minute terrain tutorial on greek parthanon
Design Spark Mechanical 4, to design from scratch, Its free. Repetier Host, (Cura) slicer. Again it is free.
FUNNY GREAT ...
How much of a electricity hog is the printer?
I'm actually running two 3D printers quite a bit and the energy usage I can attribute to them is minimal. I can't say EXACTLY how much electricity they use as I do not have a meter specifically dedicated to test them, but my estimate would be pennies for even a multi-hour print.
My grief with printing is the quality. Those lines or layers are a pain to deal with.
Look into some of the resin printers out there. The materials are more of a pain to work with, (and I think a bit more expensive) but they're generally better with detail and smoothness. Something like theAnycubic Photon does amazing stuff for $450-ish.
@@GuyInnagorillasuit
In my experience with my brothers printer, the details seem to get lost or rounded out. This is why I hate printing vehicles and figures but have no problem with using it for terrain.
Not all printers are created equal, and there's a TON to learn about slicing that can make or break the quality of a print.
@@kevinfischer8647 Which printing technology is his printer using? The reason I said "resin" (DLP or LCD)is that visible layers aren't the same kind of issue that they are with the FDM printers. At least at entry/consumer level.
I was hesitant too, at first. The lines were very visible in all the closeup shots I had seen. Once I got printing and dialed my settings in, then primed and painted the terrain and miniatures, the lines were much less of a problem for me. Then have them sitting on a table a couple of feet away and they disappear completely to my eyes. Of course everyone has a different "tolerance" for these sorts of things, so your mileage may vary!
I need to bite the bullet and buy a 3d printer
I spot GASLANDS templates😬
I'm only MOSTLY a historical gamer, and prefer Car Wars over Gaslands for automotive combat, but Gaslands is certainly faster playing!