this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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3DPrinting

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I'm creating a board game that has custom 3d pieces. I'd like to test out my print before I send it to the game manufacturer and also want to make demo sets. They need a huge tooling fee before they'll do samples. There are app. 10 designs and no bigger than 45mm.

I'm not sure as to whether I should buy a starter printer or would the learning curve be so big that I should just have a POD company do it. I know blender really well but have never printed anything from a file. I was going to make the file from blender for the company too. Any thoughts? I think my SO and I would use it for other things, probably, maybe, if it's not so complicated that I give up on it.

Thanks for any advice on this, I don't know what direction to point on this and I have a ton of work to do already.

Edit: You guys are awesome. I went from totally lost to ordering the Neptune 3 Pro and it should be here next week. Thanks for everything and I hope it goes pretty smoothly, I'll keep you posted. Thanks again.

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[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

"Makerspaces" exist for a reason.

You should be able to get access to a higher-quality 3d printer (or CNC mill, or Laser Cutter) from a typical makerspace. It'd be basically a club (often near universities) where people effectively pool their money together for collective ownership.

My local makerspace is at a community college. It requires a safety class before you can use the equipment, so there's a few weeks of spinup time. The rules will be different wherever you are. In this case, my local State sponsored the funds for the 3d printer, but I still have to pay for resin costs and whatnot when using the printer.


Good software costs a ton of money too, and you might want to find a Makerspace just so that you can get access to the $4000+ class software that engineers use. Or at least the $1000+ software? Thinking like Rhino CAD, Autotools, or a few other professional tools.

Blender is more of a 3d graphics (think Toy Story movie) kind of workflow. It can do 3d designs but its not the original design.

[–] PeleSpirit@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I looked at the makerspaces in my area and all of their 3d printing classes are filled. I would have to pay by the half hour for them to do it but I have no idea how long each piece would take.

My local makerspace is at a community college.

I just checked, no dice.

Blender is more of a 3d graphics (think Toy Story movie) kind of workflow. It can do 3d designs but its not the original design.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that, I know AutoCAD, Revit, Blender and have used 3D Studio a long time ago, it uses the same basics of building in 3d. Do you mean the slicing software?

[–] fsniper@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

CAD software is better suited for precision designing. I don't know if you would require that kind of presicion for board game parts. At least for early stages it may not be a requirement.

I for one still use blender for kinda presicion 3d models.

[–] PeleSpirit@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The models are already built, I made them awhile ago. Some of them have some issues with pieces being random and I wasn't sure how clean I need to make the models for them to print well. This is one of the reasons I kind of want to get my own printer too, I don't know how much I don't know.

Edit: Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying. Yes, Blender does great for detailed drawings as well as movies.

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