How to Print AMAZING FDM Miniatures! | A Complete Guide to FDM 3d Printed Minis [2024]
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- čas přidán 21. 07. 2024
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In this video Jacob breaks down his entire process for Printing miniatures on a hobbyist level FDM printer, using his Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro. From picking models, to editing minis and adding supports, all the way to support removal and cleanup. With every step of the way documented for you, treat this video as a starting point to your own FDM mini journey.
Want to see how i paint these minis? Check out this video!
• FDM Miniatures in 2024...
If like what I do, consider checking out the channel!
/ @painted4combat
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Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:56 - Picking A Model
6:27 - Editing Models (Optional)
10:00 - Slicer & Settings
17:25 - Manual Supports (Optional)
19:42 - Slicer Supports
21:37 - Printing!
22:32 - Removing Supports
23:08 - Model Cleanup
23:42 - Prepping for Paint
24:19 - Outro - Jak na to + styl
Being in the 3d printer space for the last 10 years, its wild to see how far FDM has come.
Absolutely! I got into 3d printing a fair few years ago now with a secondhand Anet ET4, and that thing had a tantrum twice a print 😆 in the year and half I've had the Neptune 3 Pro, I only just had to fix my first clog about month ago and that's all I've to do. Awesome tech that's only getting better.
Great blender tip and a great video! I have a Bambulab A1 and it works great once you added the proper supports. I usually print miniatures with a 0.2 nozzle to bring out those subtle details.
That blender tip was super clutch, thanks for that!
No worries! hope it helps you get some different minis on the print bed 🙌
Cool to see Arbiter Miniatures out in the wild :)
I print in resin but he is still my number one creator as the support free models are still just so easy to print while still being awesome and dynamic models
Evan's mini's print phenomenally well in FDM (or resin). Glad he made the list. :)
Bright Minis is a great support free model maker. I'd love to hear about more.
I totally agree! I have a bunch of theirs on my shelf 🙌
@@Painted4Combat bruv I will sub right now if you do that supportless vid and include Brite Minis.
Nice timing, I've been looking into printing minis and figures to paint. This definitely helps!
Glad I could help! Hope you get some great results 🙌
Very useful information. I may be trying minis now. I would recommend 2 things. 1 get a 0.2mm or 0.25mm nozzle and 2 give orca slicer a try.
Thanks for the input! I'll take a look at Orca.
As for the 0.2mm nozzle - I print a pretty even split of minis to larger objects like terrain or household items, and don't want to go through the hassle of swapping nozzles that often; that said I should give it a try at some point!
Even 2.5mm is absolutely amazing. My ender 3 was doing things i didnt think possible! @Painted4Combat
You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. Waiting on my printer to come in. I'll be using this vid as a reference. Thank you.
Happy to help 🙌 If you have any problems arise while getting into it; feel free to post questions here and I'll answer what I can. Best of luck with your new printer!
1. Love the video, very informative
2. I've had no luck with prusaslicer and have stuck with cura, but I will be back to use those settings after i redownload it
3. I just want to really push Arbiter minis because the artist is amazing and makes dedicated support free prints specifically for fdm that print fantastic
4. I also use elegoo nep 3 pro and their filament for my minis, good stuff
5. thank you for the new tips, i never thought of using separate towers and then merging them into the model, gonna try that out on some!
I have been printing minis on my fdm for a couple of months now using my own settings in Cura. I'll have to give your settings a try. I mostly do busts, but i've had pretty good success with full figurines.
This is phenomenal, exactly what I was looking for. TYSM!
your videos have been a great help, please bring us more wonderful content
Amazing video!!!
I will try some of your technics!!
I will love to see your take on larger models also!!
Good job!
Thanks, hope some of my tips help 🙌 Will see about doing a follow up on larger models in the next few weeks!
Nice guide. Added to my "reference" saved videos list.
It is a crime you only have 200 subs. Great and highly detailed video, thank you!!
Thank you!
@@Painted4Combat Also, a video on larger models would be super appreciated!! I've been hammering away at a Zariel from Descent into Avernus model for 3 days now and just cant seem to get it right... Thank you!!
Awesome. I do have a issues with supports being knocked over and ripping up brims so I'll have to try the manual ones. I'm already using Prusa Slicer and love it. I don't often have issues with very narrow parts though so I just leave swords, etc alone and don't pick or skip models just based on that. I already assume that I'll lose fine surface detail due to resolution but it sometimes surprises me
Awesome to hear; Let me know how your use of the manual support go, definitely want to continue developing those to be as user-friendly as possible! - and I totally agree, modern FDM printers are shockingly good at picking up most surface details, but its more often a 'nice surprise' when it happens, rather than an 'expected outcome', at least for me 😅
Wow this is great. Been printing since February of this year. Have solely been doing miniatures. I've managed to get some okay results with resin styled STLs, but its mainly because I've been adjusting the xy compensation in prusa to make some things thicker. Guess I'll have to pick up blender and play with that
XY Compensation is actually a really great, quick option! But picking up some basic blender know-how will open up a bunch more options when picking out minis.
Oh man this is a great tutorial! I've been dabbling in FDM printing for my minis to avoid resin/IPA fumes. I've had mixed success. I was a little frustrated that the FDM slicers did not allow me to manually place supports. Had no idea you could disable the automatic supports. Thanks!
Combine infill every nth layer will help with print speed, there is no reason to print infill every layer, you can also increase infill line thickness and speed, again it´s inside the model.
You can do like 70mm/s speed for infill for instance. Inner perimeter can also increase by 10-20mm/s. It´s inside you don´t see it.
Also you don´t dial in extrusion width you tell the machine how thick of a line it´s supposed to print and make sure your extrusion rate is correct beforehand.
I print 0.8mm extrusion width for sturdy boxes vases and such with a 0.4mm nozzle. You printer can print way thicker than that as well. It just squirts more plastic faster out of a small orfice that´s it.
Also technically speaking you physically can not print an extrusion width of exactly the size of your nozzle opening. So a 0.4mm nozzle can physically NOT print a 0.4mm extrusion width because it would mean there is no squish to the previous layer. Your standard 0.4mm nozzle prints about 0.5mm extrusion width ( the 0.4mm nozzle which was changed from the ancient 0.5mm nozzle to make sure your walls are about 0.5mm). You can get around it when bridging for example, you drag the material and thin it out but is not precise.
So get a 0.25mm nozzle and print with 0.3mm width.
Also numbers like 2.65mm for retraction don´t make any sense. No machine ever is precise up to 0.05mm for this kind of function. Those kind of settings are very unreliable because you don´t account for any tolerances due to humidity, temp changes in the room and so on and so on. If your setting is spot on at 2.65 just do 2.8mm done.
For small etails like dwords and such change the minimal layer time to like 30s or so, it will do exactly the same as with the box but you won´t print an extra box.
Awesome video! I’m gonna throw some minis on the print bed right now!
Awesome! Hope you start getting some great minis from your machine 🙌
I recommended more focus on supports but did not expect it to get this interesting. You are basically confirming my own observations and experiments on manual supports. Started for me with a backpack for a miniature. Parts of the bottom kept drooping a lot even with supports. I added two manual support in each corner and then it printed with perfect results.
You could probably do a series of videos just where you slowly add supports to different, simple and difficult. miniatures :)
I am really gonna experiment with this in Lychee but what is the diameter of your supports?
Your explanation makes it sound like 0.4 mm but looks in the video like it is closer to 0.8. Just want to skip past some unnecessary experiments that you have already solved :)
Looks like "supports" in general is the nr1 thing that is holding back mini printing with MDF.
Great to hear that this helped!
My current towers are 1.6mm for the main shaft, enough to maintain a sturdy support, and then tapering to 1.2mm at the tip - most slicers will make this a single loop as mentioned, but some will add a dot of filament to the center, overall this is the best thickness I have found. Otherwise sometimes a slicer will cut the top off the support or there wont be enough material to actually support the model.
And i recommend a minimum of an 6-8mm base/rim for the supports for connecting to the build plate, otherwise they are too easy to knock over.
EC3D is a great sculptor! My Ender2 makes fantastic work of his recent everyday heroes files with great detail for about .10 a mini
Please try a 0.2 nozzle just once. Just try it, the results are remarkable
That seems to be the common comment - I find myself printing both minis and bigger household stuff so don't like the idea of having to swap nozzles often, but I'm thinking ill have to give it a go now!
Funny you being up OPR, because i gave asked in their discord if i could print their minis in FDM and was met with a reaounding NO
Their minis aren't designed for it, so I can understand the 'no'. a first-timer couldn't load them up on an FDM printer as easy as a resin printer - so the folks there probably don't want to say yes. but its possible, just not ideal 😆
Wonder if desktop SLS will have a bigger impact on printing minis.
If it gets cheap enough, maybe? But the labour and material-handling costs for SLS are almost as bad as those for resin, whilst the printers themselves are still nearly ten times the cost - 3K USD is very very cheap for an SLS printer but a *lot* more money than an SLA. When it comes to minis, I expect desktop SLS will be more useful for companies selling physical minis than for individuals printing a few characters here and there - to really make it worth turning the machine on, you want to fill the entire build volume. That means printing a lot of things at once. And to make it worth buying the printer, you want to be doing that regularly.
Your video is amazing you cover too much in little time and the best thing is you gave use your settings and why did you pick them. Thank you very much.
Sorry if I missed it in the video, but are you using a 0.2mm nozzle?
Printer is completely stock, so just the Included 0.4mm nozzle - Apologies for not being clearer on that.
@@Painted4Combat Thanks for the reply. I'm unable to download your support towers from MyMiniFactory, it sends me to a 404 error page. Would you be able to upload them anywhere else?
I have added a direct download (google drive) to the video description!
@@Painted4Combat Legend. Thanks mate! Great video, very helpful. Instant sub.
Thanks for the video. why did you choose the Elegoo neptune printer can I ask?
I had to give up resin when I moved to a smaller apartment that didn't have sufficient airflow.
Frankly, The Elegoo Neptune 3 pro was coming out around that time, so I decided to pre-order it to make the most of a pre-order discount from my local seller.
(this was done after confirming the printer was living up to its claims via reviews on YT, primarily watching Uncle Jessy but also others who were not sponsored 😆).
To be honest, at that point in time, many printers were coming out in this rough price range and all advertised very similar features, some having more than others.
I settled on the Elegoo because it appeared to have the most of those features in a single printer, at a price in the lower end of that range (pre-order discount helped), and was a brand I had some level in trust in; the main features I wanted was robust auto bed levelling, a built in flex plate on the print-bed, dual z rods and a direct drive extruder; and this printer had all that as well as a bunch of additional nice-to-have features.
So in short, it had all the features I was looking for, under a brand name I trusted to deliver a quality product at a reasonable price.
I've never had any issues, in the year and a half that I've owned it, using it often daily or at the very least one a week; I finally had to clean my first clog about a month ago and other than levelling the bed every so often, that's the only maintenance I've had to do. It really is a great printer and I've put it through its paces, that's for sure.
Thanks for the reply. Really appreciated. @@Painted4Combat
Let’s see the video about support free FDM model creators!
Dude. I have cheats GALOR!
First, get a .25mm nozzle. It will greatly increase detail
Second, under advanced, "external perimeters" to 0.18mm. This will give you sharper details and will get your SLA levels of clarity. If you choose to stick with 0.4mm nozzles, set external perimetersnto 0.32mm. These are safe levels of under extrusion.
Third, EXTERNAL PERIMETERS FIRST! This will guarantee that your external perimeter defines the shape, causing excess extrusion INTO the model, not outside, which will cause details to round out.
If you are doing mechanical things, rotate the model in space such that planar surfaces are 45 degrees from the print bed, this will increase the resolution of planar details (think battlemechs and such).
To reduce stringing, which can bond support material to your miniature, set seam to nearest and increase your rapids.
Set your external perimeters to slower. This will compensate for rapid moves causing vibrations, your model will have more time to settle for critical details. This is an anti stringing strategy. The faster your rabid, the less time for oozing.
Adding two more:
Set slice resolution to 0 and gcode resolution to 0.001. these settings are unnaturally high for LARGE models. Most 8 bit microcontrollers can't handle the HUGE detail such high resolution, large prints will render....but for small prints, these finer resolutions are no worse than a low resolution large print.
Obviously a smaller nozzle means more perimeters... Unless you cheat and set perimeters to 0.32 instead of 0.25. this is a safe level of over extrusion.
Smaller nozzles mean lower flow of material. This means more print time. This also means HIGHER time in the melt zone. Turn your temperature down 15 degrees. This will also reduce stringing.
Great recommendations! I'll be sure to try a few 🙌
@@Painted4Combat I added two more, slice and g code resolution. For miniatures, these are safe values to set super low.
@@Painted4Combat added two details re:using 0.25mm nozzles
Nice but veey complicated for the average hobbyist
Yeah, this is definitely aimed at people who have a little bit of experience playing with the settings of their printers and slicer, but even just pausing the video and copying the settings should yeld some nice results!
@@Painted4Combat I have plenty of slicer experience But nothing relating to blender
I see! Yes, the blender portion is for people wanting wanting delve into that and open up a few more options when it comes to picking models.
Not a necessary step, but I reckon if you follow those steps a few times you'll get the hang of it.
I tried my best to keep it as simple as possible, just touching on the most necessary menus and controls, it is just such an in-depth program that even a simplified workflow like this can be daunting.
1 second in I see layer lines, so yeah no thanks. I can already print at 0.05 on my Prusa.
Wow who wouldve thought fdm printers have layer lines 🤯🤯