I’ve made alot of attempts at this but something was always a bit off when most of it was perfect. Now I’ve finally succeeded in getting the dimensions right for my bricks. They mate well with themselves and official bricks even when only using a single knob/stud which is awesome.
The bricks in the picture is proof of concept. The yellow and white is original. As an original brick purist I’m not so much interested in making copies of existing ones but rather make stuff that doesn’t exist. Like tree mounts for the cable cars me and the kids set up in the garden, slimmer battery boxes for LiPO cells, lighting mounts and LED housings, servo mounts… the list goes on.
Had to change from a Makerbot 0.4 to a 0.35mm QU-BD nozzle a while back and since the new one has virtually no flat around the opening the top surface layer isn’t super pretty but instead the corners and details are very sharp. Only the nozzle and the corresponding nozzle size setting i Cura has been changed and it made an incredible difference with corners. I wonder if I can file a tiny flat on it and get the best of two worlds. I’ve got a couple of nozzles to spare.
In photos the black ABS looks uglier than it really is though. Virtually no clean up done.
The basic blocks are out of patent. They may care, They can’t do anything about it. Start tossing the name brand around, and now they got something to do.
even if they weren’t. what are they going to do? sue everyone on the planet? the RIAA tried that route and look where it’s got them. - everyone hates the big music industry.
@Mike_Miller , I hope not. In my case this is for personal use and doesn’t match the quality and precision of the official bricks me and my kids build with every day. They might be considered pricey but there is no other toy I would recommend in the same way. Very few of the official bricks break, and I’ve got many many that are 30+ years old.
If anything I hope the bricks on the thing-sites and in the DIY and Maker communities will increase the interest in the official toy so that they are able to continue producing great bricks.
I’ll remove this post if they contact me. No lawsuit needed
I’d just seen another article in the distant past that was an uber adapter kit, letting legos work with other kid’s assembly kits, and there’s a TON of hits on Thingiverse, I think if they were going to do something, they’d have done so already…hopefully they’re aware of the Streisand effect and will leave well enough alone.
I haven’t gotten to the point of dual extruding yet, but does anyone use a pointy nozzle for the sharp corners, etc and then do the top fill with a flat nozzle?
Yeah, once you get openscad files for all basic brick permutations, those special bricks that you could never find in any of the sets are finally within reach. Wall mounts that look slightly Victorian would go well with rail tracks and the Hogwarts express stream train, for example. I’ve long wished for a railroad going around just under the ceiling…
@Jon_Caywood that’s an interesting idea. I could see using a fine nozzle for edges and a courser flat tipped nozzle for infill and flat surfaces.
It would be annoying to make the model, slicing out a section to use for the other material. Or the slicing tools will need to be modified.
Hi,
I am spending months trying to understand how to print small circled cylinders block like the holed brick top and bottoms.
Either using slic3r and skeinforge i noticed that they transform circles in polygons, and at around 4mm they tend to use 3 or 4 or 5 sides, that is poor quality for a circle so small. The printed results is crap.
How did you obtain them ? They are very very good !!
Did you play on measure corrections at CAD level (e.g. Adding 2mm knowing that the print will be 2mm less…)?
What slicer did you use ?
Did you use some slicer option to use ARC instructions instead of transforming the circles in polygons during slicing process ?
+Andreas Thorn, could you please post one STL file and your corresponding .gcode to see how the slicer rendered the details ?
I am curious to understand the parameter. Thanks in advance.
@Jonathan_se5a_Sorens
I did not understand what you mean for “lower resolution STL”.
Could you please explain ? I never know an STL has a resolution.
I always just exported on object as STL file from the CAD app.
I don’t know what cad app you’re using, but openscad has $fn for the resolution - ie number of faces a cylinder (or sphere) will have.
this is how we make hex shaped nut traps for example. it’s a short cylinder with $fn = 6
Oh, interesting. I always used the web based thinkercad. I created there this cylinder test object http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:120736 that then I sliced.
I should check if I have in thinkercad someting like $fn. Many thanks for the info.
yeah… that’s why we use openscad or coffeesscad or jsscad. looks like tinkercad doesn’t allow you to change the resolution of a cylinder. - you can see just from the picture of the ‘thing’ that the cylinders have a low resolution.
When I need good and somewhat predictable dimensions in my prints I don’t print too fast and use moderate acceleration. My print speed is set to 40 in the slicer for this print and limited to 1500 in Marlin firmware.
Yes in this case I did. First I calibrate the printer as well as it is practically possible so that printed objects come out with dimensions close to the CAD model for larger shapes like a 20x20x20mm box. If it’s enough to counter any materical specific shrinkage/properties by just adjusting “filament flow” or “extrusion multiplier”-value in the slicer that’s very nice but often I have to do my adjustments in the CAD model since different parts of an object may shrink or come out slightly different depending on the size and placement of the detail. Normally it might not be a problem if an object is 0.2mm narrower than the CAD design but when it comes to friction fit objects like this I find that some extra adjustments in the CAD design are required.
I like to work in OpenSCAD and similar programs since it’s easy to modify measurements if you’ve designed it parametrically from the start (just add a modifier value to the corresponding values and you see both what the ideal dimensions should be and how much you are off like; length=20+0.4).
A trick to use is to print some test plates with multiple copies of a specific feature like the brick stud, wall etc. By varying each studs’ diameter on the plate by say 0.1mm it’s easy to measure the resulting print and find the stud that come out with the correct dimensions. I then know what modifier is needed in the CAD design to get the correct dimension.
All slicers have their pros and cons. Personally I’ve been very impressed by the precision Kisslicer generates but before that I used Slic3r for a long time and was happy with it but was unfortunately not able to get good results with consistent dimensions. Right now my overall favorite slicer is Cura. The bricks in the picture is sliced with Cura 13.12.
No exotic slicer options used. I’ve had great success using the info from @nop_head regarding polyholes to get good dimensions in normal cases. I always include a module in my OpenSCAD scripts using his polyhole theory http://hydraraptor.blogspot.com/2011/02/polyholes.html but when a very specific fit is needed multiple iterations are also required… print/measure/edit cad/print…
