3D printing Space Invaders plugs with silver ABS December 1

Silver Space Invaders detected

Space Invaders plug printing on MakerBot #169

I recently bought some silver ABS plastic from the MakerBot store and finally got started printing with it yesterday. Whenever I get a new colour of plastic, I like to 3D print some Space Invaders plugs with it.

Normally I print them in two parts, so that the outside face of the plug is printed “face up” and then attached to the plug piece with a solvent. This time I tried printing each plug as a single piece (“face down”), figuring that I could smooth out the bottom surface afterwards. Here’s how it went:

Two plugs done printing:
Printing complete

Raft removal:
Raft removal

Applying a solvent:
Smoothing the surface

Done:
Done

Compared to a second, untreated, two-piece version:
Comparison

Keep in mind that close-up photos of 3D printed stuff tends to look rougher than in real life. :)

I’ve been using acetone and Plastruct Bondene for smoothing and cementing parts for a little while now, and although I’m not totally happy with the single-piece plugs I’m going to do something similar on a new silver blade for the Sword of Omens.

Derek Quenneville is a 3D printing evangelist who posts weekly on the Ponoko blog. Follow him on Twitter @techknight.

Posted in 3D Printing, Derek Quenneville by Derek Quenneville | Comments are off for this post

Make your own stuff using: 3D Printing

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2 Responses to “3D printing Space Invaders plugs with silver ABS”

  1. Josef Prusa Says:
    December 1st, 2011 at 4:08 pm

    Printing with rafts is soo 2010!!

    Here’s my video http://youtu.be/X9rGvW3ZjZQ how to prepare the heatbed ;-)

    Then you can print. Print for real :-) http://www.flickr.com/photos/prusajr/6225291726/in/photostream

  2. Derek Quenneville Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 10:09 am

    Heh, I’ve got a new platform for my ‘bot that should sort that out, but I don’t want to do any maintenance on it until after my next demo. :)