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.

  • sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net
    5·
    1 year ago

    If you’re planning on doing more than one, then definitely it’s amazing and useful. If it’s just the one, then there are 3d printing services that have a decent turnaround and relatively reasonable prices. One benefit for really small runs is you don’t need to learn how to set up the printer, they’ll figure it out for you.

    One thing to remember is that 3d printing manufacturing constraints are much different than injection molding manufacturing constraints.

    • PeleSpirit@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Yes, we have lots of ideas, lol. I have no idea if we’ll follow through on them though. We’re thinking of using it for casting glass and other metals but we’ll see how these projects go.

      One thing to remember is that 3d printing manufacturing constraints are much different than injection molding manufacturing constraints.

      I think you’re talking about the undercuts and simple details, my representative said they built that into the price of them fixing that sort of thing. I just want to give them a clean file to work with that has the least for me to do. I also want to have some mock-ups to possibly give reviewers, so it’s okay if they look different. I really appreciate you mentioning that though, you might be referencing something I don’t know about.

      • Khotetsu@lib.lgbtEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I think they mean that because of the unique process that 3d printers use to create something, stuff that can be made easily on a 3d printer can’t be replicated through other manufacturing techniques, and vice versa. For example, I designed an earring that is 1 solid object, but made up of 3 separate moving pieces; like links of a chain that have no split in them. This would be an impossible task for any other kind of manufacturing process. It would be like making acar engine all at once, rather than having to make the individual parts and then assemble them afterward. You can have gaps and cavities in a print that you could never have in a cast or injection molded piece. But this method means that you also have to worry about things that you wouldn’t using more traditional manufacturing techniques.