Imperial Star Destroyer
Description
Now you can have your very own Imperial Star Destroyer! This is a very long and challenging print; it took me about six hours with 0.2 mm layer height, 30 mm/sec perimeters and 50 mm/sec infill. Try it in silver PLA for that authentic Imperial feel!
Instructions
This model really demands an 8 inch or larger build platform so it can be printed nice and big for maximum detail, but Makerbot, Mosaic, and Huxley operators can scale it down to about half size and it will come out fine. To get good detail, you'll want to print this with a very low layer height; 0.2 or less is recommended if printing it at full size; 0.15 or lower is recommended if printing it at half size. Additionally, to get Skeinforge to not print it entirely solid, you'll most likely need to temporarily make three changes to your profile:
1. Disable Carve > Infill in direction of bridge
2. Increase Fill > number of extra shells to at least 3
3. Decrease Fill > Solid surface layers to 1
Next, you will need to use support material so that the command bridge will print properly:
1. Set Raft > support material to "Everywhere" (set Everywhere to True and None to False)
2. Increase Raft > Support Minimum Angle (degrees) to 65
The stand should be printed with 100% infill and 0 extra shells.
Here are some other handy tips:
1. The two halves need very good build platform adhesion or else they'll warp and not line up properly. A level build platform is crucial. Heating helps too although I've printed on blue painter's tape with enough care.
2. Turn off the Cool plugin or else the apex of the bottom part probably won't come out well. Instead, use a fan to provide some active cooling.
3. With the layer height set to 0.15 or below, you'll probably need to adjust your width over thickness for infill and perimeters or else the extruded plastic will have a tendency to be too sparse for the bottom layer.
4. Hexagonal infill seems faster than Line infill for this model. It's a long print anyway; you'll appreciate the speedup!
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Well done model, none of the weird internal geometry that the other one on Thingiverse has.
Looks really good at model scale with .125mm layers. I used Grey/silver ABS.
Now I need a few rebel ships to duke it out with :)
That is some lovely Model, well done! Can I suggest slicing the model down the middle vertically and standing each side up on the sliced surface? you could even cut it into quarters (that way it will warp less) and add a support plate .5mm thick to the pointy nose to increase the surface area the model has against the build platform so it hold better to it (it can be cut off later) doing this you could fit an even large scale model on the bed It should print really well and fast that way needing very little fill. The shield towers could be printed separately and glued on, as are the engines. We just need some little Ti fighters and a carillion cruiser to match.
Thanks! I'll admit that slicing vertically rather than horizontally hadn't occurred to me. I'll have to look into that. The only problem I can foresee with that is that the ugly seam where the two pieces connect will be more noticeable. I really liked having the seam in a place where the actual ship itself has a seam. This problem would be compounded if I cut it into quarters. I may end up doing that though, is only because variety is the spice of life, and people with smaller build platforms would probably appreciate it.
Wow, nice work Stick. I'm definitely going to have to try this when I have a day to burn. Looks great!
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Love this ... my favourite print so far.