3D printing - What a difference a setting makes...

Since the first excursion into 3D printing left me with a bit of mixed feelings, I haven't been doing a lot with my Anycubic Photon 3D printer lately.

When I was drawing up a part for the Aston Martin DBS I'm currently working on I thought I might as well give the Motegi wheel for the Ferrari F458 GT2 (my first project on the Anycubic) another go.

As I was convinced that the part I drew in OnShape shouldn't pose a problem for it.

I adapted the 3D model a bit to prevent the resin liquid from pooling up in smaller areas hoping that this would fix the issue of residue clogging the said areas as happened with my first attempt.

I also played around with the settings, giving the respective layers a longer exposure time.

Where I used the blue framed settings for the first print, I opted for the red framed one this time.

The values are taken from a public document available on the internet where people can contribute their settings.

And boy did that work.

Okay. Maybe it was a combination of room temperature and exposure time. I'm not sure. But I'll definitely be using these setting again for future prints.

I'm completely astonished at how good this print turned out. No flash, no residue, just a nearly perfect wheel. Below are pictures of the first attempt (left) and the second attempt (right)

As can be seen on the right image, the spokes are now open and not the tiniest bit of residue in sight. I'm going to print this wheel again, this time with the spokes closed again.

The other thing I'm going to change is the wheel nut. I'll be printing the wheel without the nut and will print the nut separately. I'm going to redesign the nut slightly to give it some more detail. This will come at the sacrifice of realism, but I think that won't be such a drama.

All this gives me confidence to try and print some more parts in the near future.

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Citroën Xsara WRC - Francois Duval, ADAC Rallye Deutschland 2007 (part 6)

Welcome to the next part of this build report. I left you last time (or should I say long, long ago...) with the images of the primed body, floor and roll cage, showing that there was some work to do to get everything ready for some color. In this update I will show you how far I got with these parts. I'll start with the body and floor. Sanding everything back turned out to be quite a bit of work. And of course there were several areas still in need of attention. Especially around the wheel arches there was a lot of additional work left. Luckily, with the car in tarmac setup, there's not much room left to see the remaining rough spots that have survived the clean up process... Which leads me to the conclusion that I could have cut some corners in this particular area by only cleaning up the most visible sections. It's a good lesson to check beforehand what is actually visible when the car is built together. I'll definitely be cutting some corners for the other two ...

Citroën Xsara WRC - Francois Duval, ADAC Rallye Deutschland 2007 (part 1)

And off we go on another project. When modelling WRC subjects, you cannot ignore the Citroën Xsara WRC as it is some kind of legend. Especially in the hands of a certain French driver. That's why I have 3 Xsara kits in my stash. None of said driver, that is. But rest assured, he is also present in my WRC collection. With this particular build I'm going to build the car that Francois Duval drove so expertly to the runner-up spot in the 2007 ADAC Rallye Deutschland. Sadly, where the Citroën Xsara WRC is a bit of a legend, the same thing can not be said of the only injection moulded kit if the same car... As said, there's not much choice, as Heller is the only kit manufacturer for this car (although the same kit has also been released by Airfix and Italeri). For this build I'll be using Heller kit no. 80769. Let's just say,it's not a Tamiya kit... By far. For several reasons I chose this particular car because I like the livery and I like Francois Duval too beca...

Citroën Xsara WRC - Francois Duval, ADAC Rallye Deutschland 2007 (part 5)

As promised in the previous part in this update I'll show what I changed on the roll cage. The roll cage as included in the kit is far from complete. When looking at on-board footage and reference images found on the internet the roll cage needs some extra tubing added. Over the years the roll cage of the Xsara WRC has had several variants as I've noticed studying my reference images. Which isn't that strange as the crash test and safety regulations have changed over the years. The reference images I have of the specific chassis (#28) which Duval raced during the 2007 ADAC Rallye Deutschland are sadly inconclusive about which version of the roll cage was fitted. Which means that the adaptations I made are at best a good "guesstimate"... As long as it looks and feels right, it is right I guess... I used Evergreen styrene rod of 1.6 mm in diameter for the added sections for the rollcage. The added sections are highlighted in the images below. Another section I...

Axel's corner

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