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Wanhao i3 v2 3D printer
I bought myself a Wanhao 3D printer for Christmas (2016) for under £300.00. The Wanhao is an entry level 3D printer and I do plan to buy a more expensive one later on but for now I'm going to show some of the things I've printed for gaming and maybe write a few words on what I discover as I go along. The Wanhao prints with either PLA or ABS. I use PLA (polylactic acid, made from cornflower. Yes, I print with custard!) because it prints at a lower temperature and is less temperamental than ABS. The one improvement I have made is to add a glass print bed to the machine. This is very easy to do and improves print adhesion massively. Also, having had several disasters with cheap filament, I tend to only use Hatchbox PLA which costs between £18.00 and £19.00 per Kg now. All costs quoted later reflect this. |
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Cave Lurkers
These are designed for a 15mm game by dutchmogul but they're easily big enough for 28mm games without scaling them up. The file is free to download on Thingiverse. I printed a group of four which cost a total of £0.87 in filament, less than 24p each. 
I printed them at 0.1mm layer height with a 20% infill and I used supports in case their bellies sagged.
I've included a 28mm Alternative Armies miniature for scale. 
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Stone Apes of Knuum
This is a very characterful model from MonzaMakers. The original is over 200mm tall so I scaled it down to 40mm to use as the ancient stone guardians of Knuum who come to life (spoilers!) and feature in my current FRPG campaign. I printed a set of six for a total cost of £1.63. 
These were also printed at 0.1mm layer height and 20% infill. I could have gone with 10% infill to save a bit of time but it didn't change things greatly so I didn't bother. No supports needed.
The printing time was quite long but the printer runs overnight and when I'm at work too so it's not my time being used. I can paint and make things as normal whilst it's humming along in the background when I'm at home. 
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Treasure Chest
This is the first of many things from Rocket Pig Games. They offer lots of free files on Thingiverse and I really like their style and ease of printing and there's plenty of their stuff waiting on my painting table at the moment. This file comes with closed and open versions but I've yet to print any open ones. The chests work out at less than 6p each. They're great little items to drop in to other print jobs to fill up the build plate area. 
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Gallows
This wonderfully detailed kit is from Bruno Galise. It's going to feature in my Pirates RPG and will make a nice piece of scenery for many historical games. Total cost: £1.36. 
This was printed at 0.1mm layer height and 20% infill. I printed it with supports for the back railings.
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These two boats are for my Pirates project. They are available from OpenForge.
The larger boat is over 20cm long. Both came out at under £1.40 to print. 
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These toads have been printed using my new Omega i3 printer which is a significant improvement over its predecessor my Wanhao i3.
The original file is available from WorksBySolo on Thingiverse. I reduced it to 40mm width and printed it at 0.1mm resolution with 10% in-fill. 13p a toad, bargain! 
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A bit of a medley now.
The privy and kennel are from Bruno Galice and have wonderful character and deep details. The Zelda gossip stones are from Andy Bihlmaier. 
The clockwork door is a pair of steampunk coasters glued back-to-back from Kennet McCoy and the clockwork turrets guarding it are from Rocket Pig Games.
These Eye stones are from Rocket Pig Games too
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The Kraken
This took 15 hours to print the body and 18 hours to print the twelve arms. I put twelve arms on the bed because I expected some of them to not come out but, since all of them printed perfectly, I used them all. The design is available from mz4250 on Thingiverse. I printed the head with supports just to be sure. Others seem to have managed without. 
Reaper Miniatures wizard for scale.
I mounted the arms on 30mm x 2mm mdf bases and the head on a 2mm thick mdf scenery base. The water is made with toilet paper tissue and pva glue to set it hard.
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