Filaflex 3DPrint Moldmaking - Deathstar Soap on a Rope

*#* Deathstar Soap-on-a-Rope *#*

This is another project inspired from childhood memories of Christmas and gifts (and Star-Wars).

I made up these all this before Christmas, as they were presents - I'm posting details and files now as a how-to-tutorial, I hope you find it interesting and experiment with 3D printed mold making too.

It's Christmas 1983 and I have been given yet another Soap-on-a-Rope. Everyone is still talking about the new Star Wars - 'The Empire Strikes Back'. I probably have some Star Wars based presents here somewhere... I keep on unwrapping... Oooh a Transformer, cool.

Many, many years later.

It's Christmas 2015 and everyone is talking about the new Star Wars - 'The Force Awakens' And I know some friends that will appreciate a Soap-on-a-Rope :) Transformers are still doing well too!

Lets' make lots of them - Using a little 3D Printing magic.

For anyone who does not know what a Soap-on-a-Rope is (did you not have a childhood?)  It's basically a soap shaped into an object or character, with a rope loop sticking out the top. They were very popular in the 70's and 80's - they were also very rubbish, lost all features of the 'design' after one use, always dried up and fell apart leaving soap shards or the rope just dropped out). But still, I remember them fondly.

The 80's were innocent times, most of the soaps were popular characters of the day or friendly shapes. If you google 'soap-on-a-rope' now - don't blame me for what comes up in the search! 

I don't know quite why, but I even made a video - check it out below or over on Youtube in HD.

And so my mission was to produce a 3D Printed soap making mold in FilaFlex so I could delight some of my friends with the totally pointless 'Deathstar-On-A-Rope' - the 80's were so great!

Luckily for Death Star models, we have a nice design already made - Unfortunately many of these models are not manifold (meaning they are not a valid mesh and may have some errors, holes or intersecting triangles) that makes it tricky to further process. So first job was to 'fix the Death Star'.

The starting point was the Deathstar Christmas tree ornament by plainolddave - thanks Dave.

I checked the model with Netfabb (free) - but that was not able to correct all the problems, so Meshlab was needed to get this model error free.

Meshlab (also free) has some powerful model checking and verification tools, these can also clean up your model and fix many common issues. It did not take long to get this model repaired and ready for the next step.

We now need to generate a mold model we can 3D print. We have two straightforward options - 

Option 1) - As all 3D model meshes are a hollow 'shell' we can actually cut this Deathstar model in half, put each half in another 3D box and we have a very basic two part mold that could be used. Ideally you also need to add some locating pins and sockets on each half and a pouring hole.

Option 2) (much easier) - Use the rather fantastic - Parametric two-part mold generator for OpenSCAD by Jason Webb - This makes the job of cutting the model in half, adding location pins and a spout for pouring so easy it's almost automatic.

You will need to scale the defined numbers in the OpenSCAD script and make a few changes to select sizes suitable for your model file for the mold. You can also select a square or round mold and the location of the pouring hole etc.

But it's very easy - Just install OpenSCAD, and start by changing the model name being used as the master for the mold. Then you can start looking through the script and altering scale and size to match your object. You really don't need to understand programming, just read the comments in the script and experiment with changing the numbers, I have posted my modified script so you can see what this model required to get the molds correctly aligned.

You may find it easier to use Netfabb or another program to rotate or scale the model rather than try to make more significant changes to the OpenSCAD script. Keep things easy and experiment with the values, and you should end up with a two part mold (from almost any other STL model), you can print out and use.

For printing, I strongly recommend using a thermoplastic elastomer (TPU) like FilaFlex from Recreus. This material is flexible enough to allow easy removal, but also holds it's shape well. It's also ideal for temperatures of melted soap, candle-wax and chocolate. Other TPU's are available - Ninjaflex, Semiflex and soft PLA all can work well for molds.

I recommend using the clear, white or a light coloured TPU, I had some very minor staining of the white soap base when testing out the mold using the neon green FilaFlex material. It was not as noticeable when using the clear soap, but you can still see a slight green tint.

The FilaFlex molds were printed out using a BQ Hephestos V2 3D Printer, as this machine has a very good feed mechanism for soft rubber materials. (it's the best I have found so far).

I used a 12% infill and two perimeters with a standard 0.4mm nozzle running at 243 Degrees C and 45mm/second print speed. You could use less infill, but this makes for a strong mold you can use over and over again.

Finally I used easy pour soap, you can buy it in slabs or ready cut into chunks, just heat it up as you would chocolate (but at around 75 Degrees C), and pour into molds. It comes in clear and opaque, the opaque is less tacky and seems to help highlight more details.

You can also experiment with colour - if you want a grey Deathstar, use equal parts of red, blue and yellow colouring.

Consider adding some glitter if that takes your fancy or natural additives like lavender, vanilla, peppermint etc.

Christmas is over, but this gift would be ideal for a birthday. We also have Easter, so that's just crying out for a chocolate egg shaped exploding Popping-Candy-Deathstar! Have fun :-)

You can find all the source and model files including the modified OpenSCAD script for this project over on my Youmagine page here.

May the force be with washing you!

Thanks for reading, please let me know what you think and if you want to see more posts like this.

Until next time, I'll be in a galaxy far, far away...

Rich.

Twinkle twinkle little star - Christmas Glitter printing and more

Hello and Happy Christmas everyone.


As it's Christmas and we are all feeling festive I want to share some glitter printing with you, it's easy to do and you have at least two options to experiment with - 


Option 1 is the easy and less messy way, if you read the blog and want a simple option - The wonderful people at Faberdashery have used their magic alchemy skills and made a special and unique batch of PLA that has aluminium flakes embedded into it, (Galaxy Blue) giving really nice glittery prints.


Option 2 Uses raw glitter (+other things) it's a lot more messy but great fun and can give some really interesting results - see below.


It'll brighten up your prints and make someone's day special - I have experimented with both and you should have a go too, and if you think of anything else to embed into prints, do let me know.


This all started because my Little Girls asked if they could have some sparkle on their Holly Wands, I found a really easy way to get a nice and  interesting effect - 

Use Glitter! - All you need to do is sprinkle glitter over a hot bed, it will bond itself into the first print layer or more if you carry on sprinkling as it builds.

Sprinkle - not too much...

You can then sprinkle more as it builds.

Looks great with coloured glitter and clear PLA

Glitter was sprinkled over all the layers as they built-up so the stars ended up very shiny!

You can also embed other things in the printed layers, if they are thin enough they stay on the the bed where you place them - Here is a multicoloured object with glitter and Plastic Pearlescent Stars embedded in the first layer -

First layer down and second being printed.

The glitter and stars are well embedded in the first layer.

Printing with Faberdashery Galaxy Blue PLA - 

This stuff is great and makes the job so much easier - you use it just like normal PLA, here are some initial prints, I'm planning more objects using this plastic. Just imagine what a complete machine would look like in this.

All the prints below here were also some of my first experiments with Slic3r - an awesome Gcode generation program that deserves a big mention - Please Do try it out, it's coming along very nicely and Version 0.5.7 or higher Should be out now. The Author Alessandro Ranellucci ('Sound' on the RepRap Forum) is actively cracking on with development at a really great pace.
If nothing else it will save you time - The snowman below takes just under 2 mins for Skeinforge V45 to slice - Slic3r takes just 1.9 seconds on the same PC, it happens so fast, you initially think it must have failed.

Snowflake by JonMonaghan

Close up you can really see the extra twinkle.

I know he should be Snow White... but what a nice sparkle.

Snowman by ChristineBowyer

Alien Egg printed at 50% size for a challenge.

Alien Egg by WickedAndy

Close up of the Egg.

Christmas Tree by TopperDEL

Bonus Print - Shine-by-Day and Glow-by-Night

My monster GLOW-IN-THE-DARK spider - based on the printing plates by MakerBlock that was printed last month had the glitter treatment on one side when it was printed, as it is also Glow-in the dark, it glows by night and twinkles by day.

The glitter bonds perfectly and does not come off.

I had glitter all over the place by the end, watch out where your fans are pointing!

Have some fun with your printer and I hope you can bring yourself to buy some Sparkle PLA or even Raw glitter and give it a try for Christmas. (If you do, I'm not responsible for everything being covered in glitter !)

The glitter I used was normal kids stuff you can get everywhere (Quite large flakes), but I have seen some ultra-fine glitter used for Nail Art. If you search for Glitter dust all sorts of great colours come up - I'm going to get hold of some and see how that works - if anyone tries it or finds other things to bond into plastic, do let me know.

I must also just share a quick experiment I'm doing as I type this -

Chocolate snowflake molds! 100mm x 100mm x 15mm -  they are chilling at the moment so I'll let you know if they work.
I will pop some examples up on Thingiverse if they do work, I'm expecting to have to use the heated bed to help release the cooled chocolate... we will see.

I'm thinking they may also work for Ice cubes? - Make your whiskey more festive.

Not yet printed this tray design yet, but I added sloped sides.

More Christmas printed things on my Flickr pages here

Have a really great time everyone, and I'll see you all in the new year for more Reprapping fun.

Rich.