As some of you may know, NASA has released 3D-printable files for many of its spacecraft and a few planetary bodies and surfaces (your own 3D model of Vesta, for example). I suspect that I'm not the only one here who would like to have a collection of high-fidelity spacecraft models.

I'm wondering if anyone here has printed these models? Many seem to have problems the prevent them from being printed with several commercial services I've checked with using any of their printing models. For example, the solar panels on the Juno model are too thin as are the edges of Cassini's high gain antenna, its booms, and the shields around its thrusters among other parts.

The Curiosity model does appear to be printable, and a number of people have printed out the 50 parts or so and assemble them (see here). Curiosity is on my list, but I'd like to print some of the other models, too.

Does anyone on this board have the experience with 3D printing to suggest specific printing companies who might be able to handle fine models? Or tricks of printing or materials? Or perhaps you've spent the time to building up your 3D editing skills and have editing the problem areas to create printable files?

Thanks!

I've done the Curiosity model, and the New Horizon's model sofar from the 3D resources website.


Both printed great for me. The only thing I had trouble with was the hubs on the Curiosity model. Although those printed great as well, when handling them and cleaning them up they are very fragile and I broke a couple of the very thin wheel flexures. I think those could have been made a little thicker. I print mainly in ABS these days, so if I had done this in PLA those could have been stronger and might well have avoided the breakage on those if I used PLA. Oh and coming from the extreme clutz that I am, I broke the LGA on mine and lost the small piece....

Did you use your own printer or a service?

My own, it's a Prusa Mendal I3.

So I don't yet have a printer of my own (I have a Cobblebot kit in a box - but it's unlikely to come together as a great printer... and a Micro3d printer on the way) but I've played with a few at work (Tinkererine...great. Makerbot...awful. Flashforge Dreamer...great with PLA..tricky with ABS)

A MASSIVE word of caution about the models here : http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/models/printable

Cassini, Dawn, Juno, Kepler, LRO, MESSENGER, MRO, Pioneer, Rosetta, Stardust, TDRS and Voyager...they're very very NOT printable. The Eyes on the Solar System team ( I used to be a member of ) supplied them to the 3D model repository as Blender files for use as an animation asset for people to play with. Sadly a year later the people behind that website went "File...Export STL" and called them printable. They're just not.

When that happen I tried to 'drown' them out with these : http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/search/ellison/3dprint : that I know are printable ( as I've printed them all on a Tinkerine or Makerbot at work )

For higher end printers (e.g., Fortus 400) there is a work file that gets produced from the STL that is digested by the machine to do the printing. In creating that file, you use software with various settings to manipulate what comes out of the machine, to include accounting for disparities between part geometry and printer resolution. For example, when the solar panel is thinner than the minimum print width, you can change a software setting to print it anyway at the greater width.

So in short, a higher end printing house with a Fortus or similar should be able to play with settings and get something out of the machine that looks like a Juno or Cassini.

Just to repeat - the Cassini and Juno you're talking about were never, ever designed to be 3D printed.

Doug,
Your link doesn't show any spacecraft, just a couple of asteroid models and lunar/mars surface models.

I know. Those are the models I submitted to that repository to try and 'drown out' the unprintable stuff with printable stuff. It's all I could do in short order.

FWIW - the artists responsible for many of the models that someone made it into the 'printable ' category ( wrongly ) now has a 3D printer and is working on figuring out how to try and make as many of them as possible printable.

I was staring at the Cassini model and I think that model could be made printable if it was sliced down the center longways with the HGA made separate. Some of the outside things like Huygens, the RTG's, and instruments could be printed by themselves as separate STL's. The magnetometer booms could be made as thicker truss structures instead of the thin rods. Obviously a lot of mods to the STL would need to be made, but most are pretty straight forward mods to do in my opinion.

the link in the first post is not resolving
-- page hanging on loading

the GIT page is
https://github.com/nasa/NASA-3D-Resources
https://github.com/nasa/NASA-3D-Resources/t...r/3D%20Printing

Hi All,

My first time posting although have admired the work and discussions here for years. Diving in because I've been doing 3d printing of space terrains for and with NASA projects and personnel for years, and I understand people's frustrations with what's being offered by their website. Most of their models were developed for animations and hi resolution images rather than 3D printing. I'm currently working with the Northeast Planetary Data Center to develop large scale (printed) models for planetary geologists (http://www.geo.brown.edu/BrownNASADataCenter/content/3D.php). All of our models are designed for and been successfully printed on standard 3D printers (RepRap, Makerbot Replicator, Wanhao Duplicators, etc) and have been cross posted on the NASA 3D resources site (e.g., http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/gassendi-crater).

Because the data center has invested in a 3DP Unlimited printer, we're now doing large scale prints (1m x 1m x 0.5 m). Current projects include everything from specialized sensor holders to use in the partial vacuum of the Ames Vertical Gun, to a multi-panel 3 m long Valles Marineris and the list will go on. I'm doing most of the data analysis/workflow based on converting raw laser/radar altimetry data but would love to connect up with those of you with experience in stereo photoclinometry to expand the range of models we can build (I'd *really* love to develop decent 3d models of Enceladus/Europa that aren't artifact laden).

Thanks!

Seth