Update:
Back in business!



Replaced several parts, and this thing is running strong!
Here's hoping it succeeds this time.


As an added bonus, the new PLA filament glows in the dark.

Good to hear. Good luck! I hope Murphy will leave you alone this time.

Aaaaaand, a timing belt failed....

Sheesh... I don't think there's much else that could fail at this point....

This will delay things awhile. I had to order a new belt from china.

Oh well. Let's hope that this really is the last visit from Murphy and his laws!

Here's hoping. At least this doesn't stop me from preparing for a major project.

Which reminds me.



This thing has been a task to be sure, but on the computer-end of things, I have seen success.
The model was extracted from Skyrim's data, and edited so that the normal map acts as displacement. I had to increase the polygon count of the object in order to do this with any level of accuracy, then using blender, I applied it as displacement. the end result is that the polygons of the object are now permanently offset in relation to the normal map, thus setting the textures as something that can be printed. This thing will look like it does in the game if all goes well.

That obstacle out of the way, I had a few more steps to go through. One of which, I wanted the sword to be life-size.
Clearly my printer wasn't doing this, so I found a program called MeshMixer, that was able to, not only split the object into several jobs (a total of 8) but also remove several parts that existed in the model, that were used by the game it was taken from. thus reducing the file size.

THIS has just been on the software end of things. I need to make extra certain my printer is going to handle the job, before I actually start this one.
Especially if it is going to be a Christmas present for my brother this year.

Sounds ambitious - and very cool! A 3-D printer that manufactures swords would also be tremendously useful if it existed in video game worlds!

Final version of this project. Everything is good to go once I get my printer fixed.
Sliced up into 7 parts, at roughly 1/2 the max Z size of my printer. Just to keep things safe.


https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3837598
This and all parts have been uploaded here... not sure why the thing view isn't working though.. it might need to compile.

Ah, as much as I like to think that I can't do much else to this thing, about as soon as I say it's final, I do more to it.



I can only hope the print looks this good.

Good luck! That's looking pretty sharp!

It begins!