3D Print Filament Amounts

[RamenN00dl3]

Howdy all, I was hoping I could get some insight to how much filament is typical for different pieces of armor for those of you who 3D print your parts. I've recently started worked on my Halo 3 Mark VI/Recon suit and I'm finding some of my parts to be quite heavy when sliced, however that may just be my inexperience and not understanding what is typical.

For example, I have half of a half of a Recon shoulder piece that is coming out at around 250g including supports, which seems super heavy to me considering how much of the overall suit it makes up, but I'm curious what your experiences are so I can better gauge. I've gotten my full MJOLNIR Mark VI helmet printed in pieces and I feel like that in it's entirety (minus the visor) was just a hair under 1kg which on the flip side seems relatively light so maybe it just depends on the model? I'd love to hear your feedback and experiences as I work through my set!

 

[N8TEBB]

I only really print helmets as the rest of my suit is foam, but here's what i can tell you. Usually with a 1kg spool of filament i can kick out a helmet, vacuum form buck, and a few smaller things here and there. For example, recently I printed a Mk 7 helmet, buck for vacuum forming, and a few small pieces for an AR. These are the things I printed and how much filament is left in a 1kg spool.

There are about twice as many small pieces as there are in the picture, i can't get them right now.

The most important part of a 3d print is the shell. You don't need as much infill as you think. I printed this helmet with 15% infill, and in the past I've printed a big halo 3 assault rifle with only 5% infill. I always print with 3 walls though. As long as the walls are good, the infill doesn't need to be so dense. The model does have a lot to do with it as well. If the shell is thin, obviously the helmet will be lighter. Most 3D modelers are aware of what an appropriate shell thickness is so i tend not to fret about that so much.

Maybe some of the members with all 3D printed suits can give you a better gauge, hope this helps anyway! =D

 

[RamenN00dl3]

I only really print helmets as the rest of my suit is foam, but here's what i can tell you. Usually with a 1kg spool of filament i can kick out a helmet, vacuum form buck, and a few smaller things here and there. For example, recently I printed a Mk 7 helmet, buck for vacuum forming, and a few small pieces for an AR. These are the things I printed and how much filament is left in a 1kg spool.

View attachment 328680View attachment 328681


There are about twice as many small pieces as there are in the picture, i can't get them right now.

The most important part of a 3d print is the shell. You don't need as much infill as you think. I printed this helmet with 15% infill, and in the past I've printed a big halo 3 assault rifle with only 5% infill. I always print with 3 walls though. As long as the walls are good, the infill doesn't need to be so dense. The model does have a lot to do with it as well. If the shell is thin, obviously the helmet will be lighter. Most 3D modelers are aware of what an appropriate shell thickness is so i tend not to fret about that so much.

Maybe some of the members with all 3D printed suits can give you a better gauge, hope this helps anyway! =D

I appreciate the reply and insight; I'm curious, for your visor buck what did you set your infill at? I plan on doing the same for my visor, but I was worried the vacuum forming would produce too much pressure and could make a semi-weak buck collapse. I haven't printed it yet, but I set my buck at something like 50% triangle infill for strength. Probably super overkill but I would rather be safe than sorry with something as temperamental as vacuum forming, which I have no prior experience with.

As far as the shell that is probably part of the problem for the Recon shoulders, as they do appear to have some redundancies in the actual form. A decent chunk is also my supports which are necessary due to the size and odd shape of the shoulders. I have played around with a few different slicers since they all like to do them differently, but may require some more work. I can't print them as one piece on my printer as my bed isn't too big (Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro), but cut in half they seem to work well enough. Generally I use between 10% and 20% infill, but in this case I think it's more that there are almost double shells in some spots, again due to the way the model was made. Most of the shoulder piece is just shell, not many places for there to even be infill, though I will definitely look at that for other parts. I know the chest is going to be a monster when I get to cutting it into parts and slicing

 

[N8TEBB]

Another way i use less filament is to avoid support as much as possible. I should have mentioned this earlier. Most of the time I will manually place supports only on parts that absolutely need it. I think my auto-support overhang angle is 60 or 65. There are a lot of scenarios where the support doesn't help the printer too much, and even more scenarios where the support is just waste. I have a CR-10. The build plate is big enough that a could print a helmet in one piece, but I almost never do. There are always spots of the helmet that I need good detail, and i sometimes want the layer lines to go in different directions. So I will cut the file in such a way that is can be mostly printed without support (usually in 4 pieces). The pieces are usually something like:

piece 1 and 4 will be printed upright like they are now, but pieces 2 and 3 will be rotated and I dont need any support at all for them. If you can find a way to slice your print so that it uses as little support as possible but keeps as much detail as possible, you're golden. This also helps with post-processing because support removal can sometimes be a pain.

For the vacuum forming buck: 50% is overkill. I keep mine at 10%. Unfortunately it will have defects after a few vacuum pulls. The heat will warp it no matter how mush infill you use. I can get up to 5 really clean vacuum pulls out of one buck.

 

[Emp Frosty]

I've done my full suit 3D printed and heres what I can tell you.

The weight of a part largely depends on how thick it is. What I mean by that is if the person who made the files made a part thick then that will obviously increase the amount of material use in the process of printing. For example I used all NerdForge files for my Mk. V and the files are relatively thick so they're a bit heavy and used a substantial amount of filament, but I've also use files from Titlewave and their files are relatively thin so they weigh a whole lot less.

NerdForge:

Titlewave:

As far as Walls vs. Infill goes, Walls are whats really going to matter for your strength. Most prints you can get away with around 3-4 walls or about 1.2 - 1.6 mm and for infill it will really depend on internal overhangs how much you need. I've learned to think of infill less as a strength giving structure and more like how you would use supports to hold external overhangs, generally I use between 3% and up about 18% for trickier prints. Now if you have any load bearing or high stress parts, thats when I'd start going up to about 5-10 walls, about 2 - 4mm walls, and like 10% infill

Lastly for supports its a bit of a learning game of what you can get away with not having supports under but if you use Cura to slice your prints then definitely turn on tree supports. They will save you a bit of filament and let you have some cleaner supports for anything that overhangs another pert.

 

[indigoD0g]

Typically, I use a little bit more filament than is probably required. I have my wall count set to 6 for helmets since I want an extra study piece (I am clumsy and need the overkill reinforcement). Adjusting your support overhang angle or even using support blockers to remove unnecessary supports can save you a bit of filament if you're looking to reduce waste.

 

[Renraku]

Howdy all, I was hoping I could get some insight to how much filament is typical for different pieces of armor for those of you who 3D print your parts. I've recently started worked on my Halo 3 MJOLNIR/Recon suit and I'm finding some of my parts to be quite heavy when sliced, however that may just be my inexperience and not understanding what is typical.

For example, I have half of a half of a Recon shoulder piece that is coming out at around 250g including supports, which seems super heavy to me considering how much of the overall suit it makes up, but I'm curious what your experiences are so I can better gauge. I've gotten my full MJOLNIR Mark VI helmet printed in pieces and I feel like that in it's entirety (minus the visor) was just a hair under 1kg which on the flip side seems relatively light so maybe it just depends on the model? I'd love to hear your feedback and experiences as I work through my set!

Would depend on the part of the armor, printer settings like infill percentage and wall thickness. Typically I have used 6 - 8 rolls of filament if I had to guess. For my current its a combo of resin and filament so its hard to say how much I have used so far.

 

[RamenN00dl3]

Typically, I use a little bit more filament than is probably required. I have my wall count set to 6 for helmets since I want an extra study piece (I am clumsy and need the overkill reinforcement). Adjusting your support overhang angle or even using support blockers to remove unnecessary supports can save you a bit of filament if you're looking to reduce waste.

I think this one gets me worried about experimentation and wasting filament, I'm sure I could block some supports in certain areas, but I'd be worried about getting halfway through a large print and then having that lack of supports lead to a failure, thus wasting the entire print. Like my attitude so far has been "yeah there is definitely waste with the supports, but at least it guarantees a quality complete print, rather than experimenting with supports and wasting half of five prints", if that makes sense. I wish there was an easy way to simulate what would happen and know for sure, but it sounds like most people just work off experience and getting a feel for their printer, which I'm still working through. I appreciate the insight in any case.

 

[RamenN00dl3]

I've done my full suit 3D printed and heres what I can tell you.

The weight of a part largely depends on how thick it is. What I mean by that is if the person who made the files made a part thick then that will obviously increase the amount of material use in the process of printing. For example I used all NerdForge files for my Mk. V and the files are relatively thick so they're a bit heavy and used a substantial amount of filament, but I've also use files from Titlewave and their files are relatively thin so they weigh a whole lot less.

NerdForge:View attachment 328683

Titlewave:
View attachment 328684

As far as Walls vs. Infill goes, Walls are whats really going to matter for your strength. Most prints you can get away with around 3-4 walls or about 1.2 - 1.6 mm and for infill it will really depend on internal overhangs how much you need. I've learned to think of infill less as a strength giving structure and more like how you would use supports to hold external overhangs, generally I use between 3% and up about 18% for trickier prints. Now if you have any load bearing or high stress parts, thats when I'd start going up to about 5-10 walls, about 2 - 4mm walls, and like 10% infill

Lastly for supports its a bit of a learning game of what you can get away with not having supports under but if you use Cura to slice your prints then definitely turn on tree supports. They will save you a bit of filament and let you have some cleaner supports for anything that overhangs another pert.

Yeah I'm definitely using tree supports anywhere I can, and I may start experimenting with Prusa Slicer as they seem to have even more saving with their tree supports. I haven't had time to play with it too much yet, and the first time I tried I got some weird issue where one huge overhang wasn't getting supported at all for some reason so it needs some more research, but getting back to your initial point I think the model itself definitely has something to do with it in this case. As I mentioned the helmet I printed seems fairly light compared to a single shoulder piece, and looking at the models it would appear there is more redundancy and thickness in the shoulders.

 

[RamenN00dl3]

Another way i use less filament is to avoid support as much as possible. I should have mentioned this earlier. Most of the time I will manually place supports only on parts that absolutely need it. I think my auto-support overhang angle is 60 or 65. There are a lot of scenarios where the support doesn't help the printer too much, and even more scenarios where the support is just waste. I have a CR-10. The build plate is big enough that a could print a helmet in one piece, but I almost never do. There are always spots of the helmet that I need good detail, and i sometimes want the layer lines to go in different directions. So I will cut the file in such a way that is can be mostly printed without support (usually in 4 pieces). The pieces are usually something like:

View attachment 328682
piece 1 and 4 will be printed upright like they are now, but pieces 2 and 3 will be rotated and I dont need any support at all for them. If you can find a way to slice your print so that it uses as little support as possible but keeps as much detail as possible, you're golden. This also helps with post-processing because support removal can sometimes be a pain.

For the vacuum forming buck: 50% is overkill. I keep mine at 10%. Unfortunately it will have defects after a few vacuum pulls. The heat will warp it no matter how mush infill you use. I can get up to 5 really clean vacuum pulls out of one buck.

Ooh that's a good point about the heat warping the buck, good to know. Did you print in PLA by chance, or something else? I'm printing everything in PLA Pro, not that it makes a huge difference. I'll definitely reslice the buck with less infill, especially when I only intend to use it on this one visor (which granted will probably take more than one attempt). Thanks!

 

[Invidiax4fan]

I print with 4 perimeters on all my parts. I used 10% infill on thick/ bulky pieces and 40% on thin pieces for increased strength.
Prioritize increasing perimeters over increasing infill because it will be just as strong and weigh less, use less plastic, and cost less.

 

[N8TEBB]

Ooh that's a good point about the heat warping the buck, good to know. Did you print in PLA by chance, or something else? I'm printing everything in PLA Pro, not that it makes a huge difference. I'll definitely reslice the buck with less infill, especially when I only intend to use it on this one visor (which granted will probably take more than one attempt). Thanks!

I just print in PLA. It does a good job if you just need a few pulls