This is a project that's actually tied into my day-job.
One of my projects at work is to replace a steel tank at a mining facility. I worked with one of our staff designers on the tank drawings, and the project manager, who had seen my printer during the "Bring Your Kids To Work Day" commissioned me to print it.
The designer was able to export the model from AutoDesk as a .stl. I printed a prototype as a solid model, but did not really like how it turned out. Several of the connections were too small, and the top layers didn't print well on top of the 10% infill I specified.
I printed the final version in two parts. I used TinkerCAD to separate the roof plate from the rest of the vessel, and printed the main body with 0% infill and 0 top layers. I spent a couple hours editing the model of the top plate to make everything thick enough to print, mostly by changing I beams into solid rectangles.
Overall, I think it turned out pretty well:
My Project Manager was very pleased!
Incidentally, this is a 25.4:1 scale model of the real tank. That's because the original model was in inches, and my printing software defaults to millimeters!
For size context:
One of my projects at work is to replace a steel tank at a mining facility. I worked with one of our staff designers on the tank drawings, and the project manager, who had seen my printer during the "Bring Your Kids To Work Day" commissioned me to print it.
The designer was able to export the model from AutoDesk as a .stl. I printed a prototype as a solid model, but did not really like how it turned out. Several of the connections were too small, and the top layers didn't print well on top of the 10% infill I specified.
I printed the final version in two parts. I used TinkerCAD to separate the roof plate from the rest of the vessel, and printed the main body with 0% infill and 0 top layers. I spent a couple hours editing the model of the top plate to make everything thick enough to print, mostly by changing I beams into solid rectangles.
Overall, I think it turned out pretty well:
My Project Manager was very pleased!
Incidentally, this is a 25.4:1 scale model of the real tank. That's because the original model was in inches, and my printing software defaults to millimeters!
For size context:
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