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FO Quadnoculars Build from T5H files


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First up - thanks to Germain. These files are amazing, compliments on a really great design.

 

I've got a small printer - a Flashforge Finder - with a 14cm cubed print bed. It makes great PLA prints but I do have to get creative with extra slicing to make large items fit the small print bed. I printed out all the quadnoculars parts over the last 6 weeks or so, with only a couple of misprints. Surprisingly, the black prints look much much nicer than the white, although I wonder if that is because shadows and thus lines are easier to see on the white.
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The quality of the Germain's design is exceptionally high.
My printer, however, does create a sort of stepped surface when printing almost horizontal planes. These will be sanded out in the finishing process.
The bulk of the parts were printed at 0.18mm per layer.

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The black hinge was printed first and was straightforward to put together, mostly thanks to Germain's excellent instructions.

I love the functionality of the range finder.

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The front and rear sections with handle mounts were too large for my printer so I had to slice off the handle mounts and print separately.
I don't see this as a big challenge - the white body needs to be filled, sanded and painted anyway due to being printed in 3 sections.
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Photo showing the print lines on the white body parts.
I think temperature plays a part in creating smooth PLA prints - when I starting printing the first white blocks back in Feb, it was cold and I would ventilate the room by opening the window. These first parts showed a lot of uneven print lines. Since reading more about PLA online, I've tried to stabilise the temperature around the print job and to keep it warm. I now keep the window closed and have enclosed the sides of the printer with plastic sheeting. I've even made a roof for the printer to keep in warmth and I keep a light pointed into the print space to add warmth. The increased temperature is noticeably - probably around 30 deg C - and print jobs now appear much smoother.
I will be filling joins, sanding and painting so this is not a really big deal.
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Top tip for putting the body parts together (from my gf!) - jam the screws onto the end of a long wooden skewer, then lower them into place inside the body before securing.

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I love these small details... but I do have to ask - why an imperial cog and not the FO logo?! ;-)

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Edited by Shrapnel
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Some other points about the design:

The vast majority of the parts fit perfectly. Great design work.

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The white eyepieces - I rotated these and printed them horizontally.
Two reasons: firstly, it meant that all the support structures were underneath, where the marks they leave would not be visible.
Secondly, the upper surface is finished nicely by the printer in a horizontal position like this.

26606545367_dceb11d113_b.jpg

 

 

I'm not sure if this is a result of the printing (above) or a slight kink in the design. Either way, my parts have a very small gap between the white and black parts of the eyepiece. Again, this is not a big deal and I will fix this with careful application of heat to gently bend the PLA into position.

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I printed the objectives with no supports (listed optional) and they came out great.

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Unfortunately, with my prints, the objectives' thread did not fit into the screw thread of the binoculars body.
Yes, I read Germain's note about the direction of the threads :-)
Very very tight fit. One of them, on the right side, does begin to screw in but then jams after a mm or so.
Plan is to try sanding the threads on the objectives to reduce the diameter then try again.

27606912998_62b16c1b62_b.jpg

 

Edited by Shrapnel
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A couple of other points.

I also printed the thumb pad horizontally - it seemed logical.

26606705557_fc9b10763c_b.jpg

And they came out ok.
41478077881_b1499139f2_b.jpg

 

And the handle kit:
26606604627_1de25b0a47_b.jpg

Which was fun to build...
26606546197_7ba068bfe8_b.jpg

 

 

Next up is to start filling the joins then sand and bondo and sand again to prepare the surface of the left and right white binocular parts for painting.

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The reason why I recommand to print the textured pads standing is because the top surface isn't actually flat but very slightly curved instead. And the best way to really capture that shallow curve is to print the part upward, otherwise the print resolution (even at 0.1mm) will mess up with it.

pad10.jpg

 

 

And yeah, why that Imperial cog instead of the First Order crest? I don't know, but it's there, no doubt about it. Probably an easter egg from the propmakers ;).

img_2111.jpg

 

Thanks for the feedback about the threading issue. I must say I'm kind of bummed that it's too tight. I have used a 0.5mm clearance for that threading which is kind of large but apparently that's still not enough. Like you said, you can perfectly get away with it by deepening the thread on the objective ends with sandpaper. I managed to make functional a threading with a tighter clearance this way too, it just takes a bit of patience.
And if really you can't get it to work, I'll update the parts with a larger clearance between the threads.

 

Also if I had to guess, I would say that the small gap between the black and white eyepieces is probably caused by the support filament. But from a design point of view the two should mate perfectly 

mating10.jpg

 

 

Anyway, great work so far! And I'm glad to read that the rangefinder works good. It took me some time to find a working solution I was happy with, and as I didn't test it either I could only hope it would work. Especially since they didn't bother to make it functional on the original prop. 

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Looks like you have quite a bit of sanding in front of you, Simon!  I have completed a few 3-D printed projects recently, including a DLT-19.  After the initial sanding, I found a product that helped me out immensely with the very fine lines.  It is a combination primer/filler from Rustoleum, (pic below).  I hit it with a few coats of this before final wet sanding and it came out as smooth as glass.  I know Rustoleum products are available in Europe, and if you can find this there I highly recommend it, as it will definitely save you time.

 

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Edited by gmrhodes13
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5 hours ago, The5thHorseman said:

The reason why I recommand to print the textured pads standing is because the top surface isn't actually flat but very slightly curved instead. And the best way to really capture that shallow curve is to print the part upward, otherwise the print resolution (even at 0.1mm) will mess up with it.

 

 

And yeah, why that Imperial cog instead of the First Order crest? I don't know, but it's there, no doubt about it. Probably an easter egg from the propmakers ;).

 

 

Thanks for the feedback about the threading issue. I must say I'm kind of bummed that it's too tight. I have used a 0.5mm clearance for that threading which is kind of large but apparently that's still not enough. Like you said, you can perfectly get away with it by deepening the thread on the objective ends with sandpaper. I managed to make functional a threading with a tighter clearance this way too, it just takes a bit of patience.
And if really you can't get it to work, I'll update the parts with a larger clearance between the threads.

 

 

Also if I had to guess, I would say that the small gap between the black and white eyepieces is probably caused by the support filament. But from a design point of view the two should mate perfectly 

 

 

Anyway, great work so far! And I'm glad to read that the rangefinder works good. It took me some time to find a working solution I was happy with, and as I didn't test it either I could only hope it would work. Especially since they didn't bother to make it functional on the original prop. 

 

Some replies:

- the textured pad - I noticed the slight curve but hadn't realised that was why they were vertical. Nice idea.
I'll try printing them again, see if I can capture more detail. Thanks for the tip!

 

- the imperial cog... I had not noticed that they were on the actual props. Good spot - so the First Order is re-using a load of old imperial tech!

 

- the threads - yeah, I have no idea what to suggest. I'm new to 3d design (I started learning 123D last week so I could print a scope for my megablaster - more details on that later) and the one thing I've discovered is that I need to be very careful with measurements when mating one part to another, to allow some clearance but not too much.

 

- black/white eyepieces - after staring at that photo, I'm starting to think that you are right, that the shape underneath is caused by the support structure. Which means, when compared to your design screenshot, that I should be able to sand the underneath to create the right surface to mate with the black part. Good to know.

 

I have a little upgrade to the binocs on order - I'll post photos after it's arrived and I've installed it :)

 

 

Edited by Shrapnel
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4 hours ago, justjoseph63 said:

Looks like you have quite a bit of sanding in front of you, Simon!  I have completed a few 3-D printed projects recently, including a DLT-19.  After the initial sanding, I found a product that helped me out immensely with the very fine lines.  It is a combination primer/filler from Rustoleum, (pic below).  I hit it with a few coats of this before final wet sanding and it came out as smooth as glass.  I know Rustoleum products are available in Europe, and if you can find this there I highly recommend it, as it will definitely save you time.

 

GEZsv9W.jpg?3

 

Hey Joseph,

thanks for the tip!

I've used something similar on previous projects - a fine finishing filler/putty that comes in spray cans. But this is the first time I've seen a 2 in 1 filler and primer.

Will check it out :)

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  • 4 months later...

Looking great so far. Think it will look great once it gets finished! Just a small question, though, where did you get the screws/hardware? Been looking around, and I can't seem to find em. Either they are way too expensive, or the wrong thing. Thanks, I'm looking forward to watching this thread.

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If these are the viewers used by the resistence, based on an old camera, it likely has the imp cog because they are old imp surplus, not recently stolen from the FO.

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