new to 3d and if i had hair i would have pulled it out by now

[JustMatt]

I've got a very similar, if not the exact same kit, alvin. The box mine came in was branded Tronixy (or something similar)and came from Gearbest. I'm fairly certain it is a direct drive extruder.

The biggest challenge for me was leveling the bed. If you plug around the printer's menu, there's a way to move the head around to four different positions to check the distance between the nozzle tip and the print bed. I used a piece of paper as a feeler gauge to measure the distance. I made it close enough that there was a little bit of resistance moving the paper around between the nozzle and bed. However, from what I've been reading here, I may have had the nozzle on mine too close to the bed. Other than that though, assembling it was pretty easy, so it shouldn't be too difficult for you.

I agree with what Curious Aardvark said earlier, in that starting from scratch would be another good option. However, while I'm very intrigued with openscad, I don't think I could use it myself. There's a really good sticky post with a list of different CAD software options on this very board right here. There are a lot of high quality, powerful options for making your designs that are free or low cost. Most will have a feature that allows you to use a picture as a background that you can then trace over to copy a design.

[curious aardvark]

Hmm, that software looks very interesting. Can't find anywhere that says you have to move the camera round the object.
Camera on a small tripod and object on a lazy susan, gives better results as all pictures are taken with the same exposure and lighting.
I'll have to give it a go :-)

Most of the really cheap i3 kits appear to be tronxy.
The rest seem to be ctc - tronxy would probably be better.

[Davo]

Best of luck to you. And if you find a way to get good quality 3d models with hobby quality scanning gear, please let us know.

[alvin]

getting there slowly lol, i had a lot of problems getting the software to pick up the model points when matching up the photos, the answer was to spray the model white then flick black paint all over it and that sorted the problem, the software accepted 67 out of the 74 pics i loaded into it which gave me 23000 reference points, that was a learning curve in itself!
triangulation is now another problem to overcome, the model once done is looking messy so i will need to mess about with the setting and see where it takes me.
so its coming on and i am learning a little more with each step, it is certainly time consuming though but i suppose thats a good thing as its giving me a problem to solve, i had heart surgery not long ago so i have a lot of time on my hands.

the building of the printer i will leave for the weekend i think, i would like to try and overcome the problem of getting to grips with the software first.
if any of you guys attempt anything with this software could you post your findings and perhaps we can all learn a little faster.

[awerby]

What software are you using?

[alvin]

regard 3d, the link to the youtube page is above message 11

[curious aardvark]

did you move the camera round the model or rotate the model in front of the camera ?

[alvin]

i rotated the model, i had the camera on the tripod and used a turn table for the model, i did this in the garden which might also of made a difference to the photos, a white bed sheet was the background.

[curious aardvark]

Well that's a massive improvement over 123d catch.
If it'll work like that I'll definitely give it a go :-)