Hello All,

I'd like to share my experience with the 3dPrinted model I received as a gift in the Movein3D Challenge.

Firstly, I was absolutely blown away by the level of detail and accuracy with which this model was printed. This wasn't like any of the 3dPrinted models I had seen earlier.

So, I explored a bit on the technology employed by Sculpteo - the 3D Printing Company partnered with Dassault Systemes for this competition. Sculpteo used an SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) Formiga 3DPrinter for this (if I am not mistaken).

Click here for more information on SLS.

Some observations that may help you for designing successfully for 3dPrinting:

- The surface finish is a bit grainy and gives a rather false impression that the material is brittle. It is anything but brittle. It is really really hard plastic and even the slimmest of sections of the model are hard and adequately flexible. I have seen videos of people using power drills on their 3dprints of this material.

- The various gears where jammed in position as there were no gaps/holes for the powder in between the clearances to be removed. I have tried to show areas where I should have allowed some passages for the powder to be washed away.

None the less I managed to remove the two locking gears and just run the engine by hand.

V8 in action... :) (video)

The original idea was to connect a motor to the gear in order to run this mechanism (video):

Some pics of the model to show the accuracy of the print:

Thanks!

- Rohan