QSN - 3D Printer Torture Test Art (Quasicrystalline Spin Network)

thingiverse

This is the Quasicrystalline Spin Network (QSN). First and foremost, please watch the attached video to gain most of the information needed to print this. Second, I challenge the 3D printing community: can you print it? I spent over three months trying to get this to print extremely well. It took countless tweaks and tests, but the very first attempt worked! So, I know you can do it too. Once one is printed, tweaking is all that remains. How much better can you make it? I have approximately 30 of them printed now, each with a new tweak. My coworker Ray had this on his screen when I walked into his office and said, "I think I can print that." Three months later, here we are! I spent too much time tuning my built-from-scratch Restock delta to make perfect prints of the QSN. However, I eventually achieved this goal. Now, I can print some really amazing prints of the QSN. This is no easy print. I would love feedback from others who try to print one. I'm interested in seeing your method of printing this: how did you generate support? What printer are you using? What filaments did you try? What slicers did you get to work? Were you able to generate a solid? Anything else you think would be helpful to share! I've had almost no luck making this a solid. It's currently "stick and balls." You will need to ensure your slicer can handle that. I was able to make it a water-tight solid using Meshmixer, but it has too many triangles. This is almost overwhelming for most average computers. If you try this, use the stick and balls version, and make sure your slicer can handle it. If you have any luck making this a solid, please let me know. Something I didn't mention in the video was that I tried building custom supports in Meshmixer as well as PreForm, but it wasn't achievable. Please give it a try and let me know if you get custom supports to work. Challenge accepted? I'm not sharing my slicer settings just yet because I'm interested in how you get it to work best! Later, I will publish my slicer settings that I have used. However, every system is different and requires its own settings. You can find more of my 3D printing research here: http://rwgresearch.com/open-projects/3d-printing-research/. Much love and God bless, ~Russ Gries My YouTube channels: Main content: https://www.youtube.com/user/rwg42985 Live 3D printing & stuff: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JRhK5DUp4Mr_WgNBnV57A Time laps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P8dOWKQtLE This was awesome! Showing Angus and Joel the QSN in person: https://youtu.be/pPpDE4XCC9Q