I'm getting space wood

Another one in the works. Really appreciate all the feedback so far. Sounds like there may be a lot of cleanup on the piece, after the fact based on its design. I spoke to stoptap who designed the original model, and he will be adding screw holes for easier mounting. I will Forward the updated file to all of who have received one when I get it.

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So, just finished. There will be a lot of cleanup needed, as it printed support inside (even though I told it not to lol).

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Looks good for a first pass !

I'm Diggin it, have you seen how it lines up in the machine?

Just tried, doesn't seem to line up (ignore my awful looking PF lol). It lines up with the two back bumpers, but it extends too far to line up with the front, and vice versa if you try to line the front bumper up with the rear two.

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I'm going to try printing it laying down. There is so much support material it was a real fail. I'm not sure how you could even clean this up. I printed it on its end to try and elimate support material inside but it's prob worse this way.

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Could you please measure it and let me know how much it needs adjusting ?

Here's the update from my friend who printed... has a whole lot of support material to remove...

Despite the measurement discrepancy noted above, I'll still have him drop it off so I can take a pic and give a feel for what it'll look like installed when printed in white.

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I was the Skyking mystery printer, so I will jump in here and throw in my two cents. First of all designing 3D models is tough - especially without a printer to test it on. Not surprising there are a few bumps in the road, so not a big deal because models always need to be tweaked. Very good job for a newbee all things considered!

Obviously I rotated the model to print it flat and save on support material. My initial reaction was that the three caps should be separate models and printed separate. That would save a lot of support material. On the other hand the support material involved there is external to the beam and easy to remove, so no problem at this point. That said, printing ANY support material takes time.

The actual beam portion of the model can't help but have internal support material based on the design. Looking at the original plastic art in the game, this model did a good job of matching the design of the beams. So support material is a fact of life pretty much to keep the realistic looking beams. My suggestion here would be to make the beams ever so slightly thicker. This will make them less fragile and easier to remove the support material without damaging the final model. For instance if the beams are 2mm now, I would step it up to 2.25 or 2.5mm. Basically I would beef it up until the model looks funny on the computer then back it off to a point in the middle. This is not manditory, but just the kind of thing to think of while designing a model for printability.

The picture below I removed the support material from below one of the beams and started taking out the internal material. It's a lot of detailed work to get that out, so I will probably stop after one beam just to make sure it is possible.

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Good work guys. Let me know what you think the model needs to make it easier to print and I will alter it as needed.
It’s easy enough to separate the three bases from the girders. I can then add a recess on the corners of the girders and a boss on the bases so that they can be glued together.

Well it looks like we're working our way up the learning curve. I'm 100% confident in Andrews ability to make adjustments . the feedback from everyone that's printed so far has been invaluable. They say you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, I think we're in for one hell of a breakfast.

Overall I'd say it looks good, especially for the very first print run. alignment obviously needs to be tweaked. Don't beat yourself up over your play field either, that bright new shuttle is so impressive you don't even notice the Playfield.

John, thanks for the constructive feedback, in fact I'd say your two cents is worth more like a dollar fifty. Just to be clear,I'm the Newbie to the 3D print world .stoptap who designed the original file is an experienced 3D designer, actually his real job. I just want to make sure that proper credit is given where it's due. He plans on implementing a lot of the suggestions into a more printer friendly version of the model. That said, for accuracy sake could anyone that has a rough model printed check the alignments with your pop bumpers and get back to us with measurements so he can tweak the 2.0 version of the model. I will forward the new version of the. STL file out to everyone as soon as it's complete. Keep Flippin; Larry

I don't have a game to check against but for reference on the printout; from center to center all three sides are right around 119 or 120mm on my printer.

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Great stuff. Thanks both.

So it isn't an equilateral triangle. Marvellous.
I will separate the girders from the bases and alter the dimensions.

Looking at that horrible paint loss has me thinking, anyone know what color blue matches the PF paint? I have a spare PF with basically no wear, but I don't feel like swapping as mine plays awesome. The majority of my PF looks fine due to Mylar, then there is the crappy looking, unprotected spots.

I don't feel like doing a hardtop, as my BG has a little flaking at the bottom, and my cab is in player condition.

Hate to put the cart before the horse, but here's a picture of the cart

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From stoptap
Here is the STL file to match the new dimensions. I have done it as just the girders so that it will be easier to print and we can have a looksee at what we have.

To everyone who received the original file check your inbox I'll be emailing these out straight away. Irish bastard I don't believe I have your email ,PM me your email address and I'll shoot you out a copy.

Emails have all been sent out if I over looked anyone or anyone else would like a copy of the file let me know

I like the idea, however - I'm worried that it will obfuscate some of the already hard to see rollover lanes.

-mof

thanks for the great work. I printed it with support only from the buildplate up.
looks pretty good. but some stringing inside the structure.

is this this replace the plastic? then we need someone to work on the astronaut

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I wondered the same thing, but still going to be easier to see them then something like Medieval Madness or attack from Mars.

Looks pretty nice modeled in the white, how much time after the print do you think you spent on the cleanup?

on this one no clean up, took 5 sec to remove base support
I did not use support above
if spending 15 minutes, I think it would be even better. remove some of the thingies

When I do some more work on the model, I am going to make the beams in the girders a little thicker. The latest STL file has some thicker beams but the whole model does not have them yet.

Can't wait to see this new version Andrew, I can't open up .STL files so I didn't even get a sneak peek of this one.

I just finished printing V3 of the model, lines up really nice. Few strings, overall looks good to me

Printed using Sunlu Silver Silk PLA

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that looks pretty sweet!

Does it print standing like that without support material?

Here is a picture as it was printing, no supports at all.

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Seems to be a lot more printer friendly than version 1. Liking that silver. Was the runtime right around 7 hours?

Less, Took a little over 5 hours, and according the program used 22g of filament, not much at all

Printed fine standing up. A little rough but not bad. This thing is probably pushing every aspect of overhang and bridging capability in order to print with no support material. I was definitely surprised when I got up this morning and saw that it printed fine.

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Just curious, I haven't printed the new version yet, but we're the circle caps done away with? I liked how the flowed with the design, and covered the bumper caps. Maybe make them separately so they could be attached?

The plan is to print the circle cap separately. It makes the print out a lot easier and a lot less support material. Might also be a good idea to make the caps a little thinner so they don't raise the beams up so high where they might block the in lines. Either way I suppose the caps could be optional.

Since I asked John_I to print mine in white, it'll match the white plastic bumper caps well, so I might consider just attaching it directly to the caps (with velcro or non-permanent double-sided tape) and see how that looks.

So John, it looks like you printed this version both flat and on end. From what I can make out from the pictures it looked like the version printed flat had a lot more support material inside the girders then the one printed on its end. Is this because of the orientation in which it was printed or were they printed at different resolutions?

:applause:Overall I'd have to say version 2 was a win. Hats off to Andrew,working through a banker's holiday so that a bunch of pinball dorks on the other side of the ocean can make a new plastic piece for a 35 year old pinball machine, that's passion!The alignment seems to be spot-on and the design changes seem to address some of the hassles involved with actually printing the piece. Win,win! While I'm at it, kudos to all of you printing the designs and providing the feedback needed. Mistakes are not failures if you learn from them. A collective Round of Applause to all of you!

I intend to make the support bases separate. I can drop the diameter.

I also need to add the little bosses to the top of each corner. I’m hopeful that the next version will be final.

I disabled support material in the menu before printing. I was doubtful it would print properly but it did!

Not to change the recent subject, but on the eve of the first crewed flight from American soil since 2011 -- Demo Mission 2, launching Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station on the SpaceX Falcon 9 -- I just wanted to point out I have both these guys' autographs on my Space Shuttle pin.

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Not to change the recent subject, but
Not changing the subject at all for me, was just watching the pre-flight special on Discovery Channel. Hope the weather is good for the launch tomorrow. I knew you had a lot of signatures on that machine, are there any on the plastic over the pop bumpers ?

I'll be watching the launch tomorrow. First I will watch on the SpaceX youtube channel until it lifts off and then go out in the front yard to watch and listen to it go into orbit. Hopefully there will be some breaks in the clouds to allow better viewing.

Guys. Looking at those excellent photos from Irishbastard if I don't make the bases the same diameter as the top of the pop bumper camps the geometry will be wrong for screwing it down.
I will make them 44mm, add a hole for putting a screw through the base and the screw hole in the bumper cap. As the bases will be separate from the gridwork you should have some wriggle room to get it all aligned.
By the way this is tricky to design without having a machine on hand.

Could somebody measure the centre of their pop bumper to the centre of the mounting hole please (The DZ measurement on this grab) ?
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I grabbed my digital calipers to measure this for you but found the battery dead. Rather than trust my eyeball on a scale down to 0.Xmm, let's wait for someone who can be more exact.

As of matter of fact, there is: Eileen Collins, the first female shuttle commander. The problem is, I'd cleaned that plastic with Novus before I had her sign it, but apparently the Novus leaves behind a surface that's not very conducive to sharpie marker. As such, the autograph turned out very faint and not really visible/legible. Cmdr Collins felt bad about it, so she also the piece of cardboard I'd brought it in (with the same marker, yet notice the difference in quality). IIRC, I purchased a replacement pop bumper plastic, so that next time I run into her we could have try again. (I leave this and one other extra piece at my desk at work, since sometimes an astronaut(s) may visit the center without my having prior warning.)

So -- as I know this was the intent of your question -- since the autograph isn't really visible, it's really not a big loss to remove it and/or cover it up to incorporate this 3D truss mod.

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There is no real mark on the bumper caps for center, but hope these help.

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