>>13970064 (OP)
If I could 3D print stuff I'd be making more than just Gunpla. Bandai would not have a reason to use it much at the moment IMO as mass production of Gunpla seems much more easily facilitated by good old fashioned injection molding.

This seems like how 3D printing is right now on the whole, IMO. Not something applicable to mass production, but more of something that you can use to maybe make a one-off in a semi-tolerable quality. When you want mass production, though? Make a mold.

There have been some instances of people 3D printing articulated figures but this can vary quite a bit. At any rate, using premade joints is a good way of doing it right now, for whatever other work you'd have to do.

At any rate the technology is not at the level yet where I can easily create my giant robot waifu with outrageous shade-casting cleavage, disproportionate birthing hips, the gaudiest fashion sense imaginable, and a taste for JUSTICE, so I'll just have to wait.

>>13970137
So...
Gunpla easy bake oven then?

>>13970149
Why sell an easy-bake oven when you could just sell more modular mass-produced kits? Like, you may make more money from the sale of the item for a little bit, but ultimately it'd be easier for everyone, Bandai included, to sell modular kits you can make your Donut Steels from.

>>13970154
I want a zaku army for a fraction of the cost...
Donut what?

>>13970169
HGs are about five bucks a pop.

Compare this to your 3D printed Zaku, which will likely be less articulated (you'll need to print or buy polycaps or joints assuming your model uses them), more expensive (just how much plastic will it take to build ONE Zaku plus accessories?), and less good looking (see: technology ain't there yet), and which will still need work on par with or even above the HG to look good.

Not only this but because of aforementioned issues your model will likely be on par with a nineties 1/144 or even earlier, with lots of big molded parts that lack detail and are mostly molded together. Like, we're talking first Gundam levels of appearance here. It's not a bad thing necessarily, and people still buy the original 1/144 RX-78-2, but Gunpla technology has come a long-ass way and to use a 3D printer at current technological levels will only reduce the features available on your model. Molding meanwhile can handle these things and churn out loads of models easily.

>>13970154
Isn't that what they're doing with the Graze literally right now?

>>13970198
I kind of figured that 3d printing wasnt viable at this time

Thats why i proposed the "easy back oven" for lack of a better term

A homesize unit that uses plates similar to what bandai would use.

>>13970230
Yeah actually. I think it's like, the entire theme of IBO's suits? Lots of modularity, swappable parts, that kind of thing. I haven't been watching it, I'd rather finish L-Gaim.


Anyways to make my big wall of text on why 3D printing and mass-production aren't quite together yet make more sense, simply pull up some modern Gunpla.

Look at the runners. You will likely see at least three, possibly with multiple colors on one runner, lots of intricate shapes, and a separate runner or two with an entirely different plastic type on it. To build a Gunpla kit, you take multiple semi-intricate or interlocking pieces, assemble them into hollow components, and put these together to form a model.

This is what 3D printing cannot currently achieve. It simply is not versatile enough to match molding.
It will not effectively handle
>multiple parts at once i.e. slow as fuck anything.
>hollow components
(all-solid components = $$$)
>Joints of any durable kind (i.e. pre-made joints'd likely be a go-to.
>Multicolored components
Colored monochrome parts? Yes. Multicolored components? No.
>Durability and quality of all parts, both outside of a model and integrated into one
>Ease of access either for consumer or produces

I could go on.

>>13970064
A friend of mine uses a 3D printer to make custom parts. The tech isn't good enough for him to make entire Gunpla, but he'll print out decorative add-ons like new wings or whatever.

>>13970241
I just shit out some third wall of text. Damn.

Anyway what you're suggesting is literally just home molding, something that could probably have been more cheaply and conveniently handled, again, by an actual factory. You want an army? Pay sixty bucks and get twelve Zakus. For that you'll likely get free shipping if buying from abroad.

Home molding? Pay over $100 for a printer, and then god knows how much for the plastic (multiple colors and multiple packs most likely!), joints, and blueprints as you mention if Bandai feels greedy.

I should have also mentioned earlier this will likely be bulky as fuck using almost any conceivable setup. Keep that shit in Bandai's gunpla dungeons where it belongs.

>>13970266
>>hollow components
Except all prints are partially hollow. Even at 100% infill it's not perfectly solid, instead it has a network of tiny patterns of whatever pattern you picked, be it honey comb or triangles or w/e. A part with 20% infill is mostly hollow.

>>Joints of any durable kind (i.e. pre-made joints'd likely be a go-to.
You can print in nylon, far more durable than any polycap, provided nylon can require a better printer than some $200 piece of junk from China, you could easily build a $500 or $600 printer that can print it though. Or PETG if you want something harder, which is very durable.

>>Multicolored components
Multi-extruders can print in different colors, dual heads are probably the most common type of multi-extruder but there are options up to 4. Modern Gunpla is generally only molded in one color per piece anyway.

>>Durability and quality of all parts, both outside of a model and integrated into one
Good quality plastic will be durable, but in general even cheap but decent PLA like Amazon's hatchbox will be mighty tough with 100% infill. I've replaced toy joints with pieces printed using average Chinese PLA, only 20 bucks for a 1kg reel. Something like premium PLA (Polymax) or premium ABS would shit all over it. The kind of durability you need from models (even a MG weighs like 1lb overall, maybe) isn't shear strength or tensile strength anyway, it's wear resistance, which 3D printed plastics will provide just fine. It's still ABS, it's still PLA, etc. Polystyrene is not more durable than they are.

The real problems with 3D printing are 3 things.
1) Time. Most people have i3s, they print slow. Deltas and corexys can print up to twice as fast, but can be finicky for beginners because of calibration and set up required to maximize their speed.
2) Precision and detail. FDM is not precise. That's the only real problem mechanically.
3) Most of the people who have 3D printers don't know two shits about 3D modeling or design.

>>13970431
Well, that's cleared things up! I guess my argument wasn't valid, then.

>>13970241
Why not just do it the oldskool way, make a silicone mold and cast using resin? I.e. garage kits.

>>13970266

RG models have different plasrics on the SAME RUNNER.

>>13970064
>They give him a tool to kitbash EVERYTHING as he can even rescale parts to fit EVERYWHERE and all he does is DL specific kits

Faggot.

>>13970064

Maybe, but I think 3d printer is better for making custom weapons and parts than printing whole gunpla set.

So I did this. For my college final research project. I used the 3D printer we had in our manufacturing lab and made my own assembled robot kit.

I designed all the parts in ProEngineer (it was what was available), plotted them out and then assembled everything using the generic polycap packs Bandai sells for the articulation points. It was definitely a learning experience and it made me appreciate the skill involved with designing the Gunpla we have today.

There are some serious challenges, not the least of which is simply design and modelling skill. I'm fairly mediocre and so had to make do with what I could output, but I've seen tons of amazing 3D work that would make for insane prints.

I did my project over 10 years ago, so the 3D printing technology was fairly new and has improved drastically since then, but at the time the part quality was really rough. It took two full coats of primer and tons of sanding before the texture of the plastic was anywhere close to paint worthy, and even then it's rough to look at. The machine I used couldn't do very small details well; I had a limit on how small I could go, so the kit I made is almost 18 inches tall.

It takes for-fucking-EVER; each print nest took between 8-14 hours to print. I'd start it at the end of the day and come back in the morning to pick them up. I had that damn thing running CONSTANTLY and it still took over a week to get all my parts. This can be mitigated by making more parts hollow or whatever, but even then it's not a fast process by any stretch.

I never saw the bill for the raw material, but I have to imagine it cost quite a bit of our spool to do.

It was a hell of a lot of fun though, and I'm seriously considering picking up a 3D printer so that I can expriment at home. I would definitely consider getting a very good 3D modelling program that isn't quite as rigid as ProE. Something suitable for game design or the like would probably be best, so you can sculpt rather than calculate.