How Not to Print A 3D Bird Box...?

[The Hat]

I got this mad idea to make a new bird box and everything was going to plan till I decided to print the Feckin thing.

I first noticed that I was over generous with the size of the accommodation, but I don’t reckon the lodger would mind one little bit, 96 X, 110 Y, 100mm Z, all most square.

click to enlarge
I was in so much of a hurry to get it started that I didn’t screw my head on first, this project was going to need support no matter which orientation the box was printed, but I hastily choose the wrong way.

I set it up to print in the evening and left it to run all night and came back to it after breakfast (About 14 hours later), and that’s when I started to get the jitters, it was supposed to take 24 hours or so to complete, but looking at how little progress it was making, I begin to worry just a tad.

I soon realised, I should have printed the box face down because the support was taking longer to print than the box was, that’s when I made the biggest FUBAR of all.

Instead of cancelling the print and reversing the box and starting again, no, no that would be silly, so I let it run on, sure it won’t take that much longer to print anyway, boy was I wrong, not to mention the extra filament it was using up. (What's time to a Pig anyway)
how is this for a bit of support...

I was never happier to see a print finish than this Friggin project, because of the extra filament for support, the box was 140% heavier that it should have been, box + support = way to much.

But the worst part of all was how long it took to complete, that came in at a whopping 98 hours, yes that long, so can anyone beat that for the biggest bobo ever..

Think before you print and if it doesn’t seem right then stop and engage the brain, isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing...
@stratman is going to love this...

 

[stratman]

a whopping 98 hours

I like the screen window look in the second picture. Perfect for warm summer days, letting the air circulate and all.

 

[Nifty]

WOW... I mean... WOW!

That is a LOT of infill for sure!

I'm always so worried about something like that happening to me that I tend to analyze the print layers in the slicer a hundred times before printing... especially for long prints (to this day, my longest print is still only about 8 hours).

Which slicer do you use? In CURA I use the "Layer View" all the time and scroll through the layers to get an idea of what it will look like during print.

 

[Nifty]

BTW, kudos to you for being willing to print your fubar's along with your awesome successes!

 

[The Hat]

The Bird box turned out great in the end, a tad oversized but none the less, a very desirable property hopefully.

Something else I noticed while printing the box was the amount of threads (String) coming from the sides of the box, just to print the supports for the overhang, it stopped when I switched to using other colours, only the green had this..!
click to enlarge..

It’s amazing the different quality’s you can get by just changing the filament colour, and I’m planning on printing another bird box tomorrow, but it’s going to be lot more petite than my first attempt...
Lesson learned.

 

[stratman]

The bird can use the green strings to make a nest.

Print "Ritz-Carlton" on the box and you can charge more for rent.