Annoyed rant about printed mechs.

[Rick]

So, here's the thing. A year or so ago I bought 5 resin printed battlemechs from Defiance on Ebay; they arrived, seemed alright and I put them on one side to work on later. A couple of weeks later, I take them out to work on only to find that one has opened up - the back peeled away and unset resin had oozed out; I fixed it, couldn't salvage the back so used some brown stuff to fill and sculpt a new back (helped by it being a very simple nearly flat back). A month or so after that, I primed, painted and gloss varnished them, ready to put decals on. Between then and now I've changed my mind at least twice so they've sat on one side, waiting to be finished. So, today I decide to do some more work on them only to discover that another back has peeled away, exposing the inside, and 2 others have had a side torso and arm pull away from the rest of the torso, exposing a wide opening into the torso. All 3 are a bit soft, almost squidgy around the affected areas so I'm putting them into the sun for a day or so in the hope this will harden the resin and allow me to glue them back together, salvaging the mechs.
If these were cheap prints that a mate had done for me I might understand it but these are from a supposedly experienced printer who charges a premium for the models (and ridiculously high postage as well) - I really expected a lot more from Defiance but to have 4 out of 5 show problems is a bad, very bad, failure rate. I will never use Defiance again and I'm very annoyed at the company for selling me defective models.

[Cat]

Eeks, that ooze is quite likely toxic too.
 
Handle with care.

[ced1106]

Is this the same Defiance games mentioned on Dakka? :/
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/575288.page;jsessionid=FF8A7E25247634887B1C28C78F20C94D

[Belligerentparrot]

If that's Tony Reidy's Defiance Games I'm afraid you've been dealing with a con-man. There was a long thread here back in the day, might be worth searching the forum for it. There were some very good jokes in it as I recall.

If there is another, unrelated, company calling themselves "Defiance Games" that has sprung up in the intervening years, they've made a terrible choice in their name, and should have done some research first!

[Daeothar]

That's a case of models not having drain holes put in during/before the slicing process; the liquid oozing out is actually uncured resin. When the model is not cured long enough, the resin inside will not harden and when pressure inside of the model rises (due to temperature or other factors), the model will fail at its weakest (thinnest) point. In this case, apparently that was the back of the model.

I don't know the size of the models, but 28mmish sized miniatures should cure through and through with ease when cured long enough. Anything larger, or more massive, and the model should be hollowed out, both to spare resin/weight, and to prevent this very thing from happening. This can be done in slicing software like Chitubox (which is what I use) or in more complicated programs like Blender.

I once made a simple vehicle model and sculpted it hollow from the start. Hugely complicated and challenging (especially for what was basically my first ever model), only to find that this did not translate well during slicing and that starting again and using the hollowing function was way easier and better

Anyway; your models sounds larger than 28mm sized, and then they should have used the hollowing function, in combination with large enough holes (bottom of the feet for instance) to drain the excess resin during printing and even before curing.

If they're multipart, it's even easier, as you can place the holes such that two pieces will fit over the holes. I even saw one that had holes in one part and pegs on the other, so they could fit together like that!

My suggestion would be to drill holes into all of the backs (a large and a smaller one), flush out all of the resin and then repair the holes with putty or plasticard. Because the uncured resin will remain in this state forever, and you're always a single fail away from a chemical spill on your table or display case.

Clearly they have not thought about this issue, or didn't care since even I, a bumbling amateur at best, know about this and have experience with it. And they're supposed to be a professional printer after all.

Also; the name Defiance is a bit of a red flag, even after 10 years...

[Ady]

That's a case of models not having drain holes put in during/before the slicing process; the liquid oozing out is actually uncured resin. When the model is not cured long enough, the resin inside will not harden and when pressure inside of the model rises (due to temperature or other factors), the model will fail at its weakest (thinnest) point. In this case, apparently that was the back of the model.

I don't know the size of the models, but 28mmish sized miniatures should cure through and through with ease when cured long enough. Anything larger, or more massive, and the model should be hollowed out, both to spare resin/weight, and to prevent this very thing from happening. This can be done in slicing software like Chitubox (which is what I use) or in more complicated programs like Blender.

I once made a simple vehicle model and sculpted it hollow from the start. Hugely complicated and challenging (especially for what was basically my first ever model), only to find that this did not translate well during slicing and that starting again and using the hollowing function was way easier and better

Anyway; your models sounds larger than 28mm sized, and then they should have used the hollowing function, in combination with large enough holes (bottom of the feet for instance) to drain the excess resin during printing and even before curing.

If they're multipart, it's even easier, as you can place the holes such that two pieces will fit over the holes. I even saw one that had holes in one part and pegs on the other, so they could fit together like that!

My suggestion would be to drill holes into all of the backs (a large and a smaller one), flush out all of the resin and then repair the holes with putty or plasticard. Because the uncured resin will remain in this state forever, and you're always a single fail away from a chemical spill on your table or display case.

Clearly they have not thought about this issue, or didn't care since even I, a bumbling amateur at best, know about this and have experience with it. And they're supposed to be a professional printer after all.

Also; the name Defiance is a bit of a red flag, even after 10 years...

I discovered this the hard way with my own printing - By using the Hollow Model option of the slicer and adding drain holes, it still cracked some parts due to the outgassing of the resin caught inside.

Printing hollow models is tricky - what I tend to do nowadays if printing something large enough to consider hollowing, is literally hollow it out - e.g. a tank hul gets a large chunk removed from the bottom in (in my case) Blender.

Things like Mechs - i'm assuming 6mm 1:300 battlemechs - I've got a whole draw full of home printed ones - none of them really needed hollowing out, even big boys like the King Crab & Dire Wolf, so to me thinking of hollowing them out is really cheaping out on the resin, very much at t cost of durabilty. I'd also suspect it's a basic resin, not a higher strength ABS like resin as well as that can be quite fragile even in a big fully cured chunk.

[Rick]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies.
No, this is Defiance Industries who only do printed MWO battletech designs, nothing to do with Tony Reidy.
Daeothar - good advice but no need for a drainage hole - there's a great big gap where the hollow torso has split open! 
The good news is that, despite having layers of paint over them, being on a window sill all morning has actually hardened the resin quite a bit so they should be salvageable. You just don't expect to have to put in this much effort correcting a product from an experienced, professional printer.

[Ady]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies.
No, this is Defiance Industries who only do printed MWO battletech designs, nothing to do with Tony Reidy.
Daeothar - good advice but no need for a drainage hole - there's a great big gap where the hollow torso has split open! 
The good news is that, despite having layers of paint over them, being on a window sill all morning has actually hardened the resin quite a bit so they should be salvageable. You just don't expect to have to put in this much effort correcting a product from an experienced, professional printer.

Another thought occurs - Salvage wise.

Drill a hole on the crack that's a couple mm wider then the crack then either stick it on the windowsill facing the sunshine, or get fancy with a UV torch for a couple of minutes - That should help with the internal resin  even more so than letting it go through the crack.
then stuff it with putty and clean up and touch up the paint job

[Rick]

Another thought occurs - Salvage wise.

Drill a hole on the crack that's a couple mm wider then the crack then either stick it on the windowsill facing the sunshine, or get fancy with a UV torch for a couple of minutes - That should help with the internal resin  even more so than letting it go through the crack.
then stuff it with putty and clean up and touch up the paint job

Brilliant idea. Given the issues I've had with printed models (mostly arriving 'sticky' but a few like these) I should really think about getting a uv torch.
Oddly enough these aren't the worst problems I've had with printed mechs - a friend printed a few for me, 2 of which decided to explode! Both had cracked in about 3 places across the upper torso and, as I picked them up and started handling them, they broke into about 5 pieces; but salvageable.

[Ady]

Brilliant idea. Given the issues I've had with printed models (mostly arriving 'sticky' but a few like these) I should really think about getting a uv torch.
Oddly enough these aren't the worst problems I've had with printed mechs - a friend printed a few for me, 2 of which decided to explode! Both had cracked in about 3 places across the upper torso and, as I picked them up and started handling them, they broke into about 5 pieces; but salvageable.

Ooh... hollowed out again. It's one of those things where, done right for really big parts it helps. Done wrong, it's just a matter of time...
It's why I tend to not so much hollow models, but fiddle with them in blender to put voids that go all the way though - in the case of mech, should socket to shoulder socket is a good place to remove parts of the model - you don't see it when it's assembled it reduces the amount of resin, and doesn't have cracking wories.
Still, that's just experience talking there having learned the hard way

Additional - alcohol wipes can be VERY handy for sticky models sometimes, or cleaning up dribbles

[Rick]

Just been talking to someone on ebay that I've bought mechs from - he warned me that some of the mechs I've bought may have a problem - apparently another customer had one of his split open. So I mentioned LAF and the issues we've raised here with a hope that these problems may be raised in other places.
What is it about this year or so and printed models? Something in the air, perhaps?