I love Lego. I played with them often as a kid, and I love sharing the Lego games with my son, had season passes to legoland, and appreciate the humor they add into everything now of days. The accessories for the TNG crew are a perfect showcase of this.
With that said, yeah, the Lego Ent D is slightly less expensive than my multi-color 3D printer, and I’m more than happy with the Akira Class I printed a month ago. Maybe I’ll print the Enterprise D in the next few days to celebrate.
Fair. It’s nothing special, just a quick lazy print with some acrylic markers for the nacelles. I wanted to see how it would turn out, wasn’t going for display quality, but for a toy around the house I’m happy with how it turned out. Lego figure for scale. It’s a little smaller than the Ent D - maybe $3 of material?
I’m still learning, but I don’t see it being more than 500g if you were to print it yourself. Keep in mind a 3D print is going to have about a 15% infill, where the Legos are solid plastic, so the Lego version will use more raw materials and be heavier by nature.
1kg of good quality PLA or PETG can be had on Amazon for about $13 on sale, definitely under $20. So, you’re using maybe $6-$10 USD of raw plastic?
Keep in mind you either need to sand and paint it, or use multiple colors to get something “good” looking, but for my Akira class I just printed it grey and used some acrylic paint markers to do some quick details. I’m lazy, so mine looks like crap up close, but from a distance it looks alright on my shelf, and it’s cheap enough that my 5 year old can grab it and play spaceship with no stress on my end.
(Edit: I looked at a few models that are roughly the same size as the Lego one. I’m seeing material estimates ranging from 550g to 1kg, so I wasn’t too far off)
I love Lego. I played with them often as a kid, and I love sharing the Lego games with my son, had season passes to legoland, and appreciate the humor they add into everything now of days. The accessories for the TNG crew are a perfect showcase of this.
With that said, yeah, the Lego Ent D is slightly less expensive than my multi-color 3D printer, and I’m more than happy with the Akira Class I printed a month ago. Maybe I’ll print the Enterprise D in the next few days to celebrate.
You can’t just talk about your 3D-printed Akira Class and not show it. 🙃
Fair. It’s nothing special, just a quick lazy print with some acrylic markers for the nacelles. I wanted to see how it would turn out, wasn’t going for display quality, but for a toy around the house I’m happy with how it turned out. Lego figure for scale. It’s a little smaller than the Ent D - maybe $3 of material?
Wow, that looks great! I’m a bit envious. I need to learn how to do that to PRINT ALL THE SHIPS. 😄
Thanks for sharing.
What are the material costs for a larger sized D?
Bigger underwear, for a start
I’m still learning, but I don’t see it being more than 500g if you were to print it yourself. Keep in mind a 3D print is going to have about a 15% infill, where the Legos are solid plastic, so the Lego version will use more raw materials and be heavier by nature.
1kg of good quality PLA or PETG can be had on Amazon for about $13 on sale, definitely under $20. So, you’re using maybe $6-$10 USD of raw plastic?
Keep in mind you either need to sand and paint it, or use multiple colors to get something “good” looking, but for my Akira class I just printed it grey and used some acrylic paint markers to do some quick details. I’m lazy, so mine looks like crap up close, but from a distance it looks alright on my shelf, and it’s cheap enough that my 5 year old can grab it and play spaceship with no stress on my end.
(Edit: I looked at a few models that are roughly the same size as the Lego one. I’m seeing material estimates ranging from 550g to 1kg, so I wasn’t too far off)