You're very understanding, Mark. This is my second post this evening since I did get a pretty successful print of the lathe. I corrected the drawing and repositioned the lathe on the build plate, making it just horizontal.
My first look was good since I saw both stands printed and a complete bed.
After removing it from the platen and washing it in two different baths of ethanol, I clipped all those supports and got a good look at it. It's remarkable! The ways are perfect V shaped. The drive screws are actually separate from the rest of the model. I actually think that the T-slots in the cross slide are really T-shaped, but there's no way to tell with the naked eye. You can't see it, but all the knobs and levers are there. The tool post actually has multiple layers with a space between them for the tool holders. The detail is so intense that it makes me want to spend the time to really make the drawings as good as I can.
If I had made the cross slide separate from the bed, I believe it would have actually slid. The model had two defects, and neither will keep it from getting painted and used in the machine shop. The rear of the headstock stand is not fully formed, but doesn't keep it from setting flat. I could easily fill it with Bondic which is also a UV cured polymer of high viscosity. When primed and painted, the detail will really pop.
And the second is the missing lower portion of the chuck. Again, not a show stopper. The bottom of the bed also is a bit misshapen.
As a proof of concept the Elegoo Mars UV LCD Mask printer passes with flying colors. There's a ton of variables that can be controlled in the slicing program including not only how many supports and locating them, but their thickness, the shape of the connection to the model, the depth they penetrate into the model, etc. There are other variables regarding how long the exposures are at the bottom levels and all succeeding levels. Little by little I'll figure all this other stuff out.
Meanwhile, I just created a beautiful O'scale engine lathe that when painted will be believable and unattainable in any other way. I'm not seriously working to print the entire gantry hoist. While, it's not as "crafty" to make a single piece that would replace hours and hours of scratch-building, it makes it possible. Some of these ideas aren't doable without this technology.
And I had another thought. My brother-in-law's nephew is quite an entrepreneur. He started a company that processes bank statements for banks relieving them of this onerous clerical task. He started by buying a raft of Kyosera desk top laser printers and had them all running in parallel thereby producing what would have been output by a commercial, large volume printer that cost many times as much. It got the business going and eventually they did by a major production machine that did more than just print.
With a $360 3D hi-res, you could buy 10 of them equalling the cost of one machine just several years ago. The speed is ruled by physics. It takes so many seconds to expose and harden the resin. With 10 machines running in parallel you could actually have a business that could produce enough output to earn a living. When I suggested this to my wife this morning, she told me to not think about it.
