Thursday 20 August 2020

Designing and 3D-printing soda can terrain...

Because I haven't played any sort of 40K for well over a decade I have no scenery or terrain for this game... 

Some time ago (before I had my Mars) I printed this soda can terrain piece on my school's Ultimaker 2+. While not very detailed (this kit was designed with FDM-printing in mind), the print upgraded a humble soda can to a piece of attractive and functional terrain. Because I had no 40K at the time, I donated this piece to a gaming buddy, who painted it and now uses it on his battlefield. 

While browsing Thingiverse for terrain pieces to print I came across this very same upgrade kit again and thought of how it could be improved to make use of the capabilities of my Elegoo Mars.

I took more inspiration from another design made by the same user (be sure to check him out as he has several cool upgrade kits). I ended up not using any of his components, but he inspired me all the same!

While I know my way around Tinkercad I lack the ability to draw intricate/organic designs, that's why I used two pieces from this set. Using the gothic grate and the round fan I gradually worked towards creating a set of upgrade pieces. 

I have three kinds of cans available, the standard soda/beer can (be it 0,33 or 0,5L) and two kinds of cans commonly used for energy drinks. Funny thing is, we don't drink soda, beer or energy drinks, so I ended up buying a couple of the cheapest cans I could find and poured the contents down the drain... 

All these cans have different diameters and heights, but I wanted to create kits for them all. All kits are different, but share the same components to create an overall theme (I am a sucker for uniformity). To prevent ending up with a dozen identical terrain pieces, I made the upgrade kit modular, featuring several different versions of key components and several optional components. 

An example of the parts used to upgrade a can... 

At the moment I have sets for the two largest diameters, and I am thinking about ways to do something different with the smallest cans.

I have completed three different cans so far... 

Two of the different front caps...

Two of the different end caps...


Two examples of how to add variety by using different parts to detail the can... 




I have uploaded this modular upgrade kit to Thingiverse, check it out if you are interested!




9 comments:

  1. This is brilliant! Congratulations!

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    1. Thank you so much! I had a lot of fun making this set and I think it will see some great use on battlefields all over our favourite war-torn galaxy...

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  2. This is ingenious. It'll be a printing project soon! Thank you.

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    1. Thank you! Please be sure to post a couple of pictures of your print...

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  3. MAn This stl files or a real game changer for me !
    thanks a lot and can't wait to see what you have up next !

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  4. Hell yeah these are awesome. I'm gonna print some parts off soon and assemble my own, and I might experiment with filling the can with a couple of rocks for weight followed by spray foam for rigidity.

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  5. what did you use for the base of the vertical can I cant find that stl on thingiverse

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  6. I love this. Ingenious. Can you think of any other everyday household objects you can give them same treatment to?

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  7. Got this linked to me by a friend.

    This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

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