I asked a question about the best way to get high quality print of both faces of a coin or medallion(2 sided) pendant and received an answer ~ stating that I could print in FUD, but should expect some fuzziness on areas where the support material touches the piece... I don't want fuzzy anything, so I am thinking of another solution and so would appreciate your thoughts on this idea before I go to print. (I posed this as a follow up question on my previous topic, but have not received a reply ~ been a few days ~ so I am posting as a new topic ~ ) I am thinking that I should split the coin in two parts ~ see pic attached for example ~ and then load it as one STL file with two parts ~ then cross my fingers and hope your people actually print the correct side up (meaning not the flat backs) and thus the faces of the coins should be printed in a nice high resolution without the bother of support marks ~ Then I could expect fine enough detail results even with White Detail ~ I could then glue the 2 pieces together to make the mold for a coin ~ to be cast in pewter. ***I am emphasising here that the fronts should be printed up (in my own piratey manner) as I recently received a printed piece where the obvious front (a lovely mermaid) was oriented incorrectly and so the back printed (being mostly flat and where detail was obviously less important ) beautifully with the finest detail and the mermaid looked like a shark eat her and pooped her out ~ Yes, I presented the issue to customer service ~ it would be so helpful and even essential to be able to set the print orientation of a piece myself so I don't have to depend on someone who doesn't even look at a piece to determine what it is and how it should be printed Does the two part split coin model sound like a good direction?
Might I suggest supplying a multi-model stl file? They will orient the file as a whole, I believe, not as individual models. If you print the halves as you propose, but in a single file have each half twice - one face up, one face down - for a total of four models in the file per coin. This should guarantee that you get one complete coin without flaws. (Hopefully?) Yes, it's twice as expensive, but it should take the risk out of the process. Also, please report back to the community on how the pewter process goes - the good, the cautionary, and the bad.
Thanks for you helpful suggestions FreeRangeBrain ~ I will take the double faces into consideration ~ but yes, it is at twice the cost ~ I am happy to hear that splitting the coin ~ yes both pieces in a multi mesh STL ~ I will roll the dice however and more than hope that your printing people actually do their job and consider the orientation ~ sounds like a quality control issue ~ having the impression that you guys farm out a lot of your printing ~ I know this is such a new frontier ~ the 3D printing biz ~ but your printers need to stop hiring turd heads and offer a dependable service ~ my tone here is, at this point a jovial one, but hey, we customers should get what we expect ~ that's how I run my business ~ if I send a pirate a crappy coin ~ then I should expect to be run out of my business. So you guys crack the whip on these printers, how about ~ so you can then offer your customers a dependable result ~ if I want to gamble ~ I should go to Vegas!