1/10 Scale ‘Marvin’ is 3D Printed on a Solidscape T76+ 3D Printer & it’s Amazing

3DHubs has quickly become quite the 3D printing sensation. For those of you unfamiliar with the website and business, it is a service that allows those with 3D printers to rent out time on their machines to individuals and companies in their area who don’t have 3D printers. The 3D printer owners end up making some extra cash, while those utilizing the services get exactly what they need without having to spend thousands of dollars to purchase their own machine. The service has been expanding almost at an exponential rate as of late, and the company has just recently received $4.5 million in funding.

Those familiar with 3D printing, and particularly 3D Hubs, should also be familiar with Marvin, the little 3D printed robotic man has become a symbol of the 3D printing movement as well as 3D Hubs itself. Many people have been printing Marvin out on their printers for close to a year now, in order to show off the resolution of their machines. He has become a rather recognizable gage to determine how well a 3D printer prints.

One 3D Hubs user account, Basiliskus3D has just recently opened their hub on the service. They are a company located in Budapest that has been 3D printing products for clients for quite some time now. They offer 3D printing on both a Makerbot Replicator 2X as well as a Solidscape T76 Plus 3D printer, via their 3D Hubs profile, but offer additional options for printing, scanning and modeling via their website. “The name of the company is based on a mythological creature, the Basilisk, because it can turn anyone into a statue with its look,” explained Mucsicska András, of Basiliskus 3D to 3DPrint.com.

In going with the “Marvin” theme, they decided to see how small of a print they could make of the famed 3D printing celebrity.

“Once we printed a small fantasy game action figure’s head,” said Mucsicska András. “It was very small and very nice. We showed it to every one on exhibitions and in our office, but once we lost it, so I decided to print something small again. I was not sure [if] all the details (would) be visible on 1/10 scale Marvin so I printed two versions of it, one 1/10 and one 1/5 scaled model.”

To print them out, András used their Solidscape T76+ 3D printer, which has the capability of printing with a layer thickness between 0.076mm and 0.012 mm.  This printer is not the same as your typical consumer-level machine.

“After finishing a layer there is a cooling time while the wax is cooling, then a cutter blade mills the surface of the wax,” explained András. “We use this printer for printing jewelry models for casting. If I print only one model of Marvin in [the] original size it would take me 61 hours to print with 0.012 mm layer thickness. To print 3 models of the same size Marvin it takes only 89 hours. The efficiency is much higher when we print more models. To print one model of 1/5 scaled Marvin takes 9.5 hours and the 1/10 scaled model takes 4.5 hours.”

As you can tell in the photographs, the 1/5 scaled Marvin and even the 1/10 scaled version came out phenomenally well. What do you think? Discuss in the 3D printed mini Marvin forum thread on 3DPB.com. Check out some more photos below.