Made: Hitesh’ Eiffel Tower

About 3 months ago Hitesh Kalra didn’t even have an Ultimaker, now he’s creating great prints like the Eiffel tower as you can see in the picture. Hitesh does like a challenge, “For me the main reason to build the eiffel tower was that folks said it is something that a FDM printer cannot possible build – so took up the challenge.. and it turned out good”. 

As a chief architect for Symentec’s SSL Infrastructure Hitesh got curious about the new rising reprap technology: “I was really curious to find out how complex prints I could build” Upon further research he discovered the Ultimaker. Apart from it’s specs and ability to print fast he fell for it’s cubed beauty and it’s portability. It took Hitesh about a week to build his Ultimaker as he could only build in the evenings “after my 2 year old son went to bed”.

Now Hitesh visits reprap meetups every week where people come together with all sorts of 3D-printers. “The Ultimaker community (and reprap community in general) is awesome”. This also what led to me reaching out to Hitesh to write this little article. Hitesh is a great spokesman for the Ultimaker community: “I even showcased the Ultimaker in in the bayarea reprap booth during MakerFaire last month here in San Mateo”.

His prints take a little effort and some patience, but the results are worth it, as Hitesh says himself: “Crazy number of people showed up and were impressed with the quality of the prints….”. The printing of the tower was “a hard print” and it took Hitesh a couple of tries, and he had to print the Eiffel tower in two parts, but he got it done. A total of 20 hours were needed to complete the print.

We understand if now you’d want to print this yourself and therefore asked the buildlink and used settings: Hitesh used Cura to slice the model. Settings: .2mm layer height, retraction enabled (2.1mm, 70mm/s), print speed 80mm/s, travel speed 150mm/s. You can find the Eiffel tower here on thingiverse.

Last but not least, a few bigger pictures:

The Eiffel tower after clean up.

The Eiffel Tower without cleanup.

Hitesh considered the Leaning Tower of Pisa a decent print as well. He used Cura to slice it and printed in glow-in-dark PLA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Eiffel Tower outside, without clean up.

If you’re really inspired, Hitesh also recommendds to print the owl and the ship.

Thanks Hitesh and best wishes,

Vincent Cornelissen