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Post by riogrande on May 30, 2015 6:31:46 GMT -8
PS. It would help if their was a small explanation of what else is needed to finish the model. For example it obviously need trucks and couplers, but are these just then screw in or is something else needed etc? Just a suggestion. Thanks Rick posted a link to the page on the Bulkhead flat car - here is a copy/past of the text from that link: It appears from the information on that page that the cost of the digital casting of the bulkhead is $60, and the modeler would supply the other parts needed, then paint and letter/decal the model to complete it. Of course not exactly cheap but if it's a model you really need and don't mind doing the work, here is a practical means to an end - very doable for many people. I admit I don't know much about the bulkheads, but I recall some folks discussing them in the past few years when the MDC cars came up and mentioning that many of the prototypes out there from the 70's were much longer, so it will be interesting to see if Shapeways does any of those to? The Bulkhead that I may be willing to put the money and time into would be the Southern Pacific F-70-50 Bulkhead lumber flat car or F-70-59. I'd be all over that like a rash, that would be my dream bulkhead flat car! www.railgoat.railfan.net/spcars/byclass/flat/f070-59.htm
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Post by TBird1958 on May 30, 2015 9:15:55 GMT -8
Never enough SP lumber cars!
As an aside, an 15 pack of '70s Fords would be very useful. I'm more than happy to paint and assemble them, hint, hint.
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Post by riogrande on May 30, 2015 10:06:49 GMT -8
Definitely! If Shapeways could produce one of the SP lumber flats as shown above, I'd be willing to go to the trouble in this case - sometimes it's about motivation when certain "signature" models are involved and the SP lumber bulkheads are just that to me.
And as Mark pointed out, the automobiles, and in the cases of the bi-level racks, vans and trucks are getting more needful.
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will
New Member
Posts: 22
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Post by will on May 30, 2015 14:50:38 GMT -8
I had the opportunity to see one of Ian's cars today at the RPM meet in Collinsville Ct. The TSH71c. It is the best looking product from Shapeways I've seen. The finish is smooth and the details sharp. I see these cars often where I work loaded with steel plate. At the corners of the frame are several small indentations which are faithfully reproduced in the product. The car I saw had been mounted on the Trainman underframe and looked good. The car body was opaque and apparently needs to be immersed in a product named Bestine. It is a rubber cement thinner which cleans off residue from production and also turns the car white. I learned from the gentleman displaying the car that he had bought it during one of Shapeways sales. Apparently they often have sales of 10-20% off regularly. I have photos and will post them as soon as I figure out how.
Will
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Post by alcoc430 on May 30, 2015 17:35:13 GMT -8
I have been meaning to learn solidworks.
Home Depot is selling the new dremal 3d printer. The samples of what it can print don't show a resolution that is good enough for trains.
Ianclasper great job on the flat car
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Post by iandrewmartin on May 30, 2015 18:50:04 GMT -8
All; I'll throw my two-pence in the ring here on the 3d printing revolution issues. Costs are relative. As one poster mentioned tooling costs on average between 20-50 thousand dollars by the time you get to production. Then you've got to book a time on the manufacturers production run. Then you've go to paint it, decal or pad print it, pack it, send it and the list goes on. Shapeways is making money at the moment because they are an aggregator, that is, they on-sell other people's intellectual property (the design file) and they also print it. In the longer run their business model is going to have to change. Gosh, even Dremel have a 3d printer now. And while the current line feed models are somewhat costly to run, prices are coming down on spools and we have liquid resin models (out of Patent in 2014) coming on stream within the next two years, and then the costs of things are really going to come down. Now is a great time to be learning to do CAD work. As a scratchbuilder anyway, having to finish a part (and you can do a lot of it with acetone - see this link: airwolf3d.com/2013/11/26/7-steps-shiny-finish-on-abs-parts-acetone/)The real art as another poster said is in printing up what you need. Little mark-up (especially if you need 50 or 100 quickly), and they are finished in a time-frame suitable to the project. I do the same thing when I design circuit boards (I design them, send off the file to my manufacturer in Singapore, who finishes and send them back). If I am making one, I do it myself here at home. And I usually do one at least to make sure that the bloddy thing works before I send them off to be made. QC - you see. Hope this helps. Learn CAD, I am and using it more than I thought I would.
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Post by onequiknova on May 30, 2015 19:10:03 GMT -8
Curiosity got the best of me, so I went ahead and ordered on of those cars. My name sake, the Nova. We'll see what it looks like.
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Post by cannon on May 30, 2015 22:12:01 GMT -8
Couple things. Shapeways is essentially a service bureau that contracts out for time in high end machines around the country to make submitted parts, and offers those parts for sale to others for a slight mark up, with the originator getting a small piece of the action. The low end printers being offered by the likes of Makerbot, etc are nothing more than a hot glue gun and an X-Y table, with pour resolution. To quote the old racing adage, "speed costs, how fast do you want to go" the same with 3D printing resolution takes time and therefore is expensive.
Dave
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Post by The Ferro Kid on May 31, 2015 1:43:50 GMT -8
We had this when I was a kid -- Mattel Thingmaker. Except all it made were Creepy Crawlers and you could never find additional bottles of PlastiGoop after Christmas. Seriously, this is a fascinating development and like anything new, quality will go up and price will drop. It just takes time.
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Post by riogrande on May 31, 2015 5:22:50 GMT -8
Seriously, this is a fascinating development and like anything new, quality will go up and price will drop. It just takes time. Yes, early days yet - this technology will evolve and get cheaper.
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Post by atsfan on May 31, 2015 6:03:21 GMT -8
Seriously, this is a fascinating development and like anything new, quality will go up and price will drop. It just takes time. Yes, early days yet - this technology will evolve and get cheaper. People dismissing 3D printing remind me of Steve Balmer laughing and dismissing the iPhone when it came out.
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Post by riogrande on May 31, 2015 6:53:36 GMT -8
3D printing reminds me of what they used to do on Star Trek TNG where they would materialize things using a combination of holographic and transporter technology - thats what it reminds me of.
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Post by fr8kar on May 31, 2015 14:06:15 GMT -8
I've been playing with 3D modeling for 20 years so I've been very excited to see the recent improvements in 3D printing technology. I've printed several things using Shapeways so far (not just hobby items) and for my needs, the resolution has been fine. I have several hobby projects lined up waiting for the resolution and cost to get closer to where I want before I proceed, but its happening faster than I expected. I'm looking forward to the time I can "scratchbuild" not just one but several items with a single click.
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Post by santafe49 on May 31, 2015 17:35:37 GMT -8
I think 3-D printing will be more of a cottage industry making limited run items. In the HO, N, or O scale items that are easily programmed and aren't readily available. I have never seen a piece up close, but have to ask how similar are the pieces to injected plastic items? They look fragile and i wondered if they would stand up to the rough handling some pieces get when assembling a model? I could see one crushing a form where the layers are layed down.
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Post by atsfan on Jun 2, 2015 8:14:53 GMT -8
I think 3-D printing will be more of a cottage industry making limited run items. In the HO, N, or O scale items that are easily programmed and aren't readily available. I have never seen a piece up close, but have to ask how similar are the pieces to injected plastic items? They look fragile and i wondered if they would stand up to the rough handling some pieces get when assembling a model? I could see one crushing a form where the layers are layed down. They compare to resin models.
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Post by onequiknova on Jun 8, 2015 11:38:54 GMT -8
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Post by alcoc430 on Jun 8, 2015 11:50:15 GMT -8
Not bad for a accurail car carrier with side panels and having a good hand at painting details. Maybe needs a work around for the top ones (on the rack)to cleanup the windshields
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Post by onequiknova on Jun 8, 2015 11:58:03 GMT -8
I will say, having the real thing in my garage, the overall shape and proportions are nice, but there is no definition of the details at all.
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Post by riogrande on Jun 8, 2015 15:31:06 GMT -8
Yeppers, looks like it got caught in a snow storm. Hopefully in a few years the technology will have matured to the point that car will look clean and nice for a decent price.
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Post by fr8kar on Jun 8, 2015 15:55:33 GMT -8
Yeppers, looks like it got caught in a snow storm. Hopefully in a few years the technology will have matured to the point that car will look clean and nice for a decent price. White strong and flexible is typically the cheapest material you can have an object printed in. Printing with frosted ultra detail or the new material frosted extreme detail gets you a much finer appearance. Of course the cost is higher for those materials. I have no doubt the technology will improve dramatically and it won't take years to see the results.
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Post by lajrmdlr on Jun 9, 2015 6:11:18 GMT -8
Needing corect stacks for ATSF & LAJ ALCO S-2/S-4 made by Atlas & Bachmann for had Shapeways make same. The rectangular Santa Fe stack is on left & LAJ taller cylindrical on right. Attachments:
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Post by canrailfan on Jun 9, 2015 8:53:15 GMT -8
As I understand it, the resolution (number of points) of the 3D drawing file and the material chosen to print the object, are the determining factors in how accurate the object details will be and how smooth the surface texture is. Higher resolution files take more effort to create and the materials that yield better-detailed printed objects are more expensive. That's why some of the sharper pieces offered for sale seem so pricey. Like most other new technologies, the costs will come down fairly rapidly. 3D printing is no different than laser or inkjet printing were when they first came on the market. Eventually we may buy 'files' instead of actual models, 3D print them at home, and then 'paint and letter' them with the yet-to-be-developed '3D-capable' inkjet printer. David
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Post by fr8kar on Jun 17, 2015 11:24:48 GMT -8
As I understand it, the resolution (number of points) of the 3D drawing file and the material chosen to print the object, are the determining factors in how accurate the object details will be and how smooth the surface texture is. Higher resolution files take more effort to create and the materials that yield better-detailed printed objects are more expensive. That's why some of the sharper pieces offered for sale seem so pricey. I think you're in the ballpark here. A curve in CAD is a curve and a spherical or cylindrical object is defined using a curve. How the model gets translated to the 3D printer depends on the file format and the settings used for export. For example, I have created some cylindrical objects using the .stl file format and they appear to be made up of 16-sided polygons instead of smooth circles. Without changing the model at all, if I change the export resolution, I can re-export the file and get a smoother curved surface. Technically, it's still not a circle, but once circles are replaced with 64 or 128 sided polygons, it becomes difficult to tell the difference, especially when we're talking about small parts in HO scale. The other side of the coin is that the printer's resolution may be the limiting factor. If your model requires a part that is 0.010" thick and the printer can print a minimum thickness of 0.023", then you either have to beef up that detail in your model or omit it. Drawing the model to the printer's resolution is a good way to ensure that the part can be made without problems, but as the technology improves the model itself may become obsolete with it's heavy, oversized and omitted detail. I think you're on the money, David. I've been spending my rainy days on the computer putting some time into the models I want to see produced. The resolution and cost isn't there yet, but it's getting there quickly. I'll bet we'll see competitors to Shapeways in the near future and the prices will begin to fall precipitously and the quality will improve dramatically as the competition heats up.
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Post by santafe49 on Jun 19, 2015 8:02:27 GMT -8
Of course, the next big thing needed will be the home modeler pad printing machine. This will do away with the decals sellers. When will this show up in the MicroMark catalog?
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