Increasingly discouraged by the high price of, among other things, quality and detailed intermodal equipment and cars, trucks, etc in HO scale, I have tried a few different ideas to cut costs. This week, I tried 3d printing. I paid $15 for a bit over two pounds of knock off 3d filament with free shipping from ebay. I have a way to access 3d printers for free as long as I buy my own filament. So I decided to give it a shot. I could not have been more happy. Not only did my first model, a 40’ shipping container turn out as expected, I saved weeks of waiting and oodles of money by avoiding 3d printing companies and train brands that already make the models I want. Below is a picture of the result, with a preliminary coat of paint:
I do realize, however, that new technology like this can often put modelers off, for any number of reasons. I will attempt to help some of those still sitting on the fence about using new technology like this by providing a short tutorail. NOTE I do not endorse any of the following websites/companies, they are just free and they work well for me.
Are you using PLA, or a different material? Did you print the entire thing with like 20% infill, or did you print the sides and assemble them? I printed some stuff the other day, not train related, but next time I go in to print, train stuff will come out with me. Overall, nice and informitive.
I used PLA with no infill, because I printed it upside down as one peice. My print took 3 hours. The resin printer that Luke Towan uses, however, always takes nine hours, no matter how much you cram in it, so they are faster too…
Many containers I have seen in the model industry do not have floors. I have a couple (athearn I think?) As for the roughness, you are correct. But it isn’t too coarse and nothing sandpaper can’t help. The door detail for my specific model (which I got off of thingyverse) includes two poles and hinges. If you want something more, you can always design your own model. And I know not all librarys charge because up to a certain limit, one near me does not. Thats why you have to do some research for your area…
Yea, the bottoms not a big deal, I thought about that after I posted, and your picture doesn’t show the door detail, that’s why I asked.
So these are 40’ers? Bottom line, what does each container cost, undecorated, as your pictures shows?
I have a couple of container trains I run, one with 40’ ers, to represent foreign destintation ports, and a train with a mix of 48’ and 53’, to represent domestic traffic, and I have a trash container train, Seattle “style”, if you will. These aren’t long trains. 20 cars on my lay out is long.
I’ve been able to pick and choose over the years through Ebay, and A-Line’s undecorated offerings.
By the time you sand out the roughness, your container ribs will more-than-likely become fairly wide because of the amount of material you’ll need to remove. If you do, be sure to do it outside or wear a mask.
In general, 3D printers are great for concept modeling and prototyping. The resolution and tolerances, however, are still not fine enough for detail work and injection-molding is much better at that.
Hopefully 3D printing will continue to get better though. It’s fascinating to watch a build.
Waiting to see just what his undecorated model cost. I notice the connector pins (for lack of knowing the correct term) that hold containers together are not on his print, but I suppose double sided tape would work, or it could be another detail you’d have to add yourself.
Containers on Shapeways are pretty pricey, considering what they are. I like the undecorated models from A-Line, but I don’t see them on their web site any more. Ebay is still a good source.
I agree with BN as far as the price of the packaged 3 container sets, although they are nicely detailed.
And it totally depends on what type of container traffic your modeling, the overseas, which is mainly 40 and 20’ containers, or the domestic, which are the 45’ through 53’ models.
As far as printing quality, I’m more than happy with the bulk pnuematic trailer I bought, everything that the prototype has, is there.
My opinion on 3D printing is that it is a very useful tool, but I’m not thrilled about the roughness lower end printers, such as those you can afford in you home or what a local library may have, produce. The sanding required seems to soften the details, making them fit for nothing about background details. You could also make parts for mechanisms (say switch machines) with lease, since in those cases roughness and detail is less of a problem. Lower end printers offer print poorer results when doing curves, square stuff (i.e. the container BNSF printed) comes out better.
I am very impressed by the results I’ve seen people get using resin printers or printing services (i.e. Shapeways). They usually lack the roughness that characterizes lower end prints.
The real benefit of 3D printing is you can print details that are not commercially available. Just often you can’t get the detail in cheaper 3D printers you’d otherwise get. I don’t think that 3D printing really saves money, but it can make anything you what provided you can design it online.
If you use fine enough grit, it won’t distort dimensions. The striations are not very coarse. The price for the container, which weighs under an ounce, is just over 40 cents (if you buy a roll of PLA at $15 for 2.2 pounds). Thats even better than I first thought.
Keep in mind that I am limited by the 3d printer available (its a $2000 dollar knock off and it prints better than the name brand), and this is my very first print/test model. I didn’t design the file either. If I did, there would be more door details and they would be finer, and there would be places for connector pins too. I am currently working on designing a BN/BNSF 48’ well car from scratch. That will have way more detail than the one currently on thingyverse. Once I get it finished and printed, I’ll post pictures to show you what is really possible. There is an easy fix to eliminating the striations entirely. Resin 3d printers print so fine you don’t even need to sand anything and you have to hold the print up to the light to see the layers.
If I had $500 odd dollars laying around, I’d buy one. But for now, I’ll have to settle for what I can get. However, Luke Towan has tons of good videos on resin 3d printing, I recommend you take a look…
You container is a fine model considering the money you paid for it. However I am cursed as a rivet counter, and am not content with what a $2000 printer will give you. I have see Luke Towan’s videos, as well as the ones on MRVP. The quality you get with a resin printer is exceptional, especially considering they come for less than $500 dollars, less than plastic types. Of course each to his own!
Stop getting defensive. No one is criticizing you; just pointing out the limitations of 3D technology, at present. The resolution of SLAs is getting better but still in the 2 to 5-mil (0.002 - 0.005") range, which will yield visible roughness to the naked eye. (FYI: I used to machine as part of my job as a technician so I know a little something about it.) I congratulate you on giving it a whirl.
My son-in-law has a medium priced printer. He made me some containers that were in flat pieces – needed to be glued together. They included floors. The ribbing, connecting pins, door latches, etc., were all very highly detailed. There were no rough lines. The containers were just as detailed as the ones I bought from Atlas and Kato (except for painting and decals).
For ten containers, we used under a dollar of plastic, as opposed to $6.00 to $12.00 per container at the LHS.
For an N Scale intermodal train with 15 doublestacked cars, and more cars in the yard, and more containers sitting in the yard, I was overwhelmed by even sale prices.
While I’m too cheap to buy my own printer, I think this is a great possibility for some modelers.
