Hi,
I use now a 3D printer to build french one meter gauge old railcar . I never heard of something like that in previous discussion. The technics I use is now very cheap and the result is very accurate even in HOm scale. I use a CAD program wich was distributed free from PTC (ProDesktop V8.0) to make .stl files then I send them to a small company who operate an Oject Eden 330 printer and I receive the masters that I cast with PU vacuum injection.
Let me show you the process:
CAD design
the masters (cost : less than 300€)
And the result (this is HOm scale - 12 mm track )
I will be please to heard of some one who had use the same technics
Neat! I have been interested in the potential of 3D printers to create model objects, but know very little about how they work. Looks like some neat results so far, though!
This is fascinating! I have heard of rapid prototyping but I didn’t know it was getting down in cost to where it was possible to have small projects done. I am assuming that you are in Europe, and that is where the master was made?
The new 3D printer make prototyping very cheap compare with stereolythograpy. One tenth even more !
Take a look at this web site : http://www.2objet.com/home.asp.
The resolution is 300x600x1200 dpi wich is enouhgt to see very small details
The cost is in the z direction so design your model with flat flange and then build it in 3D. The Eden serie have a lot of succes in US so you find one on the web.
For the fun a small railcar in Sm made whith RP (1/64 metric)
Hi Cyril one meter gauge
Sounds neat so what sort of cost would be involved.
in producing the red and cream rail motor in say 1/22.5 reasonably acuratly
regards John
Hi,
the machine is limited in lenght to about 320 mm and in 1/22.5 the model will be 500 mm long.
So you have to cut the flange in half. But it is possible : the system is very accurate so you can reconstruct it easily.
it seems that 1000 € a good figure. The price are still going down so you have to ask. The quotation is usualy very fast : half a day after you sent the .stl file.
Regards
Cyril
if i understand the process you do the design with a cad program , send it to the 3d printer to get the master made , then make some sort of mold and cast plastic copies from that ?
say you made 100 copies of a model , what would the cost per copy be ?
this could be a way to get kits of specific prototype cars that aren’t available anywhere else , as long as the retail price is under $30 (so manufacturing costs would have to be about $15) it could even work as a business venture
The cost of a RTV mold (silicone) is not very high and is good for at least 30 models and you need a few grams of polyurethane resin for each model. A small company owned by a frend of mine is producing the rail car in red and yellow (a DeDion Bouton ND serie builds in 1936 which works in Lozere in the south of France until 1968).
Its a very fast and effective way to produce very accurate model, let this Brill flange boggie show you the accuracy one can achive, the rule is in mm. But the boggie is about one inch long !
We have an Envisiontec Perfactory machine which we use solely for scale models. It has one of the highest resolutions available and we use it for producing masters for others, pre-production samples for major model railway companies and as a production machine for our range of N and Z scale products.
We have our first model of a 1067 mm gauge locomotive in design - it is TT scale on 9 mm track and uses an exisiting N scale mechanism.
For design work I prefer Autodesk Inventor but we also use Solidworks and Rhino. We can, however, accept a very wide range of model formats.
We also have a Roland laser scanner with a resolution of 0.1 mm and a digitising arm and they require some other software to “clean up” the scans.
Unlike RP bureaux we are modellers ourselves and have a good feel for what our customers are wanting in the way of a final product.
