ESM Shapeways products suspended until further notice

[squirrelhunter]

I want to know the answer to Dave's question- class/road specific boilers would be a big deal, especially if the smokebox door could be done too.

[DKS]

This makes for interesting reading: http://3dhomemade.blogspot.com/

[Chris333]

This makes for interesting reading: http://3dhomemade.blogspot.com/

How does that work?

Looks like a laser shooting up into a tub of resin. The laser heats and cures the resin and the base raises up as each layer is done. Still sounds like $15000ish though.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I don't think the resolution is as good as FUD, nevermind the prefactory stuff from M4D

[mark.hinds]

David,

The FUD wax issue has come up in the 1/4800 naval Yahoo forum as well.  Any details as to how one removes wax with heptane, where one obtains it, and any health precautions you would use?

Thanks in advance,
Mark H. 

Some of this stem from the orientation issue Bryan has encountered. However, there are other problems that are related to the cleaning process, which they try to accelerate by heating the objects to melt the wax--which unfortunately is only a few degrees below the melting point of the FUD. I sometimes wish that we could order the products "raw" or uncleaned; I'd clean them myself using heptane, which dissolves the wax thoroughly but does not affect the FUD in any way.

[DKS]

David,

The FUD wax issue has come up in the 1/4800 naval Yahoo forum as well.  Any details as to how one removes wax with heptane, where one obtains it, and any health precautions you would use?

Thanks in advance,
Mark H.

Heptane is easily obtained: it's generically referred to as rubber cement thinner. Bestine sells it, among others. In terms of toxicity it's a fairly benign solvent, about on par with alcohol. However, it's the most volatile solvent known and is highly flammable, so sensible precautions in that respect are required.

To remove the wax from RP models, I just pour a small amount of heptane in a little glass dish, place the object in it, and gently scrub the object with a brush to remove the wax. Just be sure to take care with finer details.

http://www.dickblick.com/products/bestine-solvent-and-thinner/

[Mark4]

When I spoke to Mark (M4D) a month or so ago, he wasn't real interested in any new master work. I think the continued weak US dollar is mostly responsible for this.

I did get a little bit of interest upon suggesting some EMD short hoods (especially with Espee light packages) to compliment the existing long hoods.

I had (much) earlier inquired about design and masters for a container project and was looking at about $1k from start to finish, including 3 masters to cast from. I assume the design process was a fair amount of the cost. It would have made at least Gary Hinshaw and DRD happy

James,

Some clarification is in order:

1. I took a look at the quote to which you refer. I believe was was for 53 foot container masters in both N and HO and dated back to 2006. Building the parts (as distinct from designing them) was NZD 600. In those days the exchange rate was around 1.5 so it would have been USD 400, most of which was for the HO version (at around 7 times the volume of the N scale version).

2. I am unable to undertake any design work at present. I am still able to build masters from files supplied by customers.

Mark

[Mark4]

The price is more than a little bit higher.  It is an option for masters that are designed to be used for resin castings, but it isn't an option for direct-purchase by consumers.  And it's much more difficult to remove the support structure, which is the same material as the item itself.  There are issues unique to each process that have to be addressed.  This EL-C shell, for example, still has stepping issues on the slopes as well as distortion issues in the cab area and soft-relief issues in other areas.

Bryan,

If I am not mistaken that ELC was built around 6.5 years ago; shortly after I took delivery of the machine. Things have moved on since then. For the last 6 years we have been using Materialise Magics support generation software. Supports can be removed (almost!) as easily as tearing the perforations on postage stamps. Most , if not all of the distortion issues have been addressed by a combination of better understanding of exposure time/intensity and ease of adding the appropriate supports. Having said that the advantage of the Shapeways process from the POV of the machine operator is that the supports are continuous and need no user skill to place. Having said that I wish you the best with Best Cast - my engineering clients have largely priced me out of the model RR market - and that's a good thing

[Mark4]

I'm a Solidworks fan.  Bryan is too.  Robb probably still uses Inventor.  DKS might be using Google Sketch-up for the 3D stuff?  The Google program is priced right, if you want to try something out.  If you want to be "in-the-business" Solidworks is fantastic.

Mike, these days I wouldn't go past Rhino for design and prep of files for RP. More powerful than either Inventor or Solidworks but it doesn't hold your hand the way parametric software does. I still use Inventor for engineering work but if STL is the ultimate output Rhino is hard to beat.

[James Costello]

Apologies Mark - didn't mean to misquote you or confuse the subject further.

I just wish I had time to (learn how to) design things myself. I'm looking forward to working on your shells... and would love some short hoods to go with them

[Mark4]

Apologies Mark - didn't mean to misquote you or confuse the subject further.

I just wish I had time to (learn how to) design things myself. I'm looking forward to working on your shells... and would love some short hoods to go with them

No need for apologies, James.
Time...bit of a precious commodity these days!

[John]

Time...bit of a precious commodity these days!

I hope that is a good thing from a work standpoint

[bbussey]

Bryan,

If I am not mistaken that ELC was built around 6.5 years ago; shortly after I took delivery of the machine. Things have moved on since then. For the last 6 years we have been using Materialise Magics support generation software. Supports can be removed (almost!) as easily as tearing the perforations on postage stamps. Most , if not all of the distortion issues have been addressed by a combination of better understanding of exposure time/intensity and ease of adding the appropriate supports. Having said that the advantage of the Shapeways process from the POV of the machine operator is that the supports are continuous and need no user skill to place. Having said that I wish you the best with Best Cast - my engineering clients have largely priced me out of the model RR market - and that's a good thing

Mark,

It's pricey everywhere.  Best Cast happens to be local, on the other side of Paramus, so that's an advantage.  But I've been looking at FineLine Prototyping as well.  They definitely are options for future items, but the White Tower project will have to get resolved through Shapeways.  Eventually they will yield to the pressure of allowing the customer the choice of build orientation because more and more customers are complaining about it (they actually told me this).  So it's just a matter of time.  The Perfactory option is still the better one if the budget can support it.  The Shapeways option is better suited to rendering proofs for verification before having the actual model rendered via Perfactory or a similar method - although the Shapeways brass rendering will be very useful for engine frames on future projects.

Glad to hear work is booming.  Best to Tess and the girls.

[ElginLoco]

For 3D parts, I have a lot of success with Acme Design in Elgin, IL. They use an Objet printer which I have found to be better resolution than Shapeways but not as smooth as perfactory. An inbetween. The Objet also has different build speeds which can give a better resolution at slow speeds. They are certainly quick to respond and there is no odd shrinkage in the parts which happened to me with Shapeways. Prices have been reasonable and if you send them a file in stl format, they can put that into a cost estimator. Yes there is some cleanup to do, even perfactory does. but there is no support structure really, the solid material is built in a cradle or cocoon of soft support material which I do my own clean-off of. Some simple dental tools or picks gets the lions share off and then put it in a bath of slightly caustic solution. Just water and a bit of Drano. Let it sit for a few hours and wash it off and then a quick light scrub with an old toothbrush. If there are build lines or steps, a coat of primer first and some light sanding. You can repeat this but you may be covering up small details.
Bottom line, I like these guys, they do good work for me.
Check out AcmeDesign-Inc.com

[bbussey]

Looks like Shapeways is going to bend to demand and offer the choice of build orientation, tentatively beginning sometime in the first quarter of 2012.  In the mean time, I will explore other options for the White Tower, but most likely we will hold the building until Shapeways implements the new option.  I did speak with Acme Design, and there probably will be some other ESM projects that will be contracted through them.