Anycubic Photon

[Chris333]

Maybe I could try  (gulp)  Shapeways for the brass.

This is what I have so far, first try.


I have to refine the bolt heads so they don't run into each other and also lower the foot board down another .010". You can see it is much better that what came stock, plus is sucks the couplers in.

[robert3985]

Lookin' good there!  You might want to make the poling pockets a bit deeper too...but, what an improvement over the stock item!

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Lemosteam]

Whatcha do is print the parts using the castable resin, then take your parts to somebody locally who does lost-wax investment casting, and have them cast them in brass for you.  They will tree up the parts, invest them, cast them and throw the hot cannister in a bucket of cold water to crack the hot investment away from the brass castings.  You may need to tell them to do the throwing it in the water thing, as many shops are set up to cast jewelry and throwing castings made of gold or silver can cause the surfaces to do weird things.  Not a problem with brass.

Although I have all of the equipment to do my own castings, it's a lot more convenient for me to have my local rock shop do it for me.  I provide them with the masters that are either wax or Styrene, and I also supply them with the brass to do the castings with, so all they have to do is tree 'em, cast 'em and throw 'em in the bucket.  I'll do the final clean up using an ultrasonic divesting solution in my big ultrasonic cleaner.  The brass comes out bright, clean and ready for final clean-up before soldering and painting.

My rock shop is only charging me $25 a cannister since I'm providing the metal.  Last time I did it, they cast up 125 N-scale switch stands for me in one cannister, so the price per piece is very good.

Note that there is some shrinkage when a wax (castable resin) master is used.  You should talk to your caster to see what they recommend, then compensate for it by modifying your 3D model.

Anyways, that's what I do...and casting up "castable resin" masters will be identical to casting wax masters in a lost-wax investment casting process.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

If you are going to print the castable resin, just tree the parts in CAD and print a single cad model, should save some cost to the caster.

[Lemosteam]

Maybe I could try  (gulp)  Shapeways for the brass.

This is what I have so far, first try.


I have to refine the bolt heads so they don't run into each other and also lower the foot board down another .010". You can see it is much better that what came stock, plus is sucks the couplers in.

If you design to meet the SW requirements, you will be fine.  You could also try to meet the requirements of the printable steel (sintered metal) https://www.shapeways.com/materials/steel.  I have had very good results for my 3768 tender frame.

As for the push pockets, push the center disc into the part 3/4 the distance of the radius of the inner diameter of your pocket design and fillet the bottom with that radius.  Then fillet the top two edges with a small 0.2mm radius.  this will make the poling pocket a nice spherical center and cast radii on the lip.

[narrowminded]

@Chris333  I think I have an answer for the wheel problem for the wooden mine cars.  I will refine it some more but much to my surprise, again, these roll really nice.  They'll work.  This is a 6 spoke, 18" Nn3 wheel and for comparison I shot a regular 33" wheel with it.  Being inside axle I'm going to try to use .015" wire to afford free rolling but that's if I can glue the wheel with sufficient grip to hold gauge.  There just isn't much area and the wire is really smooth so I suspect it won't glue well.  I'm also posting this in my Nn3 thread to keep that up to date.

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[Chris333]

Mark,
Is that wheel 3D printed? 

[narrowminded]

Mark,
Is that wheel 3D printed? 

Hacksaw and hammer!    Edit add: ... and Sketchup.

[Chris333]

Hacksaw and hammer! 

I suggest a keyhole saw 

[peteski]

Whatcha do is print the parts using the castable resin, then take your parts to somebody locally who does lost-wax investment casting, and have them cast them in brass for you. 
Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

The resin used for printing here does not seem to be affected, even by 900 deg. F.  Will that work for investment casting?

[Chris333]

They make castable resin. I guess a lot of dentist have Photons as well. 

[Chris333]

So I fixed the bolt detail and uploaded to Shapeways. They wanted $25. I connected the 2 pilots with a sprue and the price was only $13.

Then I go to checkout and they say it will ship out on Feb 21st, almost a month away. I can get it 2 weeks sooner for an extra $4. Estimate I will get it on Feb 28th, a month away.

Gonna order it anyways, but this is exactly why I bought my own printer. Have made 4 different version of these pilots since yesterday. That would be 4 months in Shapeways time...

[rodsup9000]

The resin used for printing here does not seem to be affected, even by 900 deg. F.  Will that work for investment casting?

 Now I'm wondering how a printed part would hold up while being used a master in a vulcanizing mold for spin casting white metal (I cast using Britannia Metal -LEAD FREE Pewter Alloy- 92 Percent Tin). For the organic rubber molds I use, it'll need to take 330 degrees while under 2500 to 3500 psi for about 35 minutes. Next warm day we get around here, I'll have to try it. If this does work, it'll open the door for all kinds of stuff that I've wanted to do (like steam loco frames).

[Lemosteam]

To my knowledge no one has printed using the burnout resin.

@Chris333 , did you end up gettin cast brass then? I offer some cast brass G scale stanchions with holes that folks seem to like.

[Chris333]

Yep got the natural brass, paid the $4 for 2 week blackhole time warp.

[u18b]

They make castable resin. I guess a lot of dentist have Photons as well. 

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Mine does resin printing.  I have two crowns that were printed and they feel 10x better than my old porcelain crowns.

I couldn't help but note that my dentist used a scanning wand to scan my ground down tooth to make the inner surface of the crown.

Boy I was wishing I had his technology.

I jokingly asked him if he could print some model trains for me..... and he said his only does teeth.