Looking to Print a Caboose...

[Chris333]

I'm at work right now, but you can send it to me if you get a chance.

[wm3798]

If someone has the I5 file, send it my way.  I'll take all the Frankenbodies from the experiments, put trucks on them, and run them!!

This is awesome.  It's what I love about the Railwire!

Crowd sourced R&D!

Okay.  So who is working on the decal art?

Lee

[GimpLizard]

I'm at work right now, but you can send it to me if you get a chance.

Where can I send it too?

[GimpLizard]

Okay.  So who is working on the decal art?

Lee

Sorry. That's above my pay grade.

[Maletrain]

....
Okay.  So who is working on the decal art?

Lee

I think Microscale, K4 and Northeast all make N scale decals for B&O cabeese.  People will need to choose a modeling era to pick the right set. 

[Chris333]

Where can I send it too?

Sent you a PM.

[GimpLizard]

I just sent STL files to Lee, Chris, & Rodney. The preliminary draft of the caboose body & the "test cube". I'll be really interested in seeing how they turn out.

Mike

[Chris333]

Here is the cube Mike made. I could tell how fine they were that they'd probably all fill in.




I sprayed primer on the lower part, the top ~1/8" is bare resin. The last one .006" gaps you can just start to be able to see them at all.


And this is what I'm talking about designing then for a printer and not for N scale. The printer uses a screen like a smart phone. pixels on the screen are either black or not. If they aren't black the UV light under it will shine through and cure the resin. Over and over at each layer, this cube was about 500 layers. The light shining through a pixel bleeds through to the surrounding pixels slightly so the part tend to grow a bit.

Once the file is sliced this program lets you see if there are any stray pixels. There weren't, but it shows everyone what it does to the file. It has to pick weather the pixel is on or off.


I'm guessing this is the thinnest one and you can see it skipped a groove.


All the grooves are there, but some are wider than others.


Same here, but there are more wider ones than before.


This is the widest gaps and for the first time you can tell Mike drew these as a V groove.

All of the sides were drawn with V grooves, but they were so fine that the program wiped them all out mostly.

Here is a Rapido reefer  next to a HOn30 milk car I drew and printed.

The milk car boards are drawn .0265" wide, the gaps are .008" wide and .008" deep drawn like this:


Hopefully this explains what I was saying about figuring out what will work first. I have another test wall printing now with .010" boards and .010" gaps that are .010" deep, just to see what it looks like. I would say **maybe** around .008" wide and deep will work for N scale, but I don't think they should be a V shape just for the sake of pixels.

[DKS]

Okay.  So who is working on the decal art?

http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=60-1457

[Maletrain]

This is all making Evergreen siding look like a better alternative than 3D printing for making one-off models of cars like cabooses that are going to attract close looks.

[GimpLizard]

Here is the cube Mike made. I could tell how fine they were that they'd probably all fill in.

And this is what I'm talking about designing then for a printer and not for N scale. The printer uses a screen like a smart phone. pixels on the screen are either black or not. If they aren't black the UV light under it will shine through and cure the resin. Over and over at each layer, this cube was about 500 layers. The light shining through a pixel bleeds through to the surrounding pixels slightly so the part tend to grow a bit.

Once the file is sliced this program lets you see if there are any stray pixels. There weren't, but it shows everyone what it does to the file. It has to pick weather the pixel is on or off.

The milk car boards are drawn .0265" wide, the gaps are .008" wide and .008" deep drawn like this:


Hopefully this explains what I was saying about figuring out what will work first. I have another test wall printing now with .010" boards and .010" gaps that are .010" deep, just to see what it looks like. I would say **maybe** around .008" wide and deep will work for N scale, but I don't think they should be a V shape just for the sake of pixels.

Thanks Chris. That helps a lot. But I do have a few questions;

1) What did the board and groove widths come out to be on your printed milk car?
2) What did you model the wall thickness at?
3) Did you print the cube vertically straight, or did you angle it any?

Oh, and what printer do you have? I'm looking at the Anycubic Photon.Right now you can get the printer, and Wash & Cure, for $289. https://www.anycubic.com/collections/sales/products/photon-wash-cure-machine?variant=35123712000162

Mike

[Maletrain]

Looking at some more photos of B&O I-5 cabooses, I did find some that seemed to have wider boards.  Eyeball scaling from the width of a window frame gives me 4.5" inches wide.  But, we still need to see board edge gaps of some width.

And, for modelers who are doing late 60s early 70s , there were some rebuilds with plywood siding (3 panels), so no need for board gaps or rivets. 

[Chris333]

1. Don't know if I can measure the gaps on the model. But in the photo they at least show up.
2. The milk car walls are .050" thick.
3. Printed flat right to the build plate with no supports, that is why the very bottom has an elephant foot. The first 8 layers expose higher so it will stick to the plate.

I have an Anycubic Photon.

Sorry to make it seem like 3D is not the way to go. It will work out. This is HOn30 and not much bigger than N scale. All 3D printed.


I think it was Robbman (where's he been?) who said you need to exaggerate details in N scale so people can see them.

[GimpLizard]

1. Don't know if I can measure the gaps on the model. But in the photo they at least show up.
2. The milk car walls are .050" thick.
3. Printed flat right to the build plate with no supports, that is why the very bottom has an elephant foot. The first 8 layers expose higher so it will stick to the plate.

I have an Anycubic Photon.

I think it was Robbman (where's he been?) who said you need to exaggerate details in N scale so people can see them.

Thanks. That milk car came out pretty awesome. I think I need to pull the plug on the Photon printer and do me some learnin'.

[Chris333]

This is my little quick test. 1"x1" gaps are .010" wide and deep and the boards are only .010" wide.