Shapeways news??

[JeffB]

Hey guys,

  With the closure of Shapeways came the news that the European division was going to be bought out by the employees and restarted under a new name(?) and management...

  Anyone hear any news on how that's progressing, if at all? 

  I only used them for gearboxes (Detail Plastic was an excellent medium for gearboxes) and home printing them on my SM8K has brought limited success.  Would love to be able to get stuff printed by the new company, if there is in fact one.

Jeff

[Chris333]

Found on FB:
https://www.techzine.eu/news/devices/123134/dutch-3d-printing-service-shapeways-makes-restart/

[Sumner]

... I only used them for gearboxes (Detail Plastic was an excellent medium for gearboxes) and home printing them on my SM8K has brought limited success.....

I've had some success with a $200 AnyCubic Photon M3 and Siraya Tech 'Build' Sonic Grey resin.




More info here....

https://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Locos-1/page-9.html

I don't have a lot of time on the gears so can't give you a long term report.  There have been a lot of downloads of them on thingiverse....

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6186837

.... but no feedback there also.

I give credit to the Siraya Tech 'Build' resin for success.  It is strong, gives great detail, can drill/tap it, and doesn't get brittle (at least so far).  I love it and use it for everything.  Maybe give it a try.

Sumner

[Chris333]

Jeff uses them for gearboxes, not gears.

[GGNInNScale]

Nice work, Sumner!  The reason that axle gears fail is that they are under tension when the shaft is inserted.  The issue is that a tight fit is needed to "lock" the gear on the axle, but not so tight that it fractures.  As I would teach my materials science students- materials like concrete and plastics do not like to be in tension, ever.  So we are kind between a rock and a hard place.  If you make the hole too large, it spins, too small, it cracks.  "Just right", and it will crack eventually.   Very few adhesives can tolerate long term exposure to oils, so this is a limit, too.  Plastic axles- wear problems on the bearing surfaces.  Rats...

[C855B]

... "Just right", and it will crack eventually. ...

And there you have the use case for 3D-printed MRR gears as a consumable. Annoying when it happens, but easily fixable when you don't have to depend on the manufacturer for replacements. I did the same thing with Atlas universals "donuts" - endless supply.

I'll have to look into that gear macro Sumner is using. I build my 3D prints in TurboCAD, but if there's another CAD/macro combination that shortcuts the tedium of building gears, I'll gladly learn it.

[Lemosteam]

Very old news. Manuevo restarted the printing machines but not the front end user interface. It is now just a print for hire quoting biz, likely for high volume customers.

I was in touch with them during the changeover. I doubt they will reintroduce the old sales model.

[ednadolski]

WRT replacing gears, I wonder if one could (within limits) change the gear ratios to produce better/smoother low-speed performance.   (This vis-a-vis that some models come OOTB with rather high top-end speeds, well in excess of any scale speeds.)

Granted that printed gears probably will not wear as well as Delrin or such (which can crack anyways), but otoh they can readily be replaced with new prints.  One plus there it that our models don't have to deal with the greater loads/stresses of larger scales.

Ed

[Jesse6669]

Manuevo has the same equipment so you get only as high resolution as FUD/FXD (or whatever it was called), which is fragile, has the wax support system/residue, and over time becomes rather brittle.  Plus shipping from Europe is at least $25-30 per package. 

I would be happy to farm out printing to someone here in the US, with a decent 4K or 8K printer, who can exercise reasonable care with small/fragile models, and use the resin I specify (or one that performs equally well).  But they are few/far between AFAIK.

Jesse

 

[C855B]

... I doubt they will reintroduce the old sales model.

Agreed, if they do in fact know what they're getting into. Equipment is definitely not the whole picture.

I've mentioned managing high-resolution 2D printing services roughly 4 decades ago. It's a terrible business model. Lots of staff overhead and waste in solving problems of the clients' making, especially with off-the-street customers. The "New Shapeways" limiting scope both geographically and to industrial customers is a big step toward breaking even, but I'll hazard my expert opinion it still doesn't solve the underlying issues.

[ednadolski]

I'll have to look into that gear macro Sumner is using. I build my 3D prints in TurboCAD, but if there's another CAD/macro combination that shortcuts the tedium of building gears, I'll gladly learn it.

https://geargenerator.com/

One possibility, perhaps --- I haven't looked in detail myself.

Ed

[Sumner]

....
Granted that printed gears probably will not wear as well as Delrin or such (which can crack anyways), but otoh they can readily be replaced with new prints.  One plus there it that our models don't have to deal with the greater loads/stresses of larger scales.....

Yes my thinking also.  With the amount of resin needed they are beyond cheap.

... I build my 3D prints in TurboCAD, but if there's another CAD/macro combination that shortcuts the tedium of building gears, I'll gladly learn it.

If one needs the knowledge before designing, I did for sure, this guy's video really helped me...

With that info I added GFGearGenerator to free non-commercial Fusion 360 ( Download Here ).  You need a couple things to design a gear, but not much and it will do the rest. You need to know the 'Standard' (metric/English); the 'Module' (metric) or 'Pitch- (English); 'Number of teeth'; 'Gear Height' (thickness) and the 'Pressure Angle'.

To determine the 'Pitch' you only need the number of teeth and the overall diameter of the gear in inches and the formula [ Pitch = (2 + # teeth)/ O.D. in inches ]. If you use Module you also only need the number of teeth and the overall diameter of the gear in mm). Pretty simple and explained in that video. I had the three stock gears (drive, idle & axle) that I knew the number of teeth on and could get close on the diameter of the gear. Using that and the video info I came up with a pitch of 63 on one gear, 65 on another and 64 on the third. All of the gears that mesh together, the larger drive gear in the gear tower and the axle gears and the idle gears have to be and are the same pitch. The small differences in the pitch numbers was due to accuracy in measuring the diameter to a thousands of an inch. Since 64 was a very common pitch I went with that and it seems to be right.

Using a pitch of 64 as the 'Pitch' in Fusion 360 I had a gear that ended up working first time in under 30 minutes. So much for 'Black Magic' although it still would be that without the GFGearGenerator add-on as it did all the heavy lifting.



More info on the above here ....

https://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Locos-1/page-9.html

Back to the original post and ...

Jeff uses them for gearboxes, not gears.

So is Jeff printing only the housing or the housing and gears?  I'm confused on what he really needs?

Sumner

[JeffB]

Found on FB:
https://www.techzine.eu/news/devices/123134/dutch-3d-printing-service-shapeways-makes-restart/

Thanks Chris...  Not on Facebook and a quickie Internet search didn't yield anything useful.

Jeff uses them for gearboxes, not gears.

Yes...  Only for the gearboxes themselves.  I've been experimenting with printing them on my SM8K and they're OK, but I have to pay a lot of attention to the orientation they're printed in. 

For gears, I use gear stock from NWSL or KKPMO in Poland.  I don't trust 3D printed gears for long term and have no desire to have to replace them as "consumable" parts.

For "designing" gears, I cheat and use GearTRAX for SolidWorks, but the version I have only works with SW2001, which I have installed on a separate laptop (I use SW2022 for all other design work).

Thanks for the info and input guys...

Back to the original post and ...

So is Jeff printing only the housing or the housing and gears?  I'm confused on what he really needs?

Just the housing... 

Jeff

[Chris333]

If this is any use to folks, it was sent to me by a guy designing a Climax.


I have the .xls file too, but it won't let me attach.

[GGNInNScale]

I agree with JeffB.  I have an OLD Roco-Atlas HO diesel that I forgot to sell a few years ago.  So, the gears are all cracked, as expected.  Thinking about printing new gears, or use NWSL whom has the gears in Delrin, and the whole wheel/axle/gear assemblies.  Not cheap, though...  Hmmmm.