As if I don’t have enough things to work on, here’s a test print of a 30 foot car frame in 1:20.3.
Bob, that looks like a fairly complicated print, how long did it take?
Each half took about about 13 hours.
Flatcars are always welcome on most railroads, they can carry loads, etc., and bring your RR to life. I do tend to purchase them when the price is right, trucks are always the most expensive part on any RR car, or at least 50% of the value. Nice job with the 3D print.
trainman
I buy flats when they show up for reasonable money, but I really need a bunch more to keep traffic moving. I agree trucks are the expensive part. This is less than $3 worth of filament, and with couplers and decking, these come out to less than $15 plus the cost of trucks.
How are you attaching the halves to get enough rigidity?
Jim Rowson said:
How are you attaching the halves to get enough rigidity?
The center four beams have 3mm holes to allow a pin to be inserted. That may be enough, but I also plan on epoxying a 1/2 wide bar of steel down the center, and if necessary, the rivnut/bolt combination for truck mounting could go through this bar as well as the bolster.
We’ll see how that works out.
Bob that is a cool print, Is it not amazing how many different things that can be printed particularly in this scale.
You epoxy those together, if that ever breaks you should quit standing or at our age FALLING on your cars.
Thanks for sharing
Dennis
Looks good!
Will you be using wood for the decking?
Dennis Rayon said:
Bob that is a cool print, Is it not amazing how many different things that can be printed particularly in this scale.
You epoxy those together, if that ever breaks you should quit standing or at our age FALLING on your cars.
Thanks for sharing
Dennis
Yep. I’ve spent more time in Fusion 360 working on this, than it would take for me to scratch build a flat out of wood (I’ve built a dozen or so I guess). But these will be much stronger.
Bruce Chandler said:
Looks good!
Will you be using wood for the decking?
Hopefully 3D printed as well, if I can come up with convincing looking decking.
Bob, that looks good. I’m with Dennis, epoxying the two halves together at the overlap will create a joint that is stronger than the filament, but then again, you can never have too much strength (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)What type of filament are you using (PLA, PETG, etc)?
Dan Hilyer said:
Bob, that looks good. I’m with Dennis, epoxying the two halves together at the overlap will create a joint that is stronger than the filament, but then again, you can never have too much strength (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)What type of filament are you using (PLA, PETG, etc)?
This is PLA+ from IIID. I really like it, it flows better than Hatchbox or Overture PLA, IMHO.
Bob McCown said:
. . . This is less than $3 worth of filament, and with couplers and decking, these come out to less than $15 plus the cost of trucks.
And how much electricity for 26 hours of printing ? (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-embarassed.gif)
Pete Thornton said:
Bob McCown said:
. . . This is less than $3 worth of filament, and with couplers and decking, these come out to less than $15 plus the cost of trucks.
And how much electricity for 26 hours of printing ? (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-embarassed.gif)
Not that much, actually. 50c or so.
Bob,
Thought about this overnight, I would look to see if you can make a dovetail joint between the two half’s, this would provide ultimate strength. as for decking, are you looking to apply wood texture to your deck print? I know of no way to do this, and do not think an FDM machine would duplicate if you could. best to do the wood graining with a good old razor saw.
AL P.
Dovetails were my first attempt, but the beams are small enough and the plastic flexible enough that I can pull the car apart. I tried a T-slot, and that just broke.
Not looking to texture. Oversize grain isn’t one of my things.
Bob McCown said:
Dovetails were my first attempt, but the beams are small enough and the plastic flexible enough that I can pull the car apart. I tried a T-slot, and that just broke.
Not looking to texture. Oversize grain isn’t one of my things.
Sure have to agree with you on that. It seems that us in the model railroad community ALWAYS want to show LOTS of grain, but it just doesn’t look like that at all in the non-model world.
Bob did you consider staggering the joints to give a little more strength to the joint a little more strength?
Pete Lassen said:
Bob did you consider staggering the joints to give a little more strength to the joint a little more strength?
Is strength an issue??