Fen End Pit - First output from DLP printer
Entry posted by Fen End Pit
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Over the last few days I've been making progress with my new resin printer. It is quite a learning curve from the FDM (extruded filament of plastic) printers, getting to grips with 'Curing times' and other completely new variables. After several initial failures I'm beginning to get some useful parts printed. The quality over the filament based printers is remarkable. Certainly, if you are actually wanting to print small models they are worth considering. It is interesting to note that the Wanhao D7 DLP printer actually only cost ~£100 more than the Wanhao I3+ FDM printer I purchased back in February and although resin is more expensive than filament (~£50 litre compared with ~£20 for a Kg of filament) in the kinds of quantity used for model railway parts it isn't too mad.
First up I tried to print the point lever I've previously printed on the FDM. I printed the parts for the lever, block and base separately and this version can by swung from one position to the other!
Next up a trip to the thingiverse came up with a rather nice model of a jerry-can. I slightly modified this to make it hollow (saving resin) and then printed out a number to get strewn around the layout. These come out at ~25mm tall.
As I indicated in my previous post I wanted to make a second drag-line bucket to have sitting around in the works yard. This was quite a fun shape to model up in CAD based on the drawings in my Ruston works manual.
The result isn't too bad, the base is a bit rough because I hadn't quite got the cure times right for the initial few layers of print, but by the time it is painted up and sitting among various other bits of industrial detritus it should look fine.
Last up a little teaser of what should be possible. I'm slowly getting the results better as I get the curing times right and this was the first thing I printed with a 35micron layer height. I have drawn up a 4mm yard crane based on some drawing in the Great Eastern Railway society journal a few years back. Again, there is a little bit more to do in terms of getting the print perfect and obviously this picture still has the support structure in place for the print but the details on this part are just so fine.
One limiting factor at the moment which I need to resolve next week is that the parts really need some additional hardening by exposure to some more UV light. It appears that many people just leave the parts in the sun for a few hours but there isn't a great deal of UV getting through to Cambridgeshire this time of year! Plan is to buy some UV LED strip and then make a little light box of some sort.
Happy New Year everyone..
David
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