Andrew's 3D print builds

Now that I have worked out how to continue the same thread, and insert pictures in line.......

 

 

......I fitted some LEDs into the underbody housing. A bit of Glue'n'Glaze to hold them in.

 

 

Holes are pre-printed for the wires. The roof is in paint and once that's done the roof mounted spotlights will get added too...

Edited April 1, 2022 by LMSfan72

...and the roof spotlights.

The printed light housings have slots in the bottom to feed the wires through to the hole in the roof and into the body.

 

 

 

The LEDs sits back in the housing:

 

 

and tested

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by LMSfan72

I now need to fit the interior and work out the best place for the decoder (I intend it to be in the generator compartment and then the end can be removed to access it). Big Jim pointed me to his interior so I thinK I'll be re-designing mine and probably printing it in resin - or maybe printing pieces and replacing parts for my current one...

 

but

 

I also need to finish the glazing first as once the interior is in I won't be able to access through the bottom, so, maybe some trial fitting first!

Edited November 3, 2021 by LMSfan72

The new interior turned out well for a first attempt. There are supports printed under the conference table chairs that I can't get out. I think I might print the chairs separately in resin (then I can re-use them too!). I want to stick with PLA for the main interior section as it's much less brittle than a resin print and I can live with the slight detail reduction here.

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by LMSfan72

Really very happy with the detail now

 

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by LMSfan72

Added some paint, crew and some overhead lighting:

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by LMSfan72

You'll see in my other blog about glazing that I decided to go with tinted windows on this one. In went the glazing and interior and a quick test of the interior lights with a battery.....

..... I'm quite pleased with the effect through the tint, it is more of a glow like you would get from monitors. I will light the raised section separately so that will add some general brightness to the coach too, I hope!

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by LMSfan72

.... PS did you spot my simulated open top window!!

Well, having got the interior in and past the wires I have started to unravel them all and work out routings and how to connect it all together. I had to fit the bogies and wire those in as well as the chassis so that it can all collect together. I still have lights to add in the raised roof but I should be able to feed them out when I've got the rest "contained"! As I mentioned before, I have made the coach end removable at the generator end so that I can house the decoder and other components in there since the chassis and body all have a number of wires connecting them and I don't want to have to keep disconnecting them to get access to the decoder.

 

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by LMSfan72

I had a nice neat installation planned, but, with 24 wires to connect, tiny connections and keeping the wires short which restricted my working space I still ended up with it being a bit messy!

 

 

I used a Zimo MX688N18 function decoder. I had planned to have all the lights on separate function wires and then adjust how they operated through mapping giving me great flexibility. However, I ran into an issue. It wasn't initially that clear in the decoder manual that F03 and F04 are only logic level. That would be fine, though, I can use F05 and F06 instead....except the LaisDCC Next18 socket only breaks out F03 and F04 and NOT F05 and F06... that to me is an oversight. I'm sure more of us use the full power functions before the logic ones....oh well.

 

So, I wired them up to the 4 functions on the socket breakout board and then mapped them. The great thing about the Zimo decoder is that you can set it up to operate off 2 addresses (not needing a consist). That way I can have it set to the same as 2 different locos - based on which rake I have it in - and the functions are mapped via Swiss mapping to do what I want that loco throttle to do....

 

 

 

Lastly, I put in a stay-alive...

 

 

 

..and concealed it all behind the end...

 

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by LMSfan72

Almost there! Just decals to apply although I am going to try and make some windshields for the high level windows and I must do the generator exhaust. Very happy with the lighting...but I might reduce brightness slightly as there is a little bit of light bleed coming through

 

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by LMSfan72

I was trawling through more pictures and realised that the prototype currently has more roof equipment installed. I could find pictures showing parts of it but I couldn't find a good plan view. So, with a bit if imagination I have had a go!

 

Decals are on, raised window lights are glazed with Glue'n'Glaze (worked surprisingly well for the size of the windows!) and on to the track.... I have some fibreglass woven flyscreen on order to try and make some anti-debris screens for those windows. Metal gauge didn't work for me..... then that should be it!

 

Edited November 24, 2021 by LMSfan72

The final instalment.......

 

The woven flatscreen came:

 

SO, I came up with some 3D printed surrounds:

 

 

Then glued some of the flatscreen to the back of the surrounds, trimmed the net back to match the profile, sprayed them black and glued some windscreen wipers to the back of it and installed them on the coach:

 

 

Ideally the weave would be a little tighter - this is 1mm I think - but I couldn't find any. 

 

I have to say, overall, I'm delighted with this build!

 

I built another one, although with a slightly different approach. For this one I used the cheaper Bachmann B4 bogies (no pickups) and cut the ends of a Bachmann chassis so I could use their close coupling system. I printed my centre chassis section and kept the body ends removable. I then fitted battery powered LEDs with a latching reed switch operated by a magnetic wand. I wasn't sure how long the battery would last so I didn't add the chassis lighting, but, it came out really nicely:

 

 

 

New single piece body print:

 

Hi. 

 

Are any of your kits available to buy? 

 

Thanks

 

7 hours ago, Lowlander said:

Hi. 

 

Are any of your kits available to buy? 

 

Thanks

 

I can certainly do some - I have sent you a PM

I did a really interesting exercise on costing out what a finished coach, without any lighting but with a detailed interior, really cost to develop.

 

For the costing purposes I assumed that labour was minimum wage (£9.50) per hr. Obviously the design time was a one-off, but, if thinking about a business I'd amortise that over the number of units I sold (or planned to sell).

 

Materials for a built coach, with the interior and including the raw materials, consumables and electric work out at £45

 

Design time I estimate was about 40 hours (that may well be low!). Then there is all the prep and build time, call that 5-10 hours if I completely ignore any "dead" drying time/research/etc - just time actually making. I'd imagine after a few units it would go to 5 but,..... For info, it takes about 25 hours to print a set but I obviously don't include that time.

 

I am also ignoring the actual cost of the printer (big ignore!).

 

So, the cost of the 1st one, if I assumed paying minimum wage, and I already had the software and the printer, would work out at over £500!!

 

If you amortised the upfront cost (really just the design as I am ignoring the software and printer costs) over, say, 15 units, then the cost drops to £170. Over 100 units it only drops to £147, and, wait for it........ over 1000 it is £143!!

 

I take a few of things away from this:

 

1. I think it's worth more than minimum wage!

2. To get any benefit of scale on materials you need to get your material costs down with your supply base - but, how realistically low could they go?

3. I should imagine my design hours were relatively low - imagine the time spent on measuring a real prototype, etc.... plus travel, access to prototype etc and then the cost of software licences that I didn't consider. If it were a job my cost equivalent is less than 1 man week at minimum wage and nothing else in it!

4. In real terms there are not that many hours in the build so you need massive volumes to be able to invest in production tooling and huge throughputs to get the per unit cost right down

 

I am the first to complain about the cost of RTR models. But, having done this, I have a whole new perspective!!!

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by LMSfan72

Loving seeing the builds others have done with these prints:

 

 

Somewhat inspired by @Darius43 I decided to print in more detail to the ends:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately my fully lit coach was printed with an earlier body with the non-generator end printed as part of it so I cannot replace that. I did, however, print some cables for that end and replace them:

 

Pictures of a pair of raw prints. Pleased with the pipe work on the non-gen end:

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by LMSfan72

...and now going for it with a better pantograph. Firstly, trying to just attempting to use the Hornby cast one, but, I may just slim down the arms on my other model now I have more confidence! Here's the first bit....

I think this is probably done now.

:

In the last few days I have

• Added the coach end steps
• Re-did the ends with the new cable connectors
• Added some more minor pipe/rail detail to the roof
• Removed the mesh screens from the roof window guards (it was just too coarse)
• Built a new pantograph

It's DCC fitted with separate controlled interior lights, roof spotlights and under-chassis lights