Rabs

Well, I go away for a few days and look what happens... I return after a brief hiatus (cough, 10 years, cough) and things certainly seem to have changed around rmweb. Looks like I need to replace a load of photos. Anyway, I got Bath out the other day and started doing some modelling. All the boards are now assembled and track plans down

I stick one of these on the tube: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/110x-Liquid-Dispenser-Solder-Paste-Adhesive-Glue-Dispensing-Needle-Tip-11Types-/252202844560?hash=item3ab8760190:g:H9cAAOSwwE5WZV9C or these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/60pcs-TT-Blunt-Glue-Liquid-Dispenser-Dispensing-Needle-Plastic-Tapered-Tips-/191929551814?hash=item2cafe48bc6:g:Wv4AAOSwARZXk4eO At a few pence each I just replace them when they get blocked.

Sounds like you've got a solution but another utility program to be aware of is MeshLab (http://www.meshlab.net/). It has some useful features and can import/export a wide range of file formats. It's a useful one to add to the toolbox.

I don't think that is a particularly important feature if you are printing small objects. If you had a print that was going to take hours and lots of expensive material then it might be a concern but most small scale models will only take an hour or two and use a few pence of filament so it's not the end of the world if you run out and you won't run out very often with small prints. Features like reliable bed levelling, heated bed and a good quality extruder hot end are all much more important to good FDM printing in my opinion. However, my concern is that the OP might have unrealistic expectations of the print quality they will get from an FDM printer so I'm hoping that they will come back and give some more detail about what they want to achieve.

Hi, I didn't spot this thread when it started. Can you both give some more detail about what you want to achieve with a 3d printer, in what scale and what level of detail you hope to achieve? A <£1000 3d printer will be very good at some things but completely unsuitable for others so we need a bit more information to provide good advice.

Can't speak for why Green Park/Queen Square was changed but the logic for changing the GW station seems fairly clear to me: It could have been quite ambiguous to have simply 'Bath' on a timetable with more than one station in Bath, particularly when the station in question was the smaller of the two. Anyway, I'm getting off topic

It became Bath Spa in 1949, if my research is correct. I guess that it might have been to do with consolidation of timetables in the early years after nationalisation. Multiple Bath stations appearing in the same timetables was probably thought to cause confusion that hadn't occurred before when they were run by independent companies.

Good to know, thanks. Yes, I do get through the carbide drills quite quickly when I'm doing PCB work compared to drilling plastics.

Didn't Trotsky use to be in that picture?

Out of curiosity, what's the reason for using a paxolin board instead of a standard fibreglass core? I'm making some of my track with FR4 and am now worried I might be missing something that will come back to bite me later.

Could somebody add "4mm" to the thread title? This n gauger just got a dose of dashed hope!

If it's not an urgent requirement I believe that fiNetrax are launching code 40 flat bottom rail (visually quite similar to 2FS trackwork) later this year. This thread on NGF is where quite a lot of the updates on how things are developing get announced: http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=3280.0

Back to your original question Hawk, I think the error results from the picture being taken from a vertical position which isn't exactly level with the middle of the box. Your horizon line appears to be below the centres of the vertical black lines you have added on the vertical edges of the box. If the horizon isn't in the middle then your assumption of 2 point perspective isn't quite right and it introduces the error. Either you need to retake the picture with the camera at exactly the right height or you need to do extend your method to use a 3 point perspective to correct for the position of the camera. I think that, like the others have suggested, I'd reach for a computer at this point!

... yet. Why not give it a go? You can always remove the paint if you're not happy with the result. A lovely model like that deserves better than nakedness

In the case of 3d printers cost and ease of use aren't necessarily correlated. You can get robust, easy to use 3d printers with plenty of user support for a fairly low cost. Equally you can get fiddly, fussy and poorly documented printers for a high cost. If you want a good starter printer I would look for a well respected name (such as the metal Printerbot simple or a good Prusa i3 kit). You can keep the cost down by compromising on print size, speed and skipping features such as a heated bed while still getting a reliable machine. But then, for model trains in smaller scales, I probably wouldn't be buying an FDM printer quite yet. I'd make do with shapeways/imaterialise for another couple of years until the quality gets a bit better.

Haha, I didn't realise it was a mistake! I just assumed it was a new one I hadn't heard before. You could have stayed schtum and looked really knowledgeable.

I hadn't seen that, no and I agree, that looks very good for FFD (or FDM/FFF/whatever new TLA they are using for extruder type printers). The quality coming from consumer printers is getting rapidly better.

There's microns and then there's microns. The number CEl give doesn't have anything to do with the numbers given by shapeways for FUD and FXD. On an extrusion printer (like the CEL) their 'resolution' means how precisely can they position the nozzle. However, the material is still coming out of a ~0.5mm hole (500 microns). When it's flattened into a layer this means the smallest 'dot' it can print is about 700 microns. That is the smallest feature you can print. 'Resolution' on FUD and FXD refers to the minimum feature size that the light source that can actually produce in the material. It's not as good as they claim (more like 100 microns), but still far, far better than can be achieved on an extrusion printer.

Sorry Life has been very busy the last couple of years. What with starting a new company and now a baby on the way and planning a house move, time has been very scarce. What little modelling time I have has been going into the EBMRS model of Aylesbury (which is coming on quite nicely). I do fully intend to come back to Bath in the not too distant future. When the house move is complete I hope to have enough space to set it up again and carry on. I will be back, and will update this thread when I have some progress to show.

It would be great if someone who gets a model made in it could comment on: Strength/robustness How well it takes paint How easy it is to glue How good the detail is Mow easy it is to wear/scratch (i.e. can it be used for rubbing surfaces like axles or crank pins, or do we need to glue in a metal part for this) Any other important points for a new material?

It's all to do with how well the material absorbs the laser light. Shiny or transparent materials won't work very well unless the laser has lots of power. Matte, relatively dark materials will cut very well. Also, by transparent I mean transparent to the wavelength of light being used in the laser - which is not necessarily the same as what it looks like to our eyes. This is particularly true for the bigger, CO2 lasers, which have a wavelength far, far outside the visible range. PMMA (Perspex) is almost completely opaque to CO2 lasers, which is why it cuts so well. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it doesn't work so well on diode laser setups like the OP's.

It helps a lot, thanks very much.

Hi Stephen, That looks like a really lovely scene. I'm interested in how you did your flowers and shrubs because, to my eye, they are very convincing. Could you tell us a bit more about how you made them?

Have you looked at using the SLS stainless steel from shapeways? I'm not sure if it would help but it might solve the weight and soldering heat resistance problems of wsf. It is more expensive but it isn't as bad as their cast brass and holds similar detail to wsf.

The link is already in the thread. Post #3