branchie Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 So, having blissfully ignored the perils and merits of 3D printing, I'm just wondering how easy is it to get started? If I wanted to produce some n gauge bogies for example, how much of a minefield would I be walking into? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium JimFin Posted December 21, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 21, 2019 Simple answer - substantial minefield! 2 major parts to the route through the minefield - 1) For N gauge bogies, you would be best served with a resin based printer rather than FDM - the Elegoo Mars gets decent reviews as the Anycubic photon seems to have alienated a lot of its fans by changing specifications recently. Alternative is to use a print house rather than owning a printer, probably one near you these days.. 2) You will need to invest time and effort in learning how to use a CAD package to produce the 3D drawings of the bogies you want unless you have that skill in your locker already. There are a lot of free packages out there which will get you started and you tube tutorials on using them. Choosing one depends on your computer literacy skills, how powerful you laptop/PC is and familiarity with this kind of software. For a basic entry level, you could try Tinkercad which is free and cloud based so all the hard processing work is done by their servers, you don't need a particularly powerful computer to use it unlike some others which would run on your own machine. Hope that gives you food for thought. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trainmad98 Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 Hiya, As Jim as said above a resin is deffo the way to go with N gauge size, look at filament based 3d printers the main thickness is 0.02mm - 0.03mm thickness with a 0.4mm nozzle. This can make things harder to produce small detail. I am working with a company to upload a huge selection of 3d Printable Files in the Rail world. This will be available in early 2020. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
branchie Posted December 21, 2019 Author Share Posted December 21, 2019 Thanks for the replies. I thought it would be complicated ... Having done some more research, I'm not sure I have the capability, confidence or money to take this too far. I might try and find a friendly designer to see what could be done. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Harvey Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 Somebody may already have designed the bogies you are looking for - either for 3D printing, or already in injection moulded plastic or even cast in white metal. There are a lot simpler things to design for 3D printing and the design process can be an interesting learning experience in itself. I use printing houses to produce my designs. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatriotClass Posted December 24, 2019 Share Posted December 24, 2019 Quote There are a lot simpler things to design for 3D printing and the design process can be an interesting learning experience in itself. I That's absolutely, what it is, Mike! Producing bogies is an advanced job and not the project for a beginner to start with. It's really easy beginning with a simple model like a crate, a platform or some tube loads. Even a house is mostly just a collection of a plenty of cubes. The only real limit might be budget, but what do we pay for a brand new loco? For N scalers as Jim said the Anycubic Photon might be the better choice: 320 GBP on Amazon For 00 and 0 scalers I recommend to start with the Anycubic I3 Mega and PLA filament 250 GBP or the s-type 320 GBP It was a big experience for me to realise: "What I can draw, now I can model!" Merry Christmas to all! Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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