Sorry to bother 3D printer time

[MJI]

Last year was Sillouette Cameo 4 which is a great piece of kit, for buildings and DMUs.

 

I now want to make some wagons, will be downloading one design and making another myself, also DMU components such as 123 cab fronts and AEC engines for my Birmingham Cardiff set.

 

It appears to be Resin recommended, but I am not sure what to buy, a few planet named ones as a starter.

 

Looking at £150 to £300 but I just do not know where to start, even reading threads on here.

 

Thanks

 

Martin

[njee20]

There are two main brands in the hobby printer range - Elegoo and Anycubic. You’ll get big advocates for each, there’s not much between them frankly. 
 

Each have a ~6” printer (the Elegoo Mars series and the Anycubic Photon range). The water has muddied in the last couple of months with new releases, but essentially there is the Mars 2 and Mars 2 Pro, which gets some incremental upgrades that weren’t hugely worth it IMO (and I’ve got one). Then there was the Photon Mono and Mono SE which are a bit cheaper than the Mars 2 and more expensive than the Pro respectively. Honestly… there’s not that much in it. Bar a few mm here and there, and often in the height, the build volumes are the same, the resolution is the same (50 micron resolution). Under the hood they all use “Chitu Systems” motherboards and firmware, so they’re not really that different in use. Some small feature differences; the Mono SE has wifi etc.

 

There’s been a bit of divergence now, with the new Mars 3 coming out last month; this uses a 4K screen, for a ~35 micron resolution (IIRC). Now whilst this is obviously better you’re talking about differences that are broadly invisible to the naked eye, and the price goes up to ~£350 (from £200-£250 for the other models). They’re big enough to print N gauge stock, or larger scale ‘bits’, but not larger OO gauge rolling stock, for example. Additionally the forthcoming Anycubic model uses a different method of curing, rather than a masked LCD screen it uses a projector. DLP as opposed to MSLA; don’t think they’ve delivered preorders yet. 
 

Both brands also have a model with a 9” screen; the Elegoo Saturn and Anycubic Mono X. The Saturn is cheaper, and again there’s not much to choose between them.  A few more settings on the Mono X (eg light intensity), but personally not enough that I’d spend more on it. The bigger printers will print OO gauge stock more easily, but use more resin, parts are more expensive etc. 
 

Pricing is pretty volatile, in part with new models coming out, so stock is all over the place. The Saturn is £490 today, but that jumped up from £450 this week, and they were down to £400 last month.

 

There are a load of other brands out there too, Phrozen (the Sonic Mini 4K was the first small 4K printer), Creality (more known for their FDM printers), Voxelab (an offshoot of industrial brand “Flashforge”) and Epax (self styled as slightly higher end; the only US based company so they focus on better customer service etc. you pay a massive premium for that in the UK) spring to mind. 
 

Personally for me I’d get the Mars 2. It’s around £200, there’s a huge community following with loads of support, they’re easy to use, parts are cheap and easy to come by (they distribute through Amazon). If you need the bigger size then I’d get the Saturn. They announced the Saturn S this week, but very little is changing. That said I’d wait to see if prices dip again. Depends a bit if you aspire to printing full items of stock, for example. If you don’t then the smaller printers are easier and cheaper to use, so I wouldn’t always go for the biggest you can. 

 

If you read threads you’ll often see references to “mono” screens - these replaced RGB screens a couple of models ago, but be aware there are still some old models lingering (Anycubic Photon and Photon S, Elegoo Mars, Mars Pro), cure times are much longer and frankly the machines just aren’t quite as refined.

 

only slight caveat to that is that there are loads of Voxelab Proximas on eBay for ~£135. These are basically the same printer as the Mars 2, but from a much less well known brand (albeit one with a decent pedigree). I probably wouldn’t start with one, but that may be unfair. I’m sorely tempted to upgrade one of my old printers to one. 
 

FWIW I’ve got an Anycubic Photon, Mars, Mars 2 Pro and Saturn. 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by njee20
Trying to make my ramblings make more sense!

[MJI]

Just what I needed thanks

 

As to printing, will be mainly components, and smaller 4mm rolling stock not available kit nor RTR I do want to try a BR ex GWR ply sided van, similar to the Ratio kit but ply. I think the ex LMS van is poor so another possibility.

 

But LMS hoppers are essential.

 

For my blue era a Swindon 123 set would require cab ends with Sillouette sides like my 120.

 

There are also bogie sideframes to try.

[njee20]

All of those bits should be fine (as long the LMS hoppers aren’t bogie hoppers?) . I print O gauge bogies in my original Mars, and vans or other two axle wagons will fit comfortably. With the mono screens came a useful bump in print volume over the original models. 

[MJI]

Seen on Amazon

 

How do the Mars 2 and Mars 2 Pro differ

[njee20]

The 2 Pro has an extra 10mm on the build height, a metal vat (as opposed to plastic) and a built in charcoal filter (which makes no meaningful difference). 
 

I’d pay £20 extra for the Pro, but not more, frankly. Had the ‘standard’ 2 been out I’d have bought that instead of my 2 Pro. 

[MJI]

60 different

[monkeysarefun]

Also worthwhile doing a little bit of research into resin types that will be suitable for what you intend to print.

The 'standard' resins usually included as a freebie with the printer can be brittle to the point that a wagon will shatter if dropped onto a hard floor and bits will snap off if bumped.

There are however various resins, both flexible and toughened that would be suitable. Not sure what is the go to one in the UK, down here I use Monocure because it is a local product (local to the point of being 20 minutes from my work!) but not sure how available it is there, Siraya seems to be a popular one. 

 

Oh yeah and although not compulsory, a wash and cure station to process the prints  will make the job much more pleasant and easier - so there's somewhere to spend  the cash on that you saved on the printer!

Edited December 24, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[MJI]

Big pricedrop, now have a Elegoo Mars 2 pro

[monkeysarefun]

Do yourself a favour and spend the savings on a wash and curing station when they have a special on!

[MJI]

Chitubox install is hanging

 

Execute: "C:\Program Files\ChiTuBox64 1.6.5\vcredist_msvc2017_x64.exe" /q /norestart

[monkeysarefun]

5 hours ago, MJI said:

Execute: "C:\Program Files\ChiTuBox64 1.6.5\vcredist_msvc2017_x64.exe" /q /norestart

 

Is that the command that you are running or is that some kind of message that pops up?

 

[MJI]

Sorry my cut and paste went wrong, this was the installer the line it jammed on.

 

I killed it off and the installer, ChituBox works, just need to put on desktop.

 

However I am tempted to try the linux install of it as my PC is triple boot.

 

Anyway I now need to learn FreeCAD as well, I gave up on Blender very quickly as I found it completely non intuitive. Also more concerned with video work.

 

After I have worked everything out I am going to print the rooks, then trial some hoppers I downloaded.

 

Then I have 3 or 4 wagon bodies to do, but not sure on best way to print a van body with regards to roof.

 

Then I need to model a couple of DMU engines, then the late Swindon cabs.

 

 

[njee20]

Personally I’d recommend Fusion 360. Virtually all programs have a steep learning curve; but you won’t outgrow Fusion. 
 

Carl White has a channel on YouTube with instructional videos on drawing specifically for model railways. Personally I used Lars Christiensen’s videos. It took a while before it clicked for me.  

[PaulaDoesTrains]

There's lots of good tutorials on YouTube for FreeCAD. My personal favourite are Mangojelly and Joko Engineeringhelp. The latter covers a number of CAD applications (Solidworks, Fusion 360 and few others) in addition to FreeCAD. He does CAD work for a living so, IMHO, his views on the relative strengths and weakness of the various CAD programs are worth considering.

 

 

Perhaps check out some of his other videos to see just what FreeCAD is capable of?

 

Any modern CAD program will do what you want and you won't "outgrow" any of them.

 

 

[MJI]

I am struggling to get compatible RAM so only 4GB on at present, but theoritacally could handle 16GB.

 

Built the PC ages ago as video editing compatible so quad core and huge drives.

 

Currently 7 and Linux, as 8 and 8.1 are unusable and 10 I really struggle with UI wise. I mess something up due to no window edges at work a few times a day, I would love to beat the person who took away the 2000 to 7 clear UIs and gave the world the rubbish "modern" UIs.

 

 

 

[Kris]

On 07/01/2022 at 15:36, MJI said:

Big pricedrop, now have a Elegoo Mars 2 pro

Amazon have a £50 voucher for the Mars 3 at the moment bringing the price down to £300

[PaulaDoesTrains]

5 hours ago, MJI said:

I am struggling to get compatible RAM so only 4GB on at present, but theoritacally could handle 16GB.

 

Built the PC ages ago as video editing compatible so quad core and huge drives.

 

Currently 7 and Linux, as 8 and 8.1 are unusable and 10 I really struggle with UI wise. I mess something up due to no window edges at work a few times a day, I would love to beat the person who took away the 2000 to 7 clear UIs and gave the world the rubbish "modern" UIs.

 

 

 

 

4GB should be enough to run FreeCAD on Linux. I sometimes run FreeCAD on my 4GB Chromebook using crouton and XFCE. It's a bit slower than on my desktop but that's because of the Pentium-class processor not the RAM.

[monkeysarefun]

On 09/01/2022 at 10:27, MJI said:

 

Anyway I now need to learn FreeCAD as well, I gave up on Blender very quickly as I found it completely non intuitive. Also more concerned with video work.

I use Blender about 20% of my CAD time, SketchUp the rest.

 

I counted up the other day and figured there's about 15 commands I use in Blender 90% of the time and maybe  half a dozen that I'd use the other 10% of the time., meaning you only need to learn about 20 things in Blender to knock out 3d stuff. It's definitely overly scary looking, but you should have seen it prior to release 2.8 - that was a black hole of confusion.. 

[MJI]

I'll look at sketchup as well

 

But then I have this total inablity to use spreadsheets, been like that since I first tried to use one, can't get the logic of them. I leave them to beancounters.

 

Anything they can do I find it is easy to use database tools to do similar. I have written programs quicker to do data manipulation than I could do with a spreadsheet.

 

Had this with other software I had to get help to save a file in latest Word, never had the issue in Wordstar, I prefer Wordpad anyway.

 

Anyway when I got the comment about struggling with this, I replied if they would rather I concentrated on programming skills or learning to use strangely written other peoples software, I would not use too much anyway.

 

Often big do too much tools are not the correct tool for me, but if I get defeated I will just learn the 3D section of DXF and use notepad. Gave up with website designers as use notepad.

[MJI]

DMU battery boxes

[Carlislecitadel2]

Hi,

l’m new to this aspect of the hobby and am seriously considering buying a 3D printer. A friend printed a few free designs from Ironmink for me on his Ender 3 Pro filament printer at 0.2mm. The LMS hoppers were not too bad but the springs and axleboxes were not great for detail.  We now know we can get the Ender down to 0.12mm in Cura and will try another hopper this weekend.

As I envisage printing stock with a lot of rivet detail, I would be aiming to get something that can print at least 0.05mm, 0.02 would be better. I see that resin printers are generally recommended over filament ones because they handle the fine detail better and I do have my eye on a Mars 3 having read other posts here. However I am concerned about the resin being messy and needing washed and cured. Just how messy can the process get doing typical LMS sized wagons? Crucially how environmentally unfriendly is the clean up process? I see you can get an additional clean and cure station but where do you dispose of the resin wash afterwards? You should not put it down the sink so how do people dispose of it? I work in the water industry and recycling water with chemical waste or micro plastic is a very hot topic these days. It’s best not to put it back in the system. 

Ideally I would prefer a 0.02mm resolution FDM machine but the Prusa one is £700. I did see ads for and reviews of the Rose Go for around £400 which seems to print at that quality but the only ‘shop’ selling them is  Aliexpress and there is little about the company on the web which would make me hesitant to buy it in case spares are hard to get.

https://www.begonova.com/  The price of a Mars 3 plus a cleaning and curing set up is edging towards £450 so is it better to pay the extra for a Prusa and avoid the resin waste issue. I know plastic of any sort is not environmentally friendly but, on balance, I suspect it’s probably easier to deal with the waste created by a FDM printer than the resin. Do you think budget filament machines that can do 0.02mm are likely to hit the market soon?

 

Grateful for any thoughts on this.

 

 

 

[PaulaDoesTrains]

@Carlislecitadel2

I think you might be getting confused between spatial resolution (i.e., accuracy) and the diameter of an FDM printer nozzle. There's a point at which using a smaller nozzle is going to become impractical. If you halve the nozzle diameter your print time will go up by about a factor of 4 and, as you keep reducing the nozzle diameter, at some point it will be so small that, due to viscosity, a huge amount of pressure would be required to force the molten filament through the nozzle.

Edited May 6, 2022 by PaulaDoesTrains
fix typo

[Carlislecitadel2]

Thanks Paula,

I’m new to this so probably am getting confused. I generally build wagon kits or modify them but am looking to go to the next level and design and print some wagons and parts that are not available. I will be happy to share/swop .stl files if I can learn Fusion 360. My first item to try and draw will be the end vents for LMS banana vans. Then maybe some LMS meat containers and chassis.

My friend and I are experimenting with 3D printing. Robert is doing most of the work as he is producing big items like switches and panels for his 737 simulator and fine detail is not important to him, whereas I am  trying to find a balance between fine detail, cost and environmental factors. The slicer programme in Robert's Ender 3 was set to 0.2mm but we now know it can go to 0.12mm. So, to my mind and I could be getting this completely wrong, that should produce narrow layers which should allow us to print the greater detail which is in the .stl file, but obviously at the cost of time as nearly double the number of layers is required. The nozzle on the Ender is 0.4mm and that seems pretty standard for most filament printers. However, the specs on various machines with a 0.4mm nozzle say they can print from 0.4mm to 0.1mm on most of them, with a few going to 0.05mm. The Begonova Rose Go claimed to be able to print at 0.02mm which is up there with the resin printers, IF I have understood correctly. Maybe you need finer nozzles and filaments to achieve this? My main question is whether any filament printers sub £800 could match the likes of the Mars 3 or Anycubic resin printers in the £2-300 pound range for producing fine detail such as rivers in chassis. I think I would prefer a FDM machine if it’s more environmentally friendly than a resin one.  That might be a big if, but I’m concerned about how to dispose of the resin waste. I have seen the level of quality that members like Woko produce on 4mm wagons on resin printers and would like to match that.

[monkeysarefun]

Gday mate the resin is curable with sunlight so anything that has resin on it or in it can be just put into the sun for a couple of hours, it'll harden and can be disposed of like the myriad other plastic bits and bobs -  bottle tops,  blister packs and so on that come into our lives every day. Similarly IPA contaminated with resin can be poured into something and similarly left in the sun. IPA will evaporate and resulting sludge layer will either set or be a minor amount that can be wiped out and put into the rubbish or whatever you do with wipers similarly contaminated with cooking grease, oily car rags and so on.

 

For detail work an FDM will just never cut it compared to resin, but make sure you use the toughened resin or mix standard with flex because the standard resins are rather brittle and a wagon made with it if dropped onto a hard surface will shatter.