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3D Printed N Gauge Pendolino and On Track Plant


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Hi David

 

I know what you mean about lots of subtle curves! Everytime I look at a photo of the nose I notice something different.

 

The Hornby one looks OK until you look at the lights where the corner looks too square and not rounded enough.

 

Bah - compound curves!

 

Cheers, Mike

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Progress on all fronts this week.

 

The cad design for the driving car is almost there, the difficulty now is making sure all the complex surfaces and meshes are correct so that it uploads to Shapeways correctly. I keep finding weird holes that appear when they run their fixes on the file, but I'm getting closer each day! My goal with this is to have a ready to print file after next week's course evening.

 

post-6666-0-95217300-1353523531_thumb.jpg

 

I also now have some test windows, lots of them! They are ever so slightly too large, so I will redraw them at 90% scale and then they should fit nicely in each window gap. This is going to be the horribly boring part of building the model I can tell...

 

post-6666-0-65639800-1353523420_thumb.jpg

 

Finally, the tests print using frosted detail resin has arrived, and I'm a tad underwhelmed. The level of detail is higher than when using WSF, and the finish is smoother, but it doesn't cope as well with the ultra slim bottom edge and is a bit scraggy. It's made me decide to use WSF for the whole model now, as since I can get a comparable finish using a bit of sand paper and careful painting, I don't think it justifies the extra cost, double the WSF print.

 

post-6666-0-96396000-1353523446_thumb.jpg

 

Next steps are to re do those windows, and get that blasted driving car mesh sorted out!

 

David

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Thanks Pete, will come in handy during painting.

 

Final use of the test coach today, testing different glues and glueing methods for applying windows!

 

You can't even see them unless very close up, but still, I know they're there, and I didn't just want a solid coach side with drawn representations on it.

 

Ignore the awful glue smudges and paint quality, this poor test coach has been tested to death now.

 

Next week will see the completion of a half set of coaches, 4 intermediates, and hopefully the final printable mesh for the driving cars being sent for a test print.

 

David

 

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Hi Mitchell,

 

If you're on the service team, you'll have got an email from me today, one of the coach prints has oddly come out distorted, it's not warped, just sort of squashed at each end.

 

The others have now been primed and first coat of silver is on its way. I'm aiming for the best quality finish I can get, so taking my time on this. I'm also going to look at laser cutting a vinyl surround for the windows rather than trying to paint it.

 

David

 

post-6666-0-32616000-1354465780_thumb.jpg

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Hi David,

 

I've only just seen this thread, If you decide to sell these through shapeways put me down for a couple of rakes. What you've done so far looks excellent!

Following with great interest.

 

Graham.

 

+1

Ian

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wow - bloody impressive reading and appreciate the effort and time that has gone into this. I am making a layout that will contain Wolverhampton Oxley depot which belongs to Virgin. So I am pretty desperate to get my hands on 3 or 4 full sets of Pendolinos.

 

I look forward to reading the rest of your progress and of course when we can purchase these.

 

All i can say to Dapol for their failure of not creating this is :nono: :rtfm: :secret:

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thesludge,

 

I am glad you like David's work, but this group is primarily to help grow knowledge and experience of the RP and 3D Printing. It obviously takes time to learn these processes and get to a point models can be created. In the same way Dapol have a process that takes time and is a non to costly exercise so in this current economically challenging times we can understand there reluctance to sink huge amounts of money into a product that they are not guaranteed to get a return and voicing your opinion in this group is not that platform however if you wish to have a go at this your self there is a lot of knowledge and experience here to help.

 

Regards

Tom

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An important milestone was reached today, completion of the first coach.

 

I have changed from inserting individual windows to using a two layer vinyl solution, both laser cut, and it gives a much neater finish to the windows than I was getting with all those tiny bits of acrylic to glue in place.

 

I will now complete another 3 coaches, then next week the driving cars will be sent to order with another two intermediate coaches. I am using netfabb to sort out the driving car file so the Shapeways automated software doesn't laugh at it/spit it out.

 

Quite pleased with how this is coming on now.

 

David

 

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I'm starting to lose the will to live with the stl file for the driving car now.

 

Having cleaned up the file in Netfabb, the curves are pretty much fine now and will print reasonably well, however inexplicably, a nice simple straight edged section (the underside of the nose cone) just refuses to upload well to Shapeways.

 

In Netfabb there doesnt seem to be any issues at all with it, yet once uploaded, all manner of weird bits go missing.

 

On screen it looks fine:

post-6666-0-37662500-1355070088_thumb.jpg

 

I can't think of any other way to find out what is causing the issue

 

David

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Hello David,

The Pendolino is looking great, it is interesting that you have used two pieces of design software to complete the driving vehicles.

After having a quick look at your renders of the problem area above I think I may have identified some potential causes, firstly have you designed the lower section + experted it in Sketch Up? As there appears to be a short line or two sticking proud of the front at the right (Red arrow), this isn't making a shape and appears to be a continuation of another line, I have had models rejected by netfabb for similar reasons these little lines can be tiny <0.1mm yet confuse the software. The line by the green arrow may also be the same problem or maybe just quirk in the render. Another thing which links to this is all the lines on the lower side, marked in yellow, I don't know if you have tried this, but have you tried deleting as many as these as possible without it removing the surface (surface lines that in sketch up that don't play a vital part in making the surface just confuse software).

post-13109-0-55151700-1355086260_thumb.jpg

and for comparison,

post-13109-0-09941900-1355086368_thumb.jpg

I hope this helps and that you can understand me, apologies for re using your image but I thought it might help.

 

Good Luck,

Regards,

Wild Boar Fell

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Hi David, if you are doing that in Rhino and the surfaces are flat. Try removing the surface and 'cap planar holes'. This only works if you do not have holes elsewhere on curved surfaces.

 

You could also duplicate edges and use these to ''sweep 2 rails' Doesn't allways work, but worth a try.

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