figworthy

Very nice, I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of this develops. Adrian

Thanks. I had a feeling that my glass would be too thick. 3mm seems rather thin for most uses. There is (or at least used to be) a company doing "glass stuff" the other side of town, I could ask them if they have an offcut of the right size. Thanks. Mine appears to be the other way up (the Z axis motors are at the bottom, so the microswitch acts at the top of the travel, I haven't seen a lower end one yet. Adrian

No I don't. A number of glass plates (a bit smaller than the printer bed) were left behind in the house by a previous owner, but I don't know if they would be any good for this job. They are 165 x 262 x 8 mm. Adrian

I had another chance to have a look at this today. I re-taped and then re-levelled the bed, and set it off, and at the first pass, I had adhesion problems. So I removed the tape, levelled the bed again, and set it running. About half an hour later I had a section of fencing. I then repeated the process with another section of fencing (for the other end of the platform), and that worked as well. And here it is, propped up with a bit of blue tack. It looks as though the lower of the cross rails is too high (compared to the existing bit of fence), and of the wrong depth, but apart from that, I think for a first attempt, it isn't that bad. I hadn't noticed the height discrepancy until I saw the picture.. The print did need a bit of cleaning up. There was a bit of filament between the slats, both at the top and the bottom from where the head moved between slats, and a couple of other places, but that was relatively easy to do. Looking at the picture, it looks as though the fence isn't the only thing that needs cleaning up. Thanks for the advice and assistance. [edit] I forgot to mention the gaps in the tape. When I put the tape on, the edges were tight together, but that was with the plate cold. As the plate warms, it expands, but the tape doesn't (or not as much), so gaps appear. Adrian

Thanks David. I've been round all four corners of the deck and the middle, 2-3 times checking the clearance (with normal printer paper), and I can just move the paper. I'll try it again with it even tighter, but that is likely to be Friday at the earliest. Adrian

Thanks for the explanation. I'm using Cura (the version supplied with the printer), and whilst it doesn't appear to have the above options, it does start by putting down a sacrificial layer and then printing on top of that. It is this sacrificial layer that isn't being sitting on the bed properly. If I let it continue, where the layer is good, the print it good, the problem is the rest of it end up looking like a plastic model that has been melted. The picture shows it several slices before it starts to print the fence. Adrian

The bed has been re-leveled every time I started a print. Sorry, "Printing with a skirt" ? Not a phrase I've come across before. I'd already rotated the design through 90 degrees, so the fence is being printed as though it was laid on the ground. My comment about the parallelogram is because the fence panel is intended to go on a slope, rather than on the flat (which would make it a rectangle). Thanks Adrian

When I set this up last month, it successfully printed the sample item that comes with the software. Now, I've had several attempts at printing my first design, and they've all been a failure. In a couple of cases, the filament has failed to stick to the bed either completely or has come loose almost immediately, leaving an unholy mess of fused filament (even after I'd carefully set the height of the deck as per the instructions). However, on a couple of occasions, things have been a bit more subtle. The picture below shows what is happening. I'm trying to print a section of fencing, which is intended to go on a slope, hence the parallelogram shaped base. As you can hopefully see, the right hand side is sticking down OK, but on the left hand side, the bottom edge has lifted off the bed.The blue tape is freshly laid, and was dusted off immediately before the printer started. The filament is the PLA stuff that comes with the printer, and the temperature settings are the default for PLA. Why is this happening, and how do I stop it ? Thanks Adrian

I've now had the time to try this approach, and it works !. For anyone else wanting to do something similar, I created the posts as two point rectangles, but the rails had to be done by starting with a line (set the angle, 12 degrees in this case), then use a dimension the get the right meeting point on the post, then put in a second line (again 12 degrees), and another dimension to get the height of the rail, thus creating a parallelogram. The design has been exported and sent to the printer, and it almost worked, but that is a separate issue. Thanks again. Adrian

Thanks for the suggestion, some thing else to try at the weekend. Adrian

Thanks for the suggestions. I probably won't have time to have a go until the weekend. Adrian

Thanks again. The good news, I've managed to get my posts to where I want them. The bad news : I've acquired a fourth post that I don't want, and I can't get rid of it, no matter how many times I select it and delete it. I'm trying to put the rails in that link the posts. I can create one of the right cross sectional size, but when I extrude it, it comes out at 90 degrees to the post, whereas I want it to come out parallel to the 12 degree line (if I try and extrude to the next post, it tells me that it can't because it will miss it). I've tried select move, and then rotate, but I either get a variety of warnings (can't select item for various reasons), or it sort of rotates, but my rail gets truncated to a wedge (the union of the old position and the intended position). That is assuming that it hasn't made the rail and post into one object, in which case it rotates the combined item. Adrian

Al. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a go tomorrow and see how it works. Adrian

I've downloaded Fusion 360, and I've been trying to design something useful (in this case a section of fencing). I've watched the tutorials by Lars Christensen (mentioned up thread), but they don't help me with this particular problem. It is entirely possible that I've made a fundamental mistake to start with, but that isn't clear. I started by creating the right hand most post, and then copy/paste to create the other two. As you can see from the attached image, I've got three vertical posts, but I'd like the tops of them to be on the angled line, rather all at the same height. When I select one of the posts to move, I keep getting asked to "Select Sketch Geometry to Move", but it doesn't seem to matter whether I select a face or an axis, I keep getting the message, and I can't move it. How do I get the posts to move to where I want them ? Thanks Adrian

Thanks for recommendation. I've downloaded Sketchup, and whilst it is happy to install, it won't run. It tells me that I've got the wrong drivers on my (Intel) graphics card, and according to Intel, there are no newer drivers for it. It needs OpenGl 3.0 (or better), and I'm on 2.1. It seems a bit extreme to have to buy a new graphics card just to run the software. Fusion 360 has some details on the system requirements (amount of memory on the graphics card), but nothing about drivers related information. However looking at the T&Cs, they seem rather keen on data acquistion (or am I reading too much into them). Blender installs, and starts, so it looks as though I'll be playing with that this afternoon. Adrian

Thanks for the suggestions, hopefully I'll have time for a play over the weekend. Adrian

Back in the early 90s I was sold a return ticket from Middlesbrough to Southwell, all parties overlooking the minor detail that Southwell had lost its service several decades earlier. I ended up at Fiskerton instead. It always struck me as being a bit strange that "the system" could sell me a ticket to a long closed station. Adrian

Oh dear, three and a half months without an update. Fear not dear reader, stuff has been happening. Work has slowly been progressing on the Nether Blagdon station area. The area beyond the platform is now (I think) all but finished, work is underway in the yard area, and the platform has been furnished with fencing, lighting, seating and a running in board. There are some bits of the fencing I'm not happy with, so more work to do there. The yard now has the (almost) obligatory old coach body and a lamp hut, and work is under way on the cattle dock and loading ramp. Adrian

Afternoon all. I'm starting to look at the design software for 3D printing. I've not got anything too elaborate in mind at the moment for projects to print. Looking through the various threads here, the options look as though they may be : Blender Fusion 360 Sketchup A someone coming into this with no real CAD experience, which would be the best to use ? Thanks Adrian

Track plans will evolve with time, usually getting simpler under BR (less traffic usually means less complicated track plans). So, you'd need to decide what era you are interested in, and then search on that. Can you see http://maps.nls.uk ? if you can, that will allow you to access old large scale maps of most of the UK, so you should be able to look up the stations of your choice. Follow the links for Ordnance Survey. Beware, its one of those sites that you can spend hours on. Adrian

I'm rather liking the "empty" shots of the lesser seen corners of layout. Adrian

Thanks, a nice level of detail there. Adrian

Very nice, but what scale are they ? Adrian

As a first time etched kit builder, I ran into a couple of problems with a kit. Following an exchange of emails with Julian (and some photos), I think they've been resolved. I can't fault Julian for the promptness of his replies, or the trouble he's taken with them. As NigelB said, good communications and customer service Adrian

Many thanks to those involved with the organisation today. It was good to see BCB and DitD again, and a great opportunity to see the others for the first time. Adrian