JCL

Interesting. He uses a different printer, but @MikeTrice also had issues with stringing a while back. Perhaps he might have some ideas.

Hi Mike, looking great! Here's a thought on your threads - is it possible that your PLA might be damp? This might be of interest. There are others that cover this more in-depth.

 

 

 

I'll let @chris p bacon know. I've been telling him about this.

Nice lamps! I grabbed an Ender 3v2 last year, and I've been able to have a go with it over the last few weeks. I'm finding that filament printers are able to provide a lot more detail that I thought they would. I've been using eSun too, but its difficult to get a hold of here, so I've just bought some local Canadian filament instead. I've a feeling it might be a bit more of a challenge getting prints to stick too, so I'll probably have to use rafts and brims instead of skirts. That said, after using a resin printer, I'm finding that the filament printer is a lot more fun to use!

Hi Mike, I agree with @Mikkel, every time I come back to your thread, you've pushed the boundaries of what your printer can do. Those surfaces are incredibly smooth!

1 hour ago, TangoOscarMike said:

Impressive!

 

I've been generating coal "procedurally" for 3D printed locomotives, using OpenSCAD. Each piece of coal is the intersection of two polyhedra, pseudo-randomly scaled and oriented. The pieces of coal are placed on a grid (on a pre-defined surface), with random displacements from their orderly grid locations. It's not a reliable process - I must generate the coal multiple times until I have a result that is free of too-regular looking features.

 

I wonder if I can use your approach for coal.

That sounds great. You say it takes a few goes to generate the ideal look, but I bet it's a lot easier than doing it by hand!

6 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

Nothing beats a good photo ... when you have one! 

 

Those of us attempting to model the earlier part of the 19th century very rarely have that opportunity!  In addition, many of the drawings we have were created long after the event, so are often extrapolations from limited information.  In such cases, it is necessary to find as many independent sources of information as one can and after that it's down to personal judgements.

Certainly Mike, it's definitely down to personal preference and the type of information you have available.

9 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

I suspect that this is one of the photos of this class that you have - but just in case you haven't....

Hi Phil, There aren't many photos around (although I've probably for a treasure trove compared to Mike), but I've certainly not seen that one.

I completely agree with everyone. I've been lucky with the GNR locos I've done that I have the Bird book on GNR locos, which contain profile drawings and some measurements, Groves, who also did a (much) more recent survey of GNR locos with no drawings, but a lot more measurements and detail changes, and on occasion, Isinglass drawings. The measurements are mostly consistent, so I tend to start by boxing in the big shapes using measurements only and superimposing those on the Bird or Isinglass drawing. Once the bigger blocks are filled in, I start on the details using measurements, if I have them for those parts, and then photos to fine tune/fill in gaps. As you say, it can be more of an art than a science. 

I'm currently looking at GNR L1 No. 125. I've only found 1 photo, and that doesn't indicate which of two possible smokebox fronts and doors it has, so I'll try to make informed guesses and using a photo of a different numbered loco as a guide for that area. Although the loco below is right per the drawings and initial measurements, it's wrong per the photo I have (for a start, the cab on this one was increased in height by 10"), so will have to be changed.

 

 

cheers

 

Jason

 

 

9 hours ago, Northroader said:

Very neat job. The thing I really like is that you made it with separate sides, ends, and so on, like an old style kit, rather than trying to do it as a one piece item. When I say this to 3D people, they usually say “ah, but you’re not taking advantage of the facility 3D printing offers” whereas I’m convinced doing it the way you made this would give real advantages for things like quantity of material used, and finishing?

 

Hi there, there are definitely a number of trade-offs. Printing a model all in one go can be a bonus for some, as it saves time later. However, on the down-side, a lot of material can be wasted creating all the supports that are needed - especially in resin printers. In fact, you could use more material in the supports than in the actual model.

 

Getting the best finish out of the printer means getting to know it really well. Mike's prints are a world away from the ones he made just after buying his printer, mine are too. Finishing depends on a lot of factors that are determined when creating the file for the printer. These include layer height and print speed, but can also include material temperature (and temperature consistency), material quality, and even vibrations from not having a stable base for the printer. I've found a video recently of someone who even swears that the concrete paver under his printer makes a huge difference to print quality.

Definitely in this case, kit form is the way to go. Mike Trice also found creating a carriage in kit form with the sides printed separately was the way to go with Shapeways. I also think one of the possible dangers of 3D printing can be getting carried away and forgetting that the insides of some of these models need painting and such.

In other words - I generally agree

I think you've done wonders. On the banding, it doesn't matter what consumer tech we use, it will be there. Even with the resin printers, there are lots of conversations about banding going on in the Mono X thread in the 3D printing area.

 

The 3' rule always applies

You're getting some great quality out of your printer Mike - it looks fantastic.

At least I’m in good company  Bill gates once said that nobody would ever need more than 512Kb of memory in a computer.
 

One other thing, You might know that I use Blender - I dream of a fillet tool! 
 

It’s looking fantastic Mike.

I hope you don't mind me putting this up, I've added this to RMWeb a couple of times, and it never ceases to make me smile.

According to E.F. Carter, the GNR locomotive colour was "green of one shade or another"; "bright, almost grass green"; "green"; "light grass-green"; "slightly yellower green than [a colour previously described as green]" or "bright green".

I imagine this won’t help at all, but the darker bluish-green on GNR tenders was also called holly green. As an aside to my aside, I read once that at the dawn of the GNR, the locos were the same shade of green as the GWR ones as that was the colour the manufacturer chose.

 

Of course, if I see a citation needed for that last one, I’ll deny all knowledge of saying it.

You’re right. I’ve no idea how he goes about his brickwork.

Hi mike, a quick one, have you seen this thread? A bit off topic, but someone has been using similar technology to yours to create buildings 

 

On 28/08/2019 at 15:52, MikeOxon said:

... it involves too many unpleasant chemicals for my domestic environment.

 

You're not wrong there. I think your coach looks excellent. On the ends, are the lines noticeable in real life? If they are, can you just file them back slightly?

Oh absolutely on the rolling your own, I've been looking at some pretty niche stuff (have  a quick shufty at MickLNER's post on the photo printer in the 3D printing forum for one of them). I think that 3D printing generally will be a boon for pre-grouping modellers.

I'm going through all of Mike's posts commenting - sorry Mike to be doing it to old posts, but some very interesting points are being raised!

 

On Shapeways, yes, the prices are increasing a lot, and it seems that they keep tweaking the algorithm that is doing the pricing, so you never really know from one week to another how much a model will cost. I worked out on my Moai resin printer that I could print out an open wagon for about 60p and a 2-4-0 loco is about 1.20. That includes resin, cleaner (isopropyl alcohol), kitchen towels and power, but not the price of the printer (obviously!).

 

The other thing Mike, is that the Silhouette was great for things that were flat in at least one plane, so was great for coaches, buildings, etc. It'll be interesting how your output changes over time to include other types of models.

Mike, we all stumble at first. If we didn't we would never be able to 'get into our stride'. I think that you are making tremendous progress, and once you become a second dan(?) black belt in this, I've no doubt that you'll be firing models out left right and centre.

 

I'm often having to drop tools for months at a time, and since the last time I used it, my software of choice, Blender, has had a major interface clean up and change. You can imagine the conversations I was having in my head when I was attempting to get back into the swing of things.

Hi Mike, I think you're spot on there. 3D printing for a robust shell and then the silhouette etc for your livery application. I once did a test of printing transfers onto waterslide paper and then cutting them out with a Silhouette - it worked pretty well too.

 

A couple of quick ones, have you seen this on Thingiverse? It's a website with free 3D models on it, and 2 of them appear to be GWR coaches - probably not of uch use to you, but you may find them interesting https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3153287 

 

The other thing is, if you have a machine with Windows 10 on it, there is an app on there called 3D builder (also available form Microsoft's store app). While it doesn't have a lot of functionality, it's stl repair feature is fantastic. There are no options (sometimes this is a good thing), and it's never failed me with regards to meshes that are not quite right.

Yes, mine is definitely different, so I think you should definitely get onto those forums. In reality, although these printers were invented a couple of decades ago, they are still new technology, so I wouldn't say any of them are plug an play just yet. For me, the experimentation is a part of the fun. )

 

There will be things that are relevant to both, and I'll definitely be uploading different models as soon as I can, and pointing people towards calibration models, etc.

 

Tell you what, I bet yours isn't half as messy as mine, and your waste product isn't a biohazard until it's cured!

Hi Mike

 

It's looking very interesting. The first few weeks/months of owning a printer are in equal measure exciting and frustrating. I've had my Peopoly Moai a few months and I'm still getting to grips with it. Just today I'm printing off a model used to calibrate the printer because, for some reason, a model that had printed ok is now about 3mm too long - a lot when you're doing a 4mm coach end.

 

My initial advice would be to do what you're doing. Find all the nooks and crannies and have a good look at what it can do - even test it to extremes. Apart from Cult3d, here's a also a website called Thingiverse, which has a number of models on it that can be used for calibration. Printing these models can give you an idea of the smallest diameter hole your printer can crate, or the longest bridge between two pillars, and the thickness of the thinnest wall possible.

 

In reality they can only do so much, so as always it's using the right tool for the job.

 

Don't do this alone. If you have a Facebook account, you can join the Geeetech owner's group https://www.facebook.com/groups/315127105604393/ where you'll be able to ask questions and see what others have done. Often, these groups also have FAQs available which provide answers to the most basic questions. Also, there will be hints and tips in there for things that you might not expect to be a factor. For example, mine is a resin based machine and the resin should be 25C before it's printed for example. Not obvious when you first start looking at it.

 

I think as a first print you're doing a lot better than I did! Having looked at your post I then looked around the net and found this 

which shows me that I think you'll be able to do some interesting things on it. I know the materials and process are different, but would be interesting to see how similar the output of your printer is to Shapeway's WSF.

 

FInally, expect to waste a lot of material at the start. Knuckles/Sparkshot's thread is currently discussing the amount of resin he and others use up when starting with a new machine, and in their case it's looking like a couple of litres - about 150GBP (sorry, no pound sign on my keyboard).

 

I can't wait to see how you get on with it.

That looks brilliant Dave. I see what you mean about the Silhouette, that would take some cutting by hand.

 

I'm going to go back to the beginning of your blog tomorrow and have a good rea.

 

Cheers

 

Jason