3D Printing To The Rescue!

Alan is the Man! 👍

Pete

Good job Alan!

Alan's the best! He helped alot of us out on the Vandy Tender stanchion fix. Your tender looks perfect John. Great execution, and a wonderfully generous approach to fellow Forumites. Hooray for Alan!

Amazingly great work! I don’t exactly understand how it works, but I am so glad it does!

AlanRail... The KING of STANCHIONS!  The KING, Vandy'd me too!  Long live the KING!

After I found out that Lionel didn't have any of the parts, I was bummed out for quite a spell, but it's a sunny day today!

John, I see a 3D printer in your future.

Rod, much as I'd love to tinker with it, I can't even keep up with the stuff I have on the fire, so I'd never do it justice!  Printing is the easy part, learning to design the parts is the major task!

Or a case of beer for Alan.

@CPC posted:

Or a case of beer for Alan.

A much more practical idea!

thanks all.

I am having issues with my FormLabs 3 printer's connectivity.  Formlabs people are really responsive.

They are sending me a replacement new printer, the latest one, the FormLabs 3+

This is an upgrade to my FL3. Prints on the "plus" version are sharper than the 3.

FormLabs is located near MIT in the USA.

Alan is great!  He helped me out of a jam with some ZW transformer gaskets.  We NEED guys like him!!

@AlanRail posted:

thanks all.

I am having issues with my FormLabs 3 printer's connectivity.  Formlabs people are really responsive.

They are sending me a replacement new printer, the latest one, the FormLabs 3+

This is an upgrade to my FL3. Prints on the "plus" version are sharper than the 3.

FormLabs is located near MIT in the USA.

Wow, that's good customer service!  I see why it makes good prints! Starting at$3,750.00

Clearly, these are a cut about the $500 3D printers!  From the reviews I read, the FormLabs stuff is the top of the heap!

Ya love to see it! And it's so exciting for future obsoleted parts

Jerry

Congratulations John.

Way to go Alan!

Those stanchions are very impressive. Isn't technology great? (...and the people who know how to use it!)

That is amazing work!

I'm confused on how the replication process starts.  Does the machine scan the part you want to replicate or does a human need to draw it in CAD?

Great work by @AlanRail. John- I'm sure you are happy to have the tender restored to it's original glory. I hope these get added to the 3D Project Catalog.

3D printing has revolutionized many industries. The applications in modeling are endless. I saw story on-line the other day about a group of engineers are architects that are 3D printing a 2 story house. Pretty cool!

Bob

@Ron045 posted:

I'm confused on how the replication process starts.  Does the machine scan the part you want to replicate or does a human need to draw it in CAD?

It can be done both ways but a scanner is another separate device. Most use CAD to create the object. In this case the dimensions have to be known first.

Pete

Great topic.  I just purchased a set of drive-in speakers that were made by a 3D printer.  It seems tiny, detailed parts, are great targets for these projects because they use very little material.

@Ron045 posted:

I'm confused on how the replication process starts.  Does the machine scan the part you want to replicate or does a human need to draw it in CAD?

I suspect most often, as it was in this case, a human indeed drew it in CAD.  If I were proficient in using 3D CAD, I'd probably consider a 3D printer.  IMO, that's by far the biggest barrier to getting full use from a 3D printer.  Of course Alan also has a high quality resin printer, that probably helps with the actual printing and the look.

Scanning is good for complex models like dinosaurs with multiple surfaces. Good scanners are expensive.

Our models are more rectilinear and/or circular. So not nearly as hard to model.

Most solid modeling programs allow you to take a 2D drawing and extrude it into 3D. I usually import one or more photos into my program and use it as a basis for the model.

I'd love to see the process of taking a picture and creating a 3D image, I have zero experience with solid modeling applications.

OK  I was asked to make some F7 stair steps. These steps have 2 surface tread designs.

so first I measured the step using a digital caliper. The step comprises three basic pieces: a rectangular box and two cylinders.

In the 3D program (Rhino 7) I made a rectangle sized with the length 0.33" and width .10" of the step.

the dimensions are just for illustrative purposes. Next, I extrude the 2D rectangle into

3D using the .06 "thickness I measured. the xyz manipulator is shown, so clicking on the green Z direction dot allows

extrusion in the z direction. Since Rhino is a surface modeler, I now have 4 surfaces created.  So to make it a solid, I cap the sides with a top and bottom surface.

Now i have a solid rectangle for the step; next I  need two pins to insert into the F7 body. The pins are created with two circles equally spaced along the long side. doing the same extrusion with the circle, i have two pins.

I did skip a few steps in that I rounded the ends of the pins and added a small cylinder on the end of the pins next to the step to act as an insertion stop.

Now I drag the actual step photo into Rhino. I carefully scale the photo to match the size of the step. Note the tread designs.

I then match the photo's tread designs.  The tread designs consist of 4 rows of submerged spheres and two end step ledges. Easy to make and easy to evenly place. See below.

And then make a .stl model to print.

That is how I use a photo to make a 3D model. 

@AlanRail posted:

Most solid modeling programs allow you to take a 2D drawing and extrude it into 3D. I usually import one or more photos into my program and use it as a basis for the model.

This is most commonly described as Converting a 'Raster' Image to 'Vector' Graphics.  It's been done for a very long time.  When a designer wants to scale an image and does not want it to become pixelated it's converted to a vector.   Drop the vector into CAD, grab your calipers, add the 3rd dimension... and, you are off to the races.

I got a Legacy Y6b with some cosmetic challenges last York. It was missing this mystery part (muffler for the separator?).  A pal sent me a photo of it and then I snapped one of my own of the Y6b sitting in the TCA museum. This part was done on my resin printer. One thing I like about the resin printer for detail parts is that you can core a part all the way through very nicley:

@AlanRail posted:

OK  I was asked to make some F7 stair steps. These steps have 2 surface tread designs.

so first I measured the step using a digital caliper. The step comprises three basic pieces: a rectangular box and two cylinders.

In the 3D program (Rhino 7) I made a rectangle sized with the length 0.33" and width .10" of the step.

the dimensions are just for illustrative purposes. Next, I extrude the 2D rectangle into

3D using the .06 "thickness I measured. the xyz manipulator is shown, so clicking on the green Z direction dot allows

extrusion in the z direction. Since Rhino is a surface modeler, I now have 4 surfaces created.  So to make it a solid, I cap the sides with a top and bottom surface.

Now i have a solid rectangle for the step; next I  need two pins to insert into the F7 body. The pins are created with two circles equally spaced along the long side. doing the same extrusion with the circle, i have two pins.

I did skip a few steps in that I rounded the ends of the pins and added a small cylinder on the end of the pins next to the step to act as an insertion stop.

Now I drag the actual step photo into Rhino. I carefully scale the photo to match the size of the step. Note the tread designs.

I then match the photo's tread designs.  The tread designs consist of 4 rows of submerged spheres and two end step ledges. Easy to make and easy to evenly place. See below.

And then make a .stl model to print.

That is how I use a photo to make a 3D model.

Is that extra plastic re-usable or is it waste? Why is there so much compared to your step?

not plastic... Resin properties sort of like plastic.

it's hardened liquid RESIN  and once exposed to the laser it becomes a solid.

So yep the support structure for printing is not reusable.  kind of like the mold-sprues you cut off on a boxed model.

What are the extra tips sticking up for?

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

What are the extra tips sticking up for?

Those are supports to keep the model from breaking off and landing in the resin which could potentially mess up all the models by floating around in the vat.

Makes sense, I guess the actual attachment point is pretty small so they're easy to remove.

smallest point is 0.10mm but I use 0.45mm

i can combine different ones in the same print..

this printed upside down

3D printing is a real education!

Very cool Alan, thank you for walking us through the process. I really appreciate that!