I suspect that different railways had their own variations of basic design, and then each set would be built to suit the exact location, to the whim of the chippy, with whatever materials were available in the yard on the particular day. DYOT!
British Level crossing
- Thread starter LGB-Sid
- Start date
Back on the Subject this started onfirst gate made second still to assemble they look big
but in theory they are to the correct height etc, the big grey bit gets buried under the gravel.
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Looks good - you're a wizard with that 3D printer!
How long did it take to:-Back on the Subject this started on
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1 Draw out?
2 Print?
Plus
3 What was cost of consumables for this project?
I am still grappling with the justification of 3d Printing and it is partially due to the lack of information like that asked for above that is the problem.
I probably spent more time looking for information than drawing
I am still drawing bits making personnel gates to go at the side of the main gates now when finished probably half a day in total to draw bits in Autocad and then 3D them in 3ds Max. ( I am a graphic designer / animator by trade )Print time is a hard question it depends on what filament you print, what quality settings you pick, like the layer settings and print speed and infill settings you use, in total the gates took around 14 hours to print all the bits in ABS at 0.1mm layer height.
Costs I am printing with a good quality ABS which costs £25 a 800g reel I bought one black and one White, so far I have printed 4 signals, Level crossing gates, All the bits for my Signal box and wasted some bits learning how to get ABS to stick to the build plate and scraping things I had not drawn correct. I have used half a reel of both colors, electricity costs not stuck a meter on it , they are 24v machines and the net says they are cheap to run.
This machine with it's bits for the enclosure I made from two IKEA tables cost less than £500 all in , Signal Kits cost around £20, Gates Found a set at £30 Signal Box not as good as mine
£60, so that adds up to £170 for kits too make what I have printed so far, paint costs the same whether they are kits or printed, I have used one reel of ABS in total to print the same kits so that cost me £25 in total , plus brass rods, nails, odds and sods and PVC board, being generous say another £25 total .
So saving is £170 - £25 filament - £25 odds and sods = £100 , I would say the printer will pay for itself in less than a year based on the things I wanted to add based on buying kits and I get the British look to my line that I am after, in G scale not 16mm.
I have already started to draw up and print practice bits for a Stainz Body conversion to a British Looking loco, once you start to add the cost savings in doing something like that into what the Stainz kits available costs then the savings will be well worth it
Once you have a printer you can have anything, if you can draw it, the one problem you then make things you didn't really need just yet
Sid, many thanks that certainly put some meat on the bones of 3D Printing. I am sure that many will be grateful for your efforts to explain this, particularly with Time and Consumables. To be honest I never expected a Cost for the Electricity, probably use more with Lightbulbs building by scratch on dark winter evenings!
I am sure it does use less Electrify than the light bulbs it can work in the dark , I can't
