@Tom Stoltz posted:Great work --- oh yeah… $24.+ was that for all 8 drivers? What about the cost of the tires? Bob Stevenson will machine, insulate, and mount his centers for $25.00 each. Do you have a total cost per finished driver so I could compare?And with the possibility of center distortion due to the soft material used by Shapeways, could they use something stiffer?
What program did you use to draw your centers? I don’t see why you couldn’t make your axle hole square to match the Slater self-quartering axles. Unfortunately for me the 0 scale hubs are way too big for S scale, but they sure do look good.
Tom Stoltz
in Maine
Hi Tom
$24 got me the set of eight centres. Then came $8 each for the Protocraft tyres, and I cut my own axles using stainless shaft from a scrapped inkjet printer. While that's less than half of what Bob charges, his brass centres will still be much stronger and stiffer, plus no effort required by the purchaser so in my mind, it's really no competition.
I did consider using Slaters' square-ended axles but the square is quite short, only 2.5mm long - not an issue when used in a Slaters wheel because these have a matching brass bush moulded into the wheel, but in my D.I.Y nylon wheel I felt it would not be sufficient to hold the wheel in alignment so I went for a plain hub with straight hole, 3/16" through. I have not found softness of Shapeways' sintered nylon to be an issue, and it's actually very accurate, too. I think it was only called 'Black-Strong-Flexible' to distinguish it from the high-resolution resins which are quite brittle. Incidentally, I have used Shapeways 'Fine Detail' acrylic resin to make some spoked wheel centres 16mm diameter for a 1:48 NZ Railways freight wagon, worked great and ran true with very little effort, but definitely on the pricey side.
I use an ancient copy of Bentley Microstation dating from 2004. It's more obscure than the likes of AutoCAD and Solidworks (which I have also used in various jobs) but it does everything I need for drawing up parts for 3D printing and has a nicer interface than anything else I have ever used so I have stuck with it.
