3 D printing toy trains

Very cool ,thank you for posting.

Brad

Spend some time browsing shapeways.com

 

3D printing will change model railroading. Eventually we will be able to get just about any model in any scale custom printed on demand. No more waiting for importers to offer only models they can get enough pre-orders for. Mark my words. It can't get he fast enough IMHO.

I honestly wonder what those 3-D printers portend for the hobby, esp. for folks who hand-make structures. Does anybody know some facts? Suppositions? Logical conclusions? Predictions?

FrankM.

Layout Refinements

The cost must be coming down on this process to be able to use it for reproducing toys. I'm not sure if it's cost effective enough yet, or the big boys would be investing in it. This technology will certainly be a game changer at some point. It might even mean the return of Us manufacturing. Unless of course the technology makes its way overseas to the cheap labor market wherever that may be?
Don

Very cool! Hopefully we'll see more of it as the technology advances. 

Lionel is already using this technology.  They are printing the engine parts first to check for fit before they cut they dies for the tooling.

 

It's called rapid prototyping.  Lionel, MTH, Atlas O, and others and in other scales have been doing this for over a decade.

Here's a thread on MyLargeScale.com's forums on someone's project to building a 1:32 scale Schnabel car as a CAD model and then 3D-printing the body parts to assemble into a completed car. There is a photo on the third page of the modeler's 3D printer, a modified RepRap kit.

 

Photos (really big ones) start on the second page, and the entire body (minus trucks) has taken shape by the fourth page.

 

It's a      r e a l l y  b i g  m o d e l .

 

---PCJ

What is needed first for Model Railroad applications of 3D printing are more realistic figures in O Scale.

 

 

Andrew

I think the future of 3d printing in model railroading lies in cottage industries making kits at first. When the printers go mainstream selling software to produce parts, cars, whatever will take over.

Ron

3D printer technology is advancing at a rapid rate and the cost of the printers will go down as they sell more volume.

 

I think the only roadblock would be the software needed to produce anything from scratch.  I would venture that a lot of people don't have the necessary CAD skils to be able to design an object.  The key is 3rd party applications that make the CAD side of things much easier.  One other issue is being able to scan/design larger items that the printer can handle.  While those printers are currently available the cost is prohibitive for most.

 

I have no doubt these issues will be resolved fairly quickly and 3D printing will  go mainstream in the near futire

 

Ed

It is only a matter of time before you see a 3-D file library on sites like this one.

At the trade show I was at last week in Ohio, there were a few different ones, and one capable of printing in a space of 5" x 5" x 5" was between $750-$1500 dollars.  The larger ones, capable of printing full cars like this were still in the multi-thousand dollar range, but I want one.

 

Thanks,

- Mario

While 3D printing is a very interesting technology for low volume products, I doubt it'll ever be cost effective for quantity production, at least in most of our lifetimes.  As mentioned, it's great for rapid prototyping, a job it's ideally suited for.

 

Being able to create parts is a ways down the road, at least metal ones.  The price of those printers is pretty steep.  I see this as a great way to create small plastic models.  Anything large runs up the cost and time to create it.

I actually designed, scaled, and 3D printed an HO scale box car for an engineering project. It actually turned out very well, but it takes an extraordinary amount of time to print. I had a total run time of about 16 hours on the printer to make one box car. Some of the filler plastic did not run properly so I also had to re run it several times. Cool for persons with CAD or Solid works knowledge, who want to design their own items. Just not very efficient.

The CAD experience is what will stop most folks.  With the limited experience I've had, I know how difficult it is to create a complex part in AutoCAD, so without that work done for you, it will really limit the ability to create new stuff.

 

 

This is the only photo I could find on my phone. I didn't really put as much work in to the project as I could have, but I wanted to do fundamentals before moving to detail. I have everything ya need. Printer, Solid works, and my car builders cyclopedia from 1941

Looks like the string version of the 3D Printer.

 

The powder ones are great but expensive!

I have heard, but have not yet seen, that some Z and N scale folks are already printing custom cars. Now I want the infamous OR&W boxcar with the "Leaky Roof" placard. ( yes, they actually painted and nailed on a sign that said the roof leaked, rather than fixing it.)

 

As I've said before, the technology is leaping ahead in ways it's hard to foresee. The latest R&D Magazine newsletter showcased a printer that works only with self-hardening materials. (Chocolate, for goodness' sake.) The Israelis are working on multi-material printing with the aim of printing circuit boards and batteries in a single step. Human organs are already in print and the first few have been installed, and a prosthetic hand with muscle-sensitive pickups so the user can actually move it by thinking at it costs $50 to print. Just remember how slow, loud, expensive and lacking in quality the old nine-pin ribbon printers were, and how soon the inkjet takeover happened.

 

--Becky