CITY PROGRESS

My upper level city roadways and sidewalks looks like this in laser cut grid. What is shown above is the laser cut squares. Each square will be laser cut and fits together like a puzzle on the supporting surface. I did modify the building locations from what is shown on the earlier thread above.

So the way this is done on CorelDraw (or any other graphics program) is to create a movable window the size that the laser cutter can cut. Then remove all details outside the window, leaving the parts within the window to send to the laser cutter.

The above is grid square D3

The above square D3  is converted to a .svg file that my GlowForge laser cutter will cut.

the black lines shown are scored for sidewalk joints and the red lines are the curb cuts and storm sewer grates openings.

This looks more complicated than it really is. The process is fairly straight forward.

Also I have the AUTOMOTIONFX paths for my Automotionfx cars designed.

I will laser-ENGRAVE these paths on the reverse side of the roadways to fit the magnetic/iron rods that will be placed into the engraved paths underneath. So to do this I will take my laser square designs and MIRROR them to detail the underside engravings.

I believe that AutomotionFX uses a GlowForge to create their roadways, since their roadways are made from GF 1/8" draft board.

Alan, It looks like you've thought of everything. This should be really cool when done. Are the AutomotionFX  vehicles more quiet than super streets?

Yes I believe quieter because the electric motor is smaller. No track sounds either.

However I've not checked this out on a decibel meter.

The better aspect is that the track is invisible being under the roadway.

@AlanRail posted:

Yes I believe quieter because the electric motor is smaller. No track sounds either.

However I've not checked this out on a decibel meter.

The better aspect is that the track is invisible being under the roadway.

Good point, also not hollow plastic.

This Grid-Window Method can be used to laser cut much larger objects than the laser cutter bed size supports.

Super streets is limited to the street track pieces. AutomotiveFX  unlike the HO version of it used in Europe is also limited to their track pieces.

However, when I laser cut and engrave my own track pieces there is no limitation, except as to the turning radius and size dimensions of the specific AutomotiveFX car or bus or truck so equipped.

I purchased several switch-tracks from AutomotiveFX to incorporate into the paths; like going into and out-of the gas stations.

All layers on this view; the image is separated into several layers to facilitate cutting; a street layer and a curb and sidewalk layer.

The street will be laser cut from 1/8" draft board like MDF, the curbs and sidewalks from 1/4" draft board; the curbs will be then routed for a curved edge to the street.

The street and curbs will have cut-outs to fit the 3D printed sewer grates and sewer covers. The street markings and walkway marks will be cut out and replaced with colored acrylic shapes in white and yellow.

City all layers shown. To laser cut I separated the elements into layers. the streets layer is 1/8" thick draft board shown below.

as stated above the layers are separated into rectangular Panels to be laser cut. The black lines shown below are scored the red lines are cuts.

All of the street markings are cut. these cuts are filled with yellow and white acrylic to represent the street marking colors. Sizes of markings are scaled per New York Highway Department Street mark standards.

the other sewers and street manholes are filled with 3D laser printed sewer covers and storm grates shown in other threads.

the exact size of the cuts comes from a .DXF image of the top view of the 3D model in Rhino 7 superimposed into as a 2D image into Corel Draw.

the streets and sidewalks painted concrete gray.

Sidewalk layer is cut from 1/4" thick draft board

Automotion FX paths, these paths are for the magnetic wires. the paths are laser engravings engraved in the UNDERSIDE of each panel.

to engrave, the image below is mirrored, and the reverse side of the panel is engraved with the wiring engrave path. Each panel will have its associated wire(s) installed so that when all the street panels are all in place the Automotion FX wire paths will connect.

I have several Automotion FX switches that will be used to re-direct the cars in different paths as well as into (and out of) each gas station shown below.

Sweet!

It's going to be cool.  Looking forward to future updates on progress.

Mike

3D printed Street sign designs

These street signs will either be on or connect to hollow brass tubes or attached around traffic signals.

The top and bottom designs shown hide tiny LEDs that will shine down and up onto the letters.

The letters shown are 3D printed with the sign frame, however they may be CLEAR acrylic engraved to better reflect the LEDs.

the next step is to layout sidewalk streetlights, traffic signals, tree grates hydrants,  street name signs (above) etc for the insertion holes to be laser cut.

Looks fabulous, Alan!!!

George

@AlanRail posted:

3D printed Street sign designs

These street signs will either be on or connect to hollow brass tubes or attached around traffic signals.

The top and bottom designs shown hide tiny LEDs that will shine down and up onto the letters.

The letters shown are 3D printed with the sign frame, however they may be CLEAR acrylic engraved to better reflect the LEDs.

the next step is to layout sidewalk streetlights, traffic signals, tree grates hydrants,  street name signs (above) etc for the insertion holes to be laser cut.

Alan, Those are great looking. Your continued innovation is really impressive.

It's all in the details!

Dave

hydrants

i should have just purchased a 3D model from TurboSquid. Instead, I designed my own to 3D print.

MAILBOXES- Designed mailbox for City.

@AlanRail posted:

MAILBOXES- Designed mailbox for City.

Alan, The mail box looks great. It's nice to see it green like my childhood.

revised mailbox so bolts are actually holding the box the concrete base.

Very nice Alan...everything from mailboxes to manhole covers!

Tom

Added the hydrant cover chains. 

Printer's slicer program says this will print..... not sure I agree.

Revised Mailbox design, too.

If I remember correctly the green mailboxes contained mail being delivered by the letter carrier, no slot just a locked door on on side, and the boxes for depositing mail were blue.

@coach joe posted:

If I remember correctly the green mailboxes contained mail being delivered by the letter carrier, no slot just a locked door on on side, and the boxes for depositing mail were blue.

Red white and blue where I lived

I rember red, white and blue when I was really young but that gave way to just blue.  Cost cutting measure I guess.

I remember in the 50s that all mailboxes were a forest green with two different types of freestanding boxes.  The ones without the deposit flap were for the delivery man to refill his bag/cart.  There were also small boxes which where hung from utility poles.

Jan

The small ones on the poles are the ones I remember being red, white and blue.

Hydrants with chains printed as a group.

I use the supports to hold the hydrants in place for painting.

there is a stem below to insert into sidewalks.

Close up. Actual height is 0.73" or 32" (1/48) scale.

chains attached to the three covers are discernable as links; note bolting.

@AlanRail posted:

Hydrants with chains printed as a group.

I use the supports to hold the hydrants in place for painting.

there is a stem below to insert into sidewalks.

Close up. Actual height is 0.73" or 32" (1/48) scale.

chains attached to the three covers are discernable as links; note bolting.

Alan, Your hydrants and postal boxes look better than any I've seen printed.

@coach joe posted:

If I remember correctly the green mailboxes contained mail being delivered by the letter carrier, no slot just a locked door on on side, and the boxes for depositing mail were blue.

Green boxes are relay boxes for the carrier. The blue boxes were for letter drop off to be mailed.

Alan the level of detail on your fire hydrants is magnificent.

I printed 18 for Dave, they are too fragile to ship.

So since Dave is sort of close by, when he can, we'll meet for a hydrant and mailbox hand-off.

talk about time!  My last post on my upper city was in December. So I have progressed!

I chopped up the city into rectangular pieces to laser cut on my Glowforge. It looked like this.

Each rectangular square is about 11"x18" the max cutting size of the Glowforge.

My first thought was to cut the sidewalk and curbing in 1/4" draft board (MDF like) and then recut the streets in 1/8" draft board, using a table router to make the rounded part of the curbs.

Instead, I cut all of it using 1/4"; and then  will raise up the sidewalk and curbs about a 1/8" to match the top of the 1/4" streets. This allows me to run wiring under the raised part for the streetlights and traffic signals without further grooving.

The upper city assembly is like a complex large puzzle.

The upper city is sitting on Masonite that is attached to a framework of 1x3s, To hide the exterior 1/3s, I created, and laser cut a series of stone arch ways and several large bridges.

The 1x3s are hidden with  a combination of brickwork on the arches, The arch bases are 3d printed.

The arches will appear solid after the end pieces are attached.

Below are the large bridges that span the inner river harbor (not shown) and track. These bridges are doubled outward to create thicker bridge effect (not shown). As shown, the arch brick work continues around to the bridges.

In this photo you can see the unassembled sidewalk, curb and street pieces waiting for assembly.

This is going to look awesome. Like watching a real life construcion project.

@AlanRail posted:

MAILBOXES- Designed mailbox for City.

Alan, any of these mailboxes available to buy?

Alan, again I'm blown away by what you do with 3D printing and laser cutting in order to build your layout.

if you want to buy any of my 3D models, OGR Rules prohibits us from selling from a thread.

As This is not the Buy-Sell forum; You need to send me a Private message. Thanks.

@AlanRail posted:

if you want to buy any of my 3D models, OGR Rules prohibits us from selling from a thread.

As This is not the Buy-Sell forum; You need to send me a Private message. Thanks.

Message sent to your email.

joe  not seeing an email

private message would be easier to find

@coach joe posted:

If I remember correctly the green mailboxes contained mail being delivered by the letter carrier, no slot just a locked door on on side, and the boxes for depositing mail were blue.

I have been a Postal worker for almost 30 years. Coach Joe is correct here with the exception that the locked door on the green box was on the front not on the side. Sometimes the green boxes were right next to a blue box and sometimes they were placed by themselves. A truck driver or a different Letter Carrier will fill up the green box in the morning with mail that is in walk sequence and then later on another Letter Carrier would work out of the green box by delivering the mail that was in the green box. This usually took 3 or 4 several loops where at the end of each loop the carrier was back at the green box. This has been my experience in NJ. Sorry I just saw prrhorseshecurve's response. He is correct they were called relay boxes.

@AlanRail posted:

talk about time!  My last post on my upper city was in December. So I have progressed!

I chopped up the city into rectangular pieces to laser cut on my Glowforge. It looked like this.

Each rectangular square is about 11"x18" the max cutting size of the Glowforge.

My first thought was to cut the sidewalk and curbing in 1/4" draft board (MDF like) and then recut the streets in 1/8" draft board, using a table router to make the rounded part of the curbs.

Instead, I cut all of it using 1/4"; and then  will raise up the sidewalk and curbs about a 1/8" to match the top of the 1/4" streets. This allows me to run wiring under the raised part for the streetlights and traffic signals without further grooving.

The upper city assembly is like a complex large puzzle.

The upper city is sitting on Masonite that is attached to a framework of 1x3s, To hide the exterior 1/3s, I created, and laser cut a series of stone arch ways and several large bridges.

The 1x3s are hidden with  a combination of brickwork on the arches, The arch bases are 3d printed.

The arches will appear solid after the end pieces are attached.

Below are the large bridges that span the inner river harbor (not shown) and track. These bridges are doubled outward to create thicker bridge effect (not shown). As shown, the arch brick work continues around to the bridges.

In this photo you can see the unassembled sidewalk, curb and street pieces waiting for assembly.

Magnificent!

Peter

Getting back on track. Alan you do amazing work with the 3D printing.

Alan, unfortunately, I'm not a digital subscriber, so PM's are not available to me. I sent an email to 285alan@gmail.com, which is the email in your profile. Is that correct?

----I have been a Postal worker for almost 30 years. Coach Joe is correct here with the exception that the locked door on the green box was on the front not on the side. Sometimes the green boxes were right next to a blue box and sometimes they were placed by themselves.

I just scaled the box at the entrance to my office. The box door is in front.

OK I'll look.

@Hudson J1e posted:

I have been a Postal worker for almost 30 years.

Phil, not wishing to derail this thread, but for a 1960's mailbox, would you say this is a reasonably correct color scheme?

Joe, yes I would say that is a reasonably correct color scheme. I started as a temp with the Postal Service in 1989 and I was born in 1965 so I really don't remember what they looked like in the '60s. I tried doing some research on it for you but I came up with the same picture you posted above. The few pictures I saw on the net had the red paint stopping higher than the one in that picture. The red seems to usually stop just below the flap where you put the mail in. I don't know if this was a hard and fast rule. There could have been exceptions. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

Thanks. 🙂

  Prior to 1955 most mailboxes were olive drab (green) left over from WW2.  In 1955 the Post Office Department had a patriotic thing going and painted them red,white and blue.   When these needed to be repainted they used just blue.

colors shown are for demonstrative purposes the 3D printer will print this in Gray color.

Alan, just got my mailboxes. Beautiful work. Minute, sharp detail. It will be a challenge to paint them in a way that does them justice, but I will try. And the fire hydrant cap retaining chains amazed me. Thanks very much.

Joe

Glad you like them;

the hydrant was a challenge printing with the cap chains.

This is a picture of the arch supports that support the upper city.

Originally, I was planning on laser cutting this as you see below.

I still am but I want to add some detail to the stone archways. The stones (195) would be 3D printed and slipped  around the laser cut model where the stones are shown.

So I took the 2D arch file and imported the 2D archways into Rhino 7 my 3D surface modeler.  But the stones obtained this way would be laser resin printed with flat surfaces, very un-stone like.

Now Rhino 7 has an automated modeling feature called Grasshopper. I should use Grasshopper more 3D modeling. It's a parametric modeling method that allows changing the model design by using numerical sliders to vary the model's parameters.

So getting back to the stones. I wanted to have each stone have a random unique pattern instead of a flat face. So I found a YOU-Tube video that demonstrated how to create random surface patterns with Grasshopper.  The Grasshopper modeler for this is on the right side.

On the left, you see two patterns I created that I am testing. One subtle pattern and another with greater intensity. I merely cutout the shape of the stone's face in the pattern and move the cutout to the stone surface. Then I 3D print the stone with the pattern.

Grasshopper lets me vary the intensity with just a numerical slider. A slider varies the pattern.

when completed I will have 192 stones with unique patterns to slide onto my 2D laser cut arches.

closer view: note the randomizer plug-in on the left side that creates a random stone surface.

I'm using Grasshopper because I want a random pattern to attach to the stone faces.

Creating a regular pattern would be easier since it is just a series of equally spaced duplicates.

However, I should be using Grasshopper to do that too, so I can easily vary the duplicates.

this is 3D printed key stone and next stone with a random stone surface.

for each of the 8 arch supports there is one key stone and 18 smaller stones.

I intent to print each stone with a different stone surface.

next will be the 3D prints of the bricks.

Alan, that 3D printing is unbelievable. Hats off to you for figuring out the process for printing. Way way over my head. Keep the pictures coming.

The lastest city in a 3D representation. I started with a Plasticville  city that grew with the Woodlan Scenics and Menards buildings.

So I removed the entire wood structure supporting my earlier city; It was a series of wood addons and additions.

Used my 3D modeling program (Rhino7) I created the wood structure in 3D; This allows me to see the issues before I cut,

The interior 1x 3 girders are lowered to accommodate the 1x2 transverse beams. on the right side 2 of the interior girders are dapped to fit the arch structures shown below.

Transverse 1 x 2s attached to the 1x3s

Next the 1/8" Masonite panels

Once the Masonite is fitted, I will add the laser cut streets and sidewalks. Note the grid shown in red, each laser cut  fits the grid.

Next the 3D printed stone arches and laser cut lattice truss will be attached to the edge 1x3s

Finally the edge fencing; All of these pieces have been 3D printed.

the finials on top of each fence post is not shown nor the globe lighting around the edge.

There was a highway(purple) in my last city that I will incorporate into the new upper city shown with ramping in the first image above.

the Woodland Scenics and Menards building will be added and lights connected.

I will be cutting in grooves to certain streets for the AutomotionFX wires and of course wiring streetlights and traffic signals.

Whew!

This is impressive that you have done it in CAD. I don't know much about Rhino but it sure seems powerful!

finally finished the framing for the city.

the prior location was found to be way too uneven for a laser cut city. So I removed that portion of the layout and reframed the area for the city.

added lift -up sections.

small modification from the design.

once I add in the 1x2s, I can next attach the Masonite sheeting.

the laser cut city sidewalks and streets will be attached on top.

That's awesome! I threw in the towel on this level of design but this makes me wish I had gone through with it.

@AlanRail.....Wonderful design work and construction. A pure example of planning and execution. Thanks for sharing!

SOOO  AFTER A YEAR I finally was able to get back to the Upper City. Note the Masonite has been attached to the beams above.

here are some photos of the unpainted city laser cut streets and sidewalks in place. Just the first two rows.

the sidewalks are 1/8" (6" scale) higher than the streets. the curbs will be routed to match the curve of the sewers.

by raising the sidewalks up I have space beneath for the street light and stop light wiring.  Note holes for round sewers and square for electrical manholes. The underside of the roadways will be routed for the iron wire to guide the Automation vehicles. All of the street markings will be filled with laser cut white and yellow acrylic.

Sidewalks and streets to be painted as well.

@Jan posted:

I remember in the 50s that all mailboxes were a forest green with two different types of freestanding boxes.  The ones without the deposit flap were for the delivery man to refill his bag/cart.  There were also small boxes which where hung from utility poles.

Jan

Seems  I recall the lettering being a dark gold color until about 1960 or so.  It was white for a spell, too.

@AlanRail Alan, glad to see you are making progress.

Tom

Alan, this is very fascinating!  We haven't talked about this for quite awhile and these are the first pictures that I have seen.  I'm anxious to see the next steps in this project.  Obviously you have given a lot of thought to this. 

Art

@AlanRail, your work is amazing!

The city was just a series of computer images that I subsequently laser cut.

Until I completed the Masonite surface for the city, I did not have a way to layout the laser cuts and connect them.

Not surprisingly, after the initial layout I had to re-cut parts that did not fit.

The entire city is a grid; left to right numbered 1-10 whereas up and down was A-D.

So each section was labeled A-3 to A-10; B -2 to B-10, etc;

The cut lines were governed by the max size I can laser cut and the streets; the surrounding surfaces for the sidewalks and buildings ended at the curbs. Over the last year, as you can see in earlier posts I 3D-printed mailboxes, fire hydrants, fencing, sewer covers, tree grating, traffic signals, streetlights, and stonework, etc.;

As well as, the arch supports and other bridge works.

I discovered I have an extra 7" at the right side. Good, because I want to add several newer Menards buildings along that edge.

Looks great Alan!

I needed a roadway from the upper level to the next level down about 2.5' DROP.

To do so, I needed to add a side road to my upper city. Since my entire city plan is computerized, it was easy to add the side road and laser cut the new sections.

As to the roadway,   designed and am printing a 3D roadway to do so; the width is about 4.5 " for two-way traffic.

Before the side road was inserted

using the computer-generated city plan I changed the computerized plan to include the side road then laser cut the sections that changed.