New Toy

[RDSRR]

After seeing the fantastic results from Serge Y. Lebel and Sarah Griessenböck I made the plunge and bought the Elegoo Saturn and built a home made curing box. We shall see but I suspect great things from this.

One part is an O scale journal box for the SDL39 project and the other is a signal box cover in S scale. These will be prototypes for the brass castings.

[bob turner]

This might change the hobby more than battery/RC.
Got a foundry in mind?

[LarryK]

nice work

Larry

[Erik C Lindgren]

That's terrific. Cool!

[RDSRR]

This might change the hobby more than battery/RC.
Got a foundry in mind?

We use Dave out in California. Glenn makes the molds and shoots the waxes.

[up148]

Very interesting. I know almost nothing about 3D casting and thought the item made was applied to the model. But, it sounds like you're using the 3D item as a pattern and then have the item cast in brass. Is this always the way?

[RDSRR]

Very interesting. I know almost nothing about 3D casting and thought the item made was applied to the model. But, it sounds like you're using the 3D item as a pattern and then have the item cast in brass. Is this always the way?

Both. Many use it to make things for themselves. I'm using it for that as well as rapid protyping for molds. Could be other resin casting or in this case brass.

[sarge]

I’m seeing this as a lot bigger than battery r/c, Bob. “Deadrail” is and will pretty much remain a niche.

I’ve been using 3d-printed details and parts quite a bit since I started back in this as a hobby, and Shapeways (for one) has quite a bit to peruse. I just got a 3d-printed Paducah Geep nose in the mail, needs a bit of smoothing but its a big print with probably an older lower resolution modelling program. I have a couple SW1 bodies here, which are really big prints in my view but perhaps not in the industry’s view, and they look very workable.

I can see the next big step where the local hobby shop, club, or even the hobbiest has a decent resolution and decent-sized envelope printer. You pick what you want off a website, pay directly through the ether or order it up at the LHS, the codes for each item on your order get sent to the printer and you pick it up next day. No packaging, no transport issues, no distribution, no imports, no claims to USPS. The only thing would be it’s part by part, so you put it together. Oh, wait! It’s a hobby. Grin!

Just think of an LHS that has adhesives and hardware, but three or four great whacking printers to do the day’s orders of models and parts. This or something similar, where the item ships over the net and only becomes a 3d thing locally, is right round the corner. It is developing by leaps and bounds.

[up148]

Looks like we might be in store for another big technology leap. LHS printing off parts.....wow.....who would have thought this only a few years back. But, in today's business world, you better keep reinventing yourself or you'll be a dinosaur.

[E7]

I’m seeing this as a lot bigger than battery r/c, Bob. “Deadrail” is and will pretty much remain a niche.

I'd maybe tend to agree, but for the impact the automotive industry might have on batteries. Just might be a major boon to dead rail fans.

Rich

[bob turner]

Yeah - watch the Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. I am running two of them in airplanes, with some success. Not aware of better auto batteries for older cars.

[sarge]

Not wanting to hijack this to a discussion of the deadrail religion, but batteries really aren’t a limitation now, if I’m honest. These guys are getting very practical drain-rates and operation now, the equivalent run times as any of us subject our trains to (other than perhaps 12-hour museum and trainshow orbiting) seems to be easily accomplished. There is equivalency in sound systems, run times, performance.

Two points, then. Why I say its a niche, not a seminal shift in the hobby, isn’t pejorative. It’s in that word “equivalency”. It’s another means to get parity in operation, not a clear advance. Sure, there is no wiring on the layout, a subject that seems to scare the bygibbers out of so many people to the point they will wire exactly the same functions, from power supply to the brushes, into each locomotive rather than do precisely the same on a roomier scale on a layout, but there is no fundamental change for the better in the result, just equivalency by other means.

One place, a niche again, where battery r/c has a clear advantage is outdoors, where the environment has something to say about track power. Even then, the real advantage isn’t that its battery-power so much as its autonomous power, joining the ranks of live steam, internal combustion in the larger scales, and, done more than once to great effect outdoors in the UK at least, clockwork.

Second point. The seminal shift in the hobby in our lifetime isn’t battery r/c, but up a tier to include battery r/c. It’s digital command control in its entirety. From the first cries and nappy-filling of GE Astrac through things like Dynatrol into a common protocol of DCC and, yes, deadrail, bringing with it lighting effects, sound, not only loco control but layout control. A huge leap forward.

Watch what 3d printing heralds. An era of parts and models that reduce traditional production limitations, for example appeal to only the followers of a “limited” prototype such as those unique LV caboose steps I bought, and a distribution network without a Walthers, UPS, backorders, the Chinese, Long Beach, the Longshoreman’s union getting into a snit, just order on Wednesday and wake up to it being there Thursday, the only distribution being code sent over the ether. That is Star Trek level shitte I can sign up for.

[E7]

I think the great appeal of 3DP (Egad, sounds like one of those Star Wars critters) is instant (or at least pretty quick gratification).......I want it NOW! The bad news (at least for me and Turner) is if you want it converted to metal, most of us are right back to depending on others with all the caveats Sarge mentioned. How hard is that plastic the printer spits out?

As for RCBP, guessing a big deal would be if one of the manufacturers/importers goes to it. At my age it's all starting to look like a moot point, and the almighty buck or (shudder) bit, as always is a factor. One thing for certain, it will be interesting.

bid deal???? Duh!

[RDSRR]

How hard is that plastic the printer spits out?

Hard. I have seen some on-line make small gears. Don't think I would go that far... But for many are building truck side frames and Sara has built a very nice tank car and frame. I know you hate to do this but check out this thread https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/3d- ... the-future

Wade through all the BullShit and see the tank car she produced.

[86TA355SR]

Dan,

Very cool.

My local group of train guys were just talking about this. The possibilities are endless. And, one off parts are a reality.

Please keep us updated. Love your “magazine” and thanks for a great Indy show!