Some comments in the ScaleTrains thread got me thinking. Do you think we'll see a 3D Printed freight car? And Affordible one?
I've always though 3-d Printing will eventually get bigger and I wonder if we'll be able to see cheaper freight cars in the future because of 3-D printing?
It is doubtful 3D printing will lower prices or displace standard mass production practices.
.
However...3D printing will (and already has) make more unusual frieght cars available.
I am dreaming of the day I can make a cardboard template of my streets and send it off to a printer and they can make me a custom cobblestone street system with curbs, sidewlaks, driveway entrances, culverts, manhole covers, etc. in any configuration I can dream up!
-Kevin
Living the dream.
3D printed product is limited in size to what fits in the machine. And a machine that will do a whole street is going to be big. And getting time on it will be expensive. So I think you'll be waiting for awhile.
I've seen some 3D printed freight cars. They're pretty good. Not great, yet. But pretty good. And if you've just gotta have a string of ABC railroad's weird gondolas, it's a thought.
I can't see why it WON'T become both better and more affordable. At the speed I take to finish projects, it might make sense to just watch TV instead, for awhile.
Ed
7j43kI think you'll be waiting for awhile.
I know.
7j43kAt the speed I take to finish projects, it might make sense to just watch TV instead, for awhile.
Ed:
Wouldn't work for me. I hate watching TV!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
7j43kAnd if you've just gotta have a string of ABC railroad's weird gondolas, it's a thought.
If you need a string of them I would suggest resin casting. Make one master and one set of molds and you're good for 25-40 copies.
I needed mill gons for my 1900 era railroad (a car generally over looked), so I make a master and a mold and have pulled about 15-20 one piece shells that fit over an MDC metal underframe.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
7j43k3D printed product is limited in size to what fits in the machine. And a machine that will do a whole street is going to be big.
The street could be done in sections, but with the level of current development in 3D printing I think it would still be pricey. First, there is the issue of doing the program. If you were taking full advantage of 3D printing the streets could be fairly complex. (If the streets are going to be simple why use 3D?) Making a complex and detailed design would be great except somebody has to spend the time doing the design. That's going to cost if you can't do it yourself. Scanning a model would work, but somebody has to build the models. I say 'models' plural because you will need both straight sections of street as well as corners and possibly curves etc. etc. All doable but at what cost?
What the technology needs is a magic wand.
DavidH66...Do you think we'll see a 3D Printed freight car?...
Do you think that we need one?
It seems to me that the market's fairly well covered, and I can't imagine that such a car could compete, both price- and detail-wise with what's already available.
dehusman...If you need a string of them I would suggest resin casting. Make one master and one set of molds and you're good for 25-40 copies....
Dave's suggestion is a good one. I'd save the 3-D printing for more complex stuff that's more difficult for the average modeller to scratchbuild.
Wayne
If you check out Shapeways, you will find dozens of freight and passenger cars as well as locomotive shells. Most are N scale and smaller, but there are quite a few HO scale as well. This is their model trains home page; use the filters to find your area of interest. Cost depends on the model size (volume of plastic used) and the material you choose; it is a good idea to refer to the site's materials description page.
https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace/miniatures/trains?li=nav
This is an HOn30 short boxcab that I bought for Boohbay Railway Village last year
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
There are a huge range of prices but most appear to be very reasonable. Even with the cost of furnishing trucks/couplers, (powering locomotives) etc the total cost is in most cases about what you woud expect for simular mass produced models.
I think the costs of most items are fairly low because most of the designers are hobbyists. They design things they want and try to make a little extra money by selling some. In some cases I suspect doing the designing has become their hobby. A business would have to pass on the cost of developing the models. Most of the prices do not appear to reflect that.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
With tooling in the 100,000 dollar range I would say 3D is a good possibility in the coming years.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
bibbsterRaw material cost is trivial as it is with injection molding. We currently print items that cost us about $0.30 that we sell all day long for around $15-20. It doesn't take long to recoup your costs in design time and materials if you have a good design and a product that people want.
I previously said "I think the costs of most items are fairly low because most of the designers are hobbyists. They design things they want and try to make a little extra money by selling some. In some cases I suspect doing the designing has become their hobby. A business would have to pass on the cost of developing the models. Most of the prices do not appear to reflect that."
I stand corrected by one who really knows. Thankyou bibbster. "a product that people want" is the deal breaker as far as making money.
https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace/miniatures/trains/
The US prototype HO scale freight cars on shapeways currently cost $55-120. The are printed in FUD or FED, which is typically more expensive than other plastics used in 3D printing. 36' NYC box car in FUD is $69.99. Same car in FED is $115.
Prices per cubic centimeter of material are listed here. White strong and flexible 0.28 per cm^3. Frosted Extreme Detail $5.99 per cm^3. 18K Gold $600 per cm^3.
https://www.shapeways.com/materials
There is no reason in the world to 3D print those freight cars in anything other than PLA or ABS (unless you just want fancy schmancy plastic). Those materials are very strong if used properly, even if using an FDM printer. Super fine detail can be had with an SLA printer using the same two materials as well.
Shapeways charges a hefty premium and finding a 3D printing service on a site like 3D Hubs would save you lots of money. Of course, the person doing the printing can set their own prices to match Shapeways, but we set ours to be very competitive. We'd rather sell ten widgets at $10 a piece than one widget at $50.
3D printing will allow us to finally kitbash some niche models into more realistic prototypes since the manufacturers have produced very little of them.
So it unlocks more opportunities for the hobby, especially if you enjoy kitbashing.
DavidH66. Do you think we'll see a 3D Printed freight car?
DavidH66And Affordible one?
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
How much of the detail was printed on, and how much is added detail parts?
If for $125.00 I could get a freight car with nicely printed brake detail, grab irons, ladders, roofwalk, etc., then I would be very interested.
If for $125.00 I just get a nicely printed boxcar body, I will not be interested. I don't see any improvement in that over a single piece body Westerfield or Funaro & Camerlengo kit. It would be just as much work for more than twice the price. No thank you.
SeeYou190...If for $125.00 I could get a freight car with nicely printed brake detail, grab irons, ladders, roofwalk, etc., then I would be very interested....
If you're speaking of a model of an obscure freight car, perhaps used only by one or two roads and not in any appreciable quantity, that price may be acceptable.However, several manufacturers are offering more common freight cars, r-t-r, with all the details mentioned, and at prices half or a third of $125.00. And even in that scenario, "common" includes cars like B&O wagontops and Milwaukee Road rib-sided cars, ownership of which was pretty-much limited to those roads. Likewise for Blackstone's r-t-r narrow gauge stuff.
I don't know anything about what Westerfield's (or any other makers of craftsman-type kits) output might be, but with kit-builder's ranks supposedly declining, I would imagine their output might be following that trend. Most such cars represent older prototype designs, too, another area of shrinking interest. So if you needed a couple of N&W HPc hoppers, yeah, 3-D printing might someday fill that need. A friend gave me an older Westerfield kit for such a car (not something I really needed or wanted) and after an "eventful" construction period, even I might have opted for a 3-D printed r-t-r version for $125.00.
I see more potential for 3-D printing relatively obscure steam locomotives to fit existing manufacturers' mechanisms, as I'd guess that there would be more people willing to build a few freight cars than there would be to build locomotives. And I'm not suggesting this because my interests lie mostly in steam era stuff, as I have all the locomotives that I will ever need or want.I'm not saying that the freight cars you want won't, or shouldn't, be made, only that it seems to me a waste of a technology when so many nicely-done r-t-r freight cars are available or, if not available, comparatively easy to scratchbuild (comparative to scratchbuilding a steam locomotive's superstructure, at least).
"If for $125.00 I could get a freight car with nicely printed brake detail, grab irons, ladders, roofwalk, etc., then I would be very interested." That's not a problem at all, and many within this range are on Shapeways, including my own Eastern Road Models Line. Due to cost, however, they will not try to compete with mass produced kits- these are items that are unlikely ever to appear in the mainstream market. However, trust me that you do not want printed grab irons. Use good old fashioned wire grabs for strength. On my cars, I always spot the drilling locations with dimples to simplify drilling. All rivets, bolts, etc. are included. You will want to learn a little about each designer, and see what lengths they go to in creating accurate models with high detail levels, that aren't too difficult to build. Some are dabbling in 3D for the first time, others have spent a lifetime in high end 3D CAD in an engineering environment. Steve Hunter
I am no expert on 3D printing but I was a mainframe programmer before I retired. There was something someone said to me a long time ago that stuck with me throughout my career. A computer is a great tool for doing one thing a million times. It's a very inefficient tool for doing a million things once.
It seems to me that mass producing freight cars, loco bodies, structures etc. would be an efficient use of 3D technology. Creating the print file would probably be an arduous task but once it is done it can create the same freight car an unlimited number of times. Like just about everything else in the electronics age, the price of 3D printers is coming down to where it will soon be affordable for the masses. I can see an enterprising company rather than selling a manufactured item would sell downloadable print files which a customer could then use to build his own fleet of freight cars. Maybe that is already being done.
As I said up front, I am no expert on 3D printing so I have no idea what is possible now and what will be possible in the future. I am curious as to whether they will one day be able to print in color which would be a fantastic development. It could save painting and decaling. Maybe even create a weathered car.
I'd have to disagree on this, John.3D printing's strength lies in low-volume production, or production of things that would be impossible to tool for conventional manufacturing. Printing a carbody takes far longer than it takes to pop one out of a moulding machine, but there is no tooling to amortize over the production run. A car could be printed today, another three weeks later, then next year... no inventory, as each is printed to order.If you need mass production, conventional injection moulding or other methods are the only sensible approach. In between on the volume scale would be etched brass kits and cast resin.Developing the 3D CAD model can take a long time- I've taken weeks on cars such as my CNR 36' GS gondola kit, but that same time- more, actually, would be spent doing the design for injection moulding.A conventional scratchbuilt model will take about the same time and while it's a very enjoyable way to spend time, you only get one model.Home printers of a size big enough to do carbodies aren't likely to acheive good enough quality in our lifetimes. They're good for hobbyists to print hardware, toys, trinkets, etc., but can't handle many of our fine detail/ surface quality needs. For jobs not needing high quality, they can be fine. There is no real incentive for greatly improved home machines, considering the high cost of true quality and the health issues that would surround the use of industrial machines in the home.That's why we have print agencies running horrendously expensive industrial printers... we need that quality for models.I've spent thirty years working professionally in high end 3D CAD and using 3D printing as the technology has developed through that time. That's probably long enough to see the trends fairly clearly and recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the technology.
Steve Hunter
NYBW-John I am no expert on 3D printing but I was a mainframe programmer before I retired. There was something someone said to me a long time ago that stuck with me throughout my career. A computer is a great tool for doing one thing a million times. It's a very inefficient tool for doing a million things once. It seems to me that mass producing freight cars, loco bodies, structures etc. would be an efficient use of 3D technology. Creating the print file would probably be an arduous task but once it is done it can create the same freight car an unlimited number of times. Like just about everything else in the electronics age, the price of 3D printers is coming down to where it will soon be affordable for the masses. I can see an enterprising company rather than selling a manufactured item would sell downloadable print files which a customer could then use to build his own fleet of freight cars. Maybe that is already being done. As I said up front, I am no expert on 3D printing so I have no idea what is possible now and what will be possible in the future. I am curious as to whether they will one day be able to print in color which would be a fantastic development. It could save painting and decaling. Maybe even create a weathered car.
Steve Hunter I'd have to disagree on this, John.3D printing's strength lies in low-volume production, or production of things that would be impossible to tool for conventional manufacturing. Printing a carbody takes far longer than it takes to pop one out of a moulding machine, but there is no tooling to amortize over the production run. A car could be printed today, another three weeks later, then next year... no inventory, as each is printed to order.If you need mass production, conventional injection moulding or other methods are the only sensible approach. In between on the volume scale would be etched brass kits and cast resin.Developing the 3D CAD model can take a long time- I've taken weeks on cars such as my CNR 36' GS gondola kit, but that same time- more, actually, would be spent doing the design for injection moulding.A conventional scratchbuilt model will take about the same time and while it's a very enjoyable way to spend time, you only get one model.Home printers of a size big enough to do carbodies aren't likely to acheive good enough quality in our lifetimes. They're good for hobbyists to print hardware, toys, trinkets, etc., but can't handle many of our fine detail/ surface quality needs. For jobs not needing high quality, they can be fine. There is no real incentive for greatly improved home machines, considering the high cost of true quality and the health issues that would surround the use of industrial machines in the home.That's why we have print agencies running horrendously expensive industrial printers... we need that quality for models.I've spent thirty years working professionally in high end 3D CAD and using 3D printing as the technology has developed through that time. That's probably long enough to see the trends fairly clearly and recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the technology. Steve Hunter
Steve, you of course are far more knowledgeable in this area than I am. I just look at how far and how fast other technologies have advanced and wondered if this technology would do the same. The original MacIntosh I bought when it debuted for $2600 dollars would cost about three times that in today's dollars and it isn't nearly as powerful as the laptop I am using now which cost less than $1000. This laptop has more computing power than the mainframe compute I worked on when I began in that field and that cost millions and needed a dedicated airconditioned room so it wouldn't overheat. The average car today has more onboard computing power than the Apollo astronauts went to the moon with. I don't know enough to about this technology to know what is possible now and what we can expect in the future. I have seen some amazing things done and wonder we might see someday.
As far as tooling cost, those have been comming down big time as back in the day (way back), tooling was cut by a master craftsman, that work for the most part can be done now by computer. Going to another non railroad hobby of many, woodworking, the fancy work used to take a skilled person forever to make, now alot can be done on a CNC machine, much cheaper and faster.
3d printing is already being widely used in the industry to modify things. People are making entirely custom shells using 3d printing so I do think it is possible.
{900} • {900}______ _____[ ] [ ]
[_____] [____]• OO •______________Amtrak______________________
Don't confuse the small cheap hobbyist 3D printers with the commercial level ones. The low cost ones are catching up, but the commerical ones are almost always much bigger - they can build bigger parts. And it's not limited to plastic-type materials - watch some episodes of Jay Leno's Garage and see how he gets parts for cars that are more than 100 years old. But many of the 'low cost' ones are plenty big to build a 40 or 50 foot freight car in HO, and certainly in smaller scales. The accuracy of some is enough to make a nice smooth finish, if you know what you are doing and calibrate the machine correctly. The laser/resin type make a MUCH smoother finished product than ones that use filaments. 2+ years ago at the Reading Modelers Meet, one guy was showing off S scale details he printed with such a printer, including complete tender underframes, cabs, and smokebox fronts. Plus plenty of smaller detail parts like pumps and injectors and steps. Indistinguishable from injection molded plastic.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.