Experimental 3D plug track - up to version 244c

@Michael Woods

Hi Michael,

Welcome to Templot Club.

Can you clarify? Is that a resin printer or FDM (filament)? i have posted some test files for both in the past, but due to the state of my memory nowadays it is going to take me a while to find them. It would be a lot quicker to make some fresh ones. Or you could make them yourself of course. Perhaps someone else will find and post the links.

If it's an FDM printer you will likely get poor results with the standard printing profiles supplied with the printer. i can post a Cura profile file for the settings I use if wanted. I was intending to do that anyway, but maybe not just yet. This is an experiment still being conducted.

cheers,

Martin.

Steve_Cornford said:

Hi Phil, hopefully you have had time to test the 3D printed drip bracket for your Mars printer.
During the zoom meeting I think you also mentioned the volume of IPA you were getting through.

To reduce the amount required to cover the build plate in the Mercury wash, o added an extension to the metal bracket so that the build plate can sit lower in the wash so that I can get away with only 1 litre .
View attachment 5509
It is made from a piece of 20mm by 20mm aluminium angle about 12 cm long, with several holes drilled to allow a couple of M4 nuts & bolts to join the two original parts of the bracket.
Steve

Click to expand...

@Steve_Cornford

Hi Steve,

Elegoo have changed the design of the Mercury washer, so I don't think your attachment will now work unfortunately. The build plate now sits on a non-adjustable wire-frame within the tub, so that washing can be done with the lid on.

To use less IPA it might be possible to put large objects inside the tub around the sides. I haven't got one to try.

If there is still a slot at the top of the column it would be possible to make a home-made bracket to return to the previous adjustable method, but that's probably a big IF.

cheers,

Martin.

Hi Martin I will print the chairs on an anycubic resin printer (just started the print). For the sleepers I can use either, I have an anycubic FLM printer that I have my own slicer for so can mess around to get the best result,

I 3D print all my models (using fusion 360 and Tinkercad) so quite excited to see if I could 3D print the layout I am planning. I work in S Scale.

I can have a go at ctreating my own STLs, I have seen some screen shots in these pages but is there a place a beginer can go to for an intro in how to get from template to something that I can pull into an STL?

Paul Boyd said:

Who, me?

It's been a while since I did the bricks, and now that I've changed the gauge I'm going to have to start again but hopefully with the benefit of experience! I never did get to write up my notes properly, but I've attached my scribbles to this post which I hope will be a good reference - it's just as I scribbled it, warts and all. These notes were out of date even as I was writing them (I do believe this whole area might be experimental!). The link posted in the previous message is the one I would have posted as well.

The bricks I made were not intended to be used with plug track so don't have sockets, other than blind "rail head" sockets to act as a guide. I've also attached box files and shape files - I wouldn't normally separate bricks out of the box file but I thought it might make things a little clearer. In the shapes file, the big squares represent my print area. That would be the first thing I sort out, allowing overlap for the clips. It's then a case of making bricks using lots of pretty colours! It's best to use colours from the default palette to make it easier to select by colour, and also to have adjacent bricks in contrasting colours.

Hopefully this will be of some help.

Cheers,
Paul

Click to expand...

Paul, Martin,
Thanks for all the assistance, after reading through the long thread I initially thought this was going to be long winded but, with the obvious improvements and enhancements made since the topic began I breezed through and found the process a lot simpler than initially expected. And I'm now printing out some test samples of my first bricks.

Hi Michael,
You don't need to pull anything into STL, as Templot can output the required STL, whether for an FDM timberbase or Resin raft of chairs.
If you read this thread from beginning I am sure it will help.
On the export window there are a couple of helpful buttons, [chairs only], [timbers only ] which give set the various parts to suitable defaults.
Then just repair the resultant STL using the link in bottom right of the export screen.

Ps you will have to set a custom rail in the right hand box assuming.kng you are using S scale society rail

Michael Woods said:

I 3D print all my models (using fusion 360 and Tinkercad) so quite excited to see if I could 3D print the layout I am planning. I work in S Scale.

Click to expand...

@Michael Woods

Hold your horses Michael! You can't do that yet because I haven't yet done the crossing chairs. At present you can get only as far as doing the switches and check rails.





I have written all this stuff many times, made videos, and discussed it in Zoom meetings, but I'm getting so befuddled now that I can't remember exactly when or in which posts and topics. Hopefully someone else will help me out by posting the links.

There are also several problems in the latest 237c release which I am trying to get fixed and an update released. I spent an entire day on Friday hunting down two silly bugs and I'm still feeling exhausted from it.

Before going any further with making chairs, you have to decide whether you want solid slide-on chairs, or drop-on chairs with loose outer jaws. Lots of pros and cons to consider there.

To start FDM printing the timbering bases, you need to read (all of -- it changers as it goes along) this topic:

https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?threads/extracting-a-3d-timbering-brick-from-a-track-plan.295/

But if you are new to Templot as referenced in your B&M topic, it is not going to make much sense yet.

When I've had some breakfast I will post a sample STL for a short bit of timbering base.

The next Zoom meeting is this Wednesday at 8pm. We can talk about this stuff if you wish. Link at the top of this and every page.

cheers,

Martin.

Steve_Cornford said:

Ps you will have to set a custom rail in the right hand box assuming.kng you are using S scale society rail

Click to expand...

Martin Wynne said:

@Michael Woods

Hold your horses Michael! You can't do that yet because I haven't yet done the crossing chairs. At present you can get only as far as doing the switches and check rails.

I have written all this stuff many times, made videos, and discussed it in Zoom meetings, but I'm getting so befuddled now that I can't remember exactly when or in which posts and topics. Hopefully someone else will help me out by posting the links.

There are also several problems in the latest 237c release which I am trying to get fixed and an update released. I spent an entire day on Friday hunting down two silly bugs and I'm still feeling exhausted from it.

Before going any further with making chairs, you have to decide whether you want solid slide-on chairs, or drop-on chairs with loose outer jaws. Lots of pros and cons to consider there.

To start FDM printing the timbering bases, you need to read (all of -- it changers as it goes along) this topic:

https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?threads/extracting-a-3d-timbering-brick-from-a-track-plan.295/

But if you are new to Templot as referenced in your B&M topic, it is not going to make much sense yet.

When I've had some breakfast I will post a sample STL for a short bit of timbering base.

cheers,

Martin.

Click to expand...

OK Martin I will hold the horses, But I did manage to pull the layout into Meshmixer, red is where there are STL errors that Meshmixer can fix......clearly not a very practical experiment but just interested to see what came out of Templot.

Michael Woods said:

OK Martin I will hold the horses, But I did manage to pull the layout into Meshmixer, red is where there are STL errors that Meshmixer can fix......clearly not a very practical experiment but just interested to see what came out of Templot.

Click to expand...

@Michael Woods

Hi Michael,

Please don't call them errors. They are intentional integrity overlaps. The (free) mesh fixer of choice is:

https://www.formware.co/onlinestlrepair

It's very important to me that folks can create plug track without needing any CAD software or CAD skills.

Putting an entire layout in an STL file is a bit daft -- once fixed it will be an enormous file and how on Earth would you print it?

cheers,

Martin.

@Michael Woods

p.s. Michael, see this post from Terry just now:

https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?threads/00-sf-princes-risborough.642/post-6428

Martin.

Terry Downes said:

Paul, Martin,
Thanks for all the assistance, after reading through the long thread I initially thought this was going to be long winded but, with the obvious improvements and enhancements made since the topic began I breezed through and found the process a lot simpler than initially expected. And I'm now printing out some test samples of my first bricks.View attachment 5511

Click to expand...

@Terry Downes

Hi Terry,

Presumably that's a resin print with integral fixed-jaw chairs? It will be a miracle if you get that chair detail in an FDM print.

What are the extra bits of chair plug which you have included, and how did they get attached to the chairs on short spurs? Mystified.

edit: They are supports added by the slicer software where the key offset is deemed to need it. Not part of Templot.

cheers,

Martin.

Hi Martin,
Yes its a resin print. brick size set to 120x120mm which suits my Formlabs 140x140mm printer bed. The Preform software automatically adds supports for 'delicate' areas which you can remove/add/amend as you see fit but, I've just left the auto settings. The other thing thats a little different with this test is I'm printing directly onto the bed e.g. no raft/supports etc. I have done this before with great success which creates a perfectly flat print with minimal waste. Note: I specifically talking about my Form3 resin printer and this will not apply to other printers!

Terry Downes said:

The other thing thats a little different with this test is I'm printing directly onto the bed e.g. no raft/supports etc. I have done this before with great success which creates a perfectly flat print with minimal waste.

Click to expand...

@Terry Downes

Hi Terry,

If you do that, check for "elephant's foot" problems on the connector clips from the long first layer exposure. There is a rebate in the design around the underside of the clips to protect against problems, but it may not be enough.

But where did the extra bits of chair plug come from, needing delicate supports?

edit: They are supports added by the slicer software where the key offset is deemed to need it. Not part of Templot.

cheers,

Martin.

Hi Martin,
I hear what your saying about equipment cost.
just a few thoughts on that one.

Firstly I 100% agree if you go from a diode laser to C02 laser, there is no doubt the quality and maybe the accuracy of the co2 laser is way better.

However as you rightly point out the idea of a home owned Co2 laser is way outside the scope of an individual and maybe even a railway club or group.
I am not yet sure the quality of a diode laser (even the current breed of stacked lasers to give higher outputs)
gives you the level of accuracy required to build a plug track system with the accuracy required to simply plug in the chair.
And then there is the need to enclose ventilate and make sure you don't look directly at it.

Having said that I have just taken ownership if a Masuter pro CNC router and have a laser tree 40W (10W output power laser on order) that was directly from research you started by by an earlier post. ( just started building the enclose today.)
So in the next few weeks I can at least comment.

I have also been in the garage and dusted off my old Ender 3FDM 3D printer.
Full disclosure I was never that impressed with an FDM 3D printer, which is why it's sat gathering dust and cobwebs for a few years now.

I can see, it would work for a small brick concept, the very idea of small timber bricks seems a very long winded way to make track work to me.
I am sure it will work it just strikes me as being just too time consuming to be practical. (that a personal comment and I could be way off the mark.)
I am personally very attracted to the idea of a laser approach to complex timber track work. Where to get accuracy you have to compromise on best use of the wood, and for more simple track design you go for better use of the timber by stacking the timbers.

All of that of course only works if a diode laser can deliver the required accuracy. If not I do agree an FDM printer maybe more practical than out sourcing to a commercial Co2 supplier. ( watch this space) If I am right you may need to invest in a laser

I went with the Masuter Pro which is a CNC router not a CNC mill. technically the difference seems to be a CNC mill uses a lead screw and CNC router uses a toothed belt, for the purpose of cutting wood a router should do the job. and its ideal for adding a laser.
To your other point I had assumed Templot generated everything from variables I just wanted you to verify.
Incidentally that's also a good reason to dust off the Ender.
right now the only thing i know for sure is the 3D resin printer is the ideal tool for making your own chairs. you nailed that one.
cheers
Phil,

@Phil G

Thanks Phil. Looking forward to your report, but I doubt your situation is typical of most Templot users?

The specific problem for laser cutting and the reason for writing before is the crossing chairs you asked about. My current designs require some 3D effects into the FDM/CNC/resin timbering base, and I'm not sure it will work on laser-cut plywood.

cheers,

Martin.

Martin Wynne said:

@Michael Woods

Hi Michael,

Please don't call them errors. They are intentional integrity overlaps. The (free) mesh fixer of choice is:

https://www.formware.co/onlinestlrepair

It's very important to me that folks can create plug track without needing any CAD software or CAD skills.

Putting an entire layout in an STL file is a bit daft -- once fixed it will be an enormous file and how on Earth would you print it?

cheers,

Martin.

Click to expand...

Thanks Martin, Just experimenting. I have printed some chairs - look fine - just scaling them up now for S Scale. You are correct only a fool would think they could print the whole layout I was just looking to see what came out of Templot.


The challenge I have is that when I try and export the control template (turnout) only the create SDL goes grey but when I print the whole trackplan it works - hence sending the track plan to see what was going on. Any clues what I am doing wrong?


I appreciate that you are busy and have better things to do than answer my questions so just ignore if this is too much for a sunday morning.

Michael Woods said:

I have printed some chairs - look fine - just scaling them up now for S Scale.

Click to expand...

@Michael Woods

Hi Michael,

???

You set S scale on Templot, and S scale chairs get exported. What do you need to scale up?

To get a good fit on your S scale bullhead rail, you will need to enter the section dimensions as a custom setting on the DXF dialog. As far as I can remember that is working ok.

Michael Woods said:

The challenge I have is that when I try and export the control template (turnout)

Click to expand...

You can't export the control template for DXF/STL -- you need to store it as a background template first. If you just want the one template, select it as the only member of a group. Click on it and press G.

The STL option is available only for 3D exports, not 2D.

DXF export is for either.

cheers,

Martin.

Hi Michael,
the reason your not seeing an STL file of the control template is, you can't how Templot works is the control template is for working on that particular aspect, be it straight track or a turnout. in order to create a STL or DXF you have to first save it to the box file. from there you can export. you don't need a full track plan to do this, you simply save one turnout for example, and then export that to the STL.
Cheers
Phil,

Sorry background not box file,
Cheers
Phil

Michael Woods said:

The challenge I have is that when I try and export the control template (turnout) only the create SDL goes grey but when I print the whole trackplan it works - hence sending the track plan to see what was going on. Any clues what I am doing wrong?

Click to expand...

@Michael Woods

Hi Michael,

Click on the template, then:







P.S. this is basic Templot stuff. This topic is already 50 pages long and spiralling out of control, and is going to fall over completely if it has to include explanations of the basic workings of Templot. All this stuff is explained elsewhere, or we can start a new topic in "Baffled beginners" if you can't find it.

cheers,

Martin.

Hi Michael,
Can I make a suggestion?
S Scale chairs and timber base for testing
Make a fresh start in Templot then:-
Gauge > 22.45 S
Then [plain track], then [curve] , click on the blue radius in mm text to get a pop-up window:-


replace the 3143.25 with a / character and keep pressing <cr> until you get the trackpad back with a section of straight track, then click the [legth] button to shorten the template until the result fits within your build plate
Real > chairing > experimental chairing, and you should get this:-

click the [3D] to get the "experimental 3D" pop-up if it is not already displayed.

ensure all three tickboxes ticked
click on the colour box so that we can choose a different colour for the template that we are about to store.

In this example I am going to click the next colour along the bottom next to the existing colour, and then click [ok]

This allows us to to select a different colour for each timbering template brick we save.
Perform your favourite method of "store and background", for example just click on the buttonat the top with the two adjacent red down arrows.
This screen pops up:-

click "shwo storage box" to get this:-

note the colour, then click [show box list] button to get this:-

This will list all the templates that you have stored so far, and note that each template will display its chosen colour on the right hand side just before the identifier (PL001 in this case)
Close this window
Now click on the [DFX/ STL file export] button that is on the bottom of the 3D pop-up.
This displays the export dialogue screen:-

In the group box in the top left hand corner I have ticked the "timbering brick only" radio button.
Note the colour in the box adjacent to "brick colour".
This means that all background templates (and shapes for that matter) that have been stored with this colour will be exported.
In the group box with the yellow background tick the [timbers only] button.
This will set all the pararmeters on tis screen so that just the timbering brick will be output, ie no chairs, but there will be sockets for the chairs.
In the "puce" group box in bottom left hand select the radio button for the type of print you will be performing

Rail
When you come to print "chairs only", you will need to have selected the correct rail profile from the pre-sets available, or if not available click on the [set custom rail] button in the top right hand box.
Now key in a description that is relevant, here is one I have made up:-

when you click [ok] you will get the "3D custom rail section dialogue" box, which will have values that default to BS-95R section scled to your chosen scale (i think, Martin might correct me here).

ANyway I would try the defaults first, unless you have already got your micrometer out.
I could not find values on the S society webiste for the rail they supply.

I would recomend that you try printing a section of plain straight timbering brick, and a set of corresponding S1 chairs to check the fit of your rail.

By print i mean :-
Export the STL from Templot, fix using the link in the bottom right corner, then slice with your slicer & print. No CAD involved (other than you might want to view the files.
If you need to adjust the rail section parameters in templot, then feed the info back to the forum so that Martin ahs the option of adding a pre-defined S scale rail to Templot, as this would then be very useful for those users of Templot who only ahve Templot and dont have access to CAD software like yourself.

I hope this helps
Steve

ps example of a box file containing 3 timbering bricks:-

No clips added yet, and they are small bricks for testing on my small printer!

Thanks Steve. This is massively helpful. Too late to print this evening will try for next weekend. Together with the chairs. Thank you to you and Martin for your patience.

Steve_Cornford said:

replace the 3143.25 with a / character and keep pressing <cr> until you get the trackpad back with a section of straight track,

Click to expand...

@Steve_Cornford @Paul Boyd

Hi Steve,

Try:



That straightens the existing control template.

Or if it's not horizontal on the screen, you can start with a new one:



Many thanks for posting the detailed brick instructions.

cheers,

Martin.

Martin Wynne said:

@Phil G

Thanks Phil. Looking forward to your report, but I doubt your situation is typical of most Templot users?

The specific problem for laser cutting and the reason for writing before is the crossing chairs you asked about. My current designs require some 3D effects into the FDM/CNC/resin timbering base, and I'm not sure it will work on laser-cut plywood.

cheers,

Martin.

Click to expand...

Hi Martin,
Interesting comments,
So you're going to have the timbers under the a B and possibly C chairs do more work then just have a pocket in them to take the chair plug. that's interesting. I will wait with bated breath
just a question do you think these (special timbers) could also be made on a resin printer, assuming the build plate was large enough?
cheers
Phil

Michael Woods said:

Thanks Steve. This is massively helpful. Too late to print this evening will try for next weekend. Together with the chairs. Thank you to you and Martin for your patience.

View attachment 5562

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@Michael Woods @Paul Boyd

Hi Michael,

You have that set for a standard printer profile (0.2mm NORMAL).

It's worth a try, but based on my experience with 4 different FDM printers, it is unlikely to produce very satisfactory results. The socket dimensions will be poorly defined, inconsistent, and the chairs won't fit them. Especially those skewed at an angle to the timbers. There is likely to be some stringing across the sockets. On most machines the standard profiles are designed to optimise print time over print quality.

Attached below is the settings profile which I use for the timbering bricks on my gantry printer (Neptune 2S) which is similar in design to your AnyCubic Mega Zero.

It's for the Cura slicer, I don't know how the settings compare with the Prusa slicer. Cura is free if you want to try it -- the settings file below is for version Cura 5.1

Here are some of the settings which are important. It looks complicated but hopefully all that most Templot users will have to do is download the Cura software (free) and load the appropriate profile setting from the Templot web site.

After an initial print, you would need to measure it, and probably adjust some of these settings and the shrinkage settings in the DXF export to get accurate results on your own printer. In due course there will be a calibration print file available to make this easy (like the 2D printer calibration for the paper templates).

I'm really fearful that by posting all this stuff now it is going to frighten off some potential users of plug track. I intend to make it really easy for them -- get this, click that, press this button. BUT I CAN'T DO IT YET, it is far too soon. There is so much still to find out and do first.

I will write again later to explain some of these settings. Thank goodness it is too late for you to start printing tonight! I have got a chance to draw breath and take my time explaining things properly.




cheers,

Martin.

Phil G said:

So you're going to

Click to expand...

@Phil G

Hi Phil,

Now you are making me bad-tempered!

I never said I was "going to" do anything. I said I'm experimenting with different ideas -- and I haven't yet concluded anything from them. I don't know how many times I have to keep saying that I'm conducting an experiment. When you do that you don't know the results until the experiment is finished. Absolutely nothing about Templot plug track is yet finally decided.

It's great to have folks helping me with this experiment and providing feedback, but it's turning into a constant battle of wits to stop them running ahead of me. That's entirely up to them of course, but they could be wasting an awful lot of time, money and materials. I don't want to be responsible for that.

cheers,

Martin.

Hi Martin,
Sorry certainly not my intension to put you in a bad mood.
You know, that I know its all experimental, that's a given. To the point I don't even mention it, maybe I should for the sake of other readers.

If I gave you the impression I was forcing you in a direction, that was not my intension at all.
I was just curious, but I take on board your point, you can't develop the product if you spend all your time replaying to posts.

As to the comment about ill spent money, your sounding like your talking directly to my wife.
As I said to her, its my money and my choice, Some people rush out and buy new cars each year. I have a bit of a habit of collecting tools.
After all, even if plug track falls over completely heaven forbid, I will find other uses for the tools. So no need to feel your in anyway responsible for me purchasing things.

With that I will leave you alone to carry on with your experiments in peace.
Cheers
Phil,

@Michael Woods @Paul Boyd

Hi Michael,



1. Layer Height

This setting is the most significant in controlling the print time. I'm using 0.12mm which is far less than it needs to be for most of the timbering brick height, but not for the top layer. There is a small rebate around the top of the sockets to ensure the chairs can sit flush to the timber surface. If the top layer is more than 0.12mm Cura will not be able to print this rebate and will simply ignore it. Increasing the depth of the rebate would prevent the chair plugs from fitting tight.

Ideally we would use say 0.24mm for most of the timber depth, switching to 0.12mm for the last few layers only. Which would shorten print times significantly. It seems Cura does not have an option to change layer height for different sections of the model. As far as I know the only slicer program which does so is the paid-for Simplify3D slicer which is expensive and received poor reviews for the latest version. Given that most of the other FDM slicers are free, we probably don't want to bother with that. Cura has an experimental "Adaptive layers" function which ought to be able to do what we want, but in lengthy dabbling with it I couldn't get it to do anything other than increase the normal layer height for the whole model. There is a lot of experimenting with different slicers and settings which could be done here, but it's just side-tracking me from getting on with the chairs. It will have to wait for another day.

Instead, I have written a Gcode editor utility which can create the required effect by splitting and combining two separate Gcode files from Cura. It sort of works and reduces print time significantly, but it's a faff to use, so I'm not going to release it until I have got it to the stage where it can be used with just a few clicks. At present it would need yet another page of explanation of ifs and buts, and I'm reaching burn-out in writing endless explanations -- here I am in the 3rd paragraph about just one Cura setting.

More Cura stuff to follow.

In the end Templot users won't need to know any of this -- just download the recommended plug track printer profile and use it.

cheers,

Martin.

Phil G said:

you can't develop the product if you spend all your time replaying to posts.

Click to expand...

@Phil G

Hi Phil,

I know you didn't mean anything by that, but I just want to be clear that plug track is not a "product". I'm not supplying or selling anything at all with Templot. It is just my hobby interest, which others can join in if they wish.

I've already had to fend off emails from folks trying to order plug track from me, asking for price lists, even expecting to buy a 3D printer from me. I've tried and tried to make clear what I'm doing with Templot, but some folks just don't seem able to understand.

I know there are still a few bits of wording on the web site left over from the time (12 years ago now) when I was selling the Templot program commercially. But I can't stop now to re-write the web site, otherwise I never will make progress with the plug track, it seems to be getting slower and slower.

cheers,

Martin.

Hi Martin,
You are quite right a very poor choice of a words on my part, what I should have wrote was project.
cheers
Phil,

Looks to me as though the delicate supports are for the "keys" which the preform software must think overhang too far.

Mind you that is viewing the picture on my mobile phone!

When I printed some resin timber bases this is the parameter that Martin advised me to adjust:-

I also printed the bases direct on the build plate just as output by Templot.
Steve

Steve_Cornford said:

Looks to me as though the delicate supports are for the "keys" which the preform software must think overhang too far.

Click to expand...

@Steve_Cornford

Well spotted Steve. The slabs looked like misplaced chair plugs to me -- I need new glasses!

The amount of key overhang is randomised, hence some of them getting extra supports and not others.

There is a setting to control the maximum overhang, I should probably reduce the default setting a little:




Many thanks for alerting me Steve.

cheers,

Martin.

@Steve_Cornford

Hi Steve,

I have reduced the default max offset from 1.75" (scale) to 1.5".

That means the key 6" long now projects 2.5" maximum from the chair jaw 4" wide.

It can of course be set more if anyone wants.

p.s. That key option was introduced in version 233a released 21st December 2021. That's getting on for 18 months ago! I really must try to progress this thing a bit faster.

cheers,

Martin.

Hi Michael,
Here are some tips for chair rafts
Starting with S gauge, plain straight track , i set length to 110mm, then added a yellow(easier to see) background shape to contain the MS rail wit chairs plus space above the chairs for another row.
then real > rails > omit rails etc

unticked TS running rail, that just gives us the MS running rail & chairs, stire & background,. this stores a template to the storage box with the MS running rail chairs.
Then real > rails > omit rails again.
untick MS running rail & tick TS running rail to give us the opposite of the first template

Now click [shift&join] button to move the TS running rail set of chairs down so that they also fit on the yellow rectangle (which will become the raft)

store & background
Then perform the DXF/STL export, selecting all background templates, chairs only, setting your custom rail.
This will give you a long narrow raft with S1 fixed jaw chairs (unless you play with the various chair & jaw tickboxes)


I recomend you go for a long narrow raft as it is easier to a) release raft from build plate (at leats on the my Mars), b) with chairs close to edge of raft allows you to get Xuron style cutters in to snip off the chairs.

You can get more chairs in by "grouping" the two templates, making a copy and shifting the copy of the group so that the chairs are adjacent to the original group but are inbetween if you see what I mean.

good luck with your printing

Steve
ps measure the length of your sleepers, and also the legth of the timber base from the outside surface of the two end timbers to check the accuracy of the finished timber base.
You can use shove timbers function to calculate what the length of the base should be (see a previous post by Martin & myself a few pages ago fro method)

Martin Wynne said:

@Michael Woods @Paul Boyd

Hi Michael,

You have that set for a standard printer profile (0.2mm NORMAL).

It's worth a try, but based on my experience with 4 different FDM printers, it is unlikely to produce very satisfactory results. The socket dimensions will be poorly defined, inconsistent, and the chairs won't fit them. Especially those skewed at an angle to the timbers. There is likely to be some stringing across the sockets. On most machines the standard profiles are designed to optimise print time over print quality.

Attached below is the settings profile which I use for the timbering bricks on my gantry printer (Neptune 2S) which is similar in design to your AnyCubic Mega Zero.

It's for the Cura slicer, I don't know how the settings compare with the Prusa slicer. Cura is free if you want to try it -- the settings file below is for version Cura 5.1

Here are some of the settings which are important. It looks complicated but hopefully all that most Templot users will have to do is download the Cura software (free) and load the appropriate profile setting from the Templot web site.

After an initial print, you would need to measure it, and probably adjust some of these settings and the shrinkage settings in the DXF export to get accurate results on your own printer. In due course there will be a calibration print file available to make this easy (like the 2D printer calibration for the paper templates).

I'm really fearful that by posting all this stuff now it is going to frighten off some potential users of plug track. I intend to make it really easy for them -- get this, click that, press this button. BUT I CAN'T DO IT YET, it is far too soon. There is so much still to find out and do first.

I will write again later to explain some of these settings. Thank goodness it is too late for you to start printing tonight! I have got a chance to draw breath and take my time explaining things properly.

View attachment 5567


cheers,

Martin.

Click to expand...

Thanks Martin,


I played with the settings. Will have another go later in the week but feels like it is directionally correct. Will spin up the chairs on my resin printer next weekend.

Steve_Cornford said:

Hi Michael,
Here are some tips for chair rafts
Starting with S gauge, plain straight track , i set length to 110mm, then added a yellow(easier to see) background shape to contain the MS rail wit chairs plus space above the chairs for another row.
then real > rails > omit rails etc
View attachment 5574
unticked TS running rail, that just gives us the MS running rail & chairs, stire & background,. this stores a template to the storage box with the MS running rail chairs.
Then real > rails > omit rails again.
untick MS running rail & tick TS running rail to give us the opposite of the first template
View attachment 5575
Now click [shift&join] button to move the TS running rail set of chairs down so that they also fit on the yellow rectangle (which will become the raft)
View attachment 5576
store & background
Then perform the DXF/STL export, selecting all background templates, chairs only, setting your custom rail.
This will give you a long narrow raft with S1 fixed jaw chairs (unless you play with the various chair & jaw tickboxes)


I recomend you go for a long narrow raft as it is easier to a) release raft from build plate (at leats on the my Mars), b) with chairs close to edge of raft allows you to get Xuron style cutters in to snip off the chairs.

You can get more chairs in by "grouping" the two templates, making a copy and shifting the copy of the group so that the chairs are adjacent to the original group but are inbetween if you see what I mean.

good luck with your printing

Steve
ps measure the length of your sleepers, and also the legth of the timber base from the outside surface of the two end timbers to check the accuracy of the finished timber base.
You can use shove timbers function to calculate what the length of the base should be (see a previous post by Martin & myself a few pages ago fro method)

Click to expand...

Thanks Steve - will have a work through on this.

Hi Martin,

It's not often that you can't knock a key in, and end up with more than a couple of inches or so, sticking out, it has been unknown to knock a key straight through, in which case we hope that a spring key will do the job. Obviously not an option before spring keys became available.