@Marsh Lane
Hi Rich,
You have got me all jittery. This is what I feared would happen when I released stuff which is still extremely
experimental.
The idea is that you
experiment with it on your own 3D printers. Find the settings which produce good results on them. The defaults in the program at present are just those which work on my printers. They are probably close to what will work on other home printers, but I have no idea what a commercial 3D printing company would produce from them. I doubt a timbering brick is typical of their usual work. Or resin chairs.
I don't know what costs are involved in commercial FDM printing, but I doubt it is cheap. There is every chance that you will be wasting your money on something which won't work. The chairs might not fit in the sockets, or they might be too loose, or they might produce the wrong track gauge. The timbers might not be a constant thickness all over. If you go ahead, please first send them a short timbering brick of just a few timbers as a test.
Likewise get just a few chairs resin-printed to see if your rail fits them, and how they fit in the sockets. You can set up your S-scale rail section settings in Templot using the
custom button (make sure you have set S scale in the control template
first). It's extremely likely there will be some trial and error needed. Are you planning to use the loose jaws?
If I was you I would be saving my money for my own 3D printers, rather than paying it to someone else without knowing what I will get back or whether it will be usable. It's so much better to make stuff yourself (or with the help of friends) so that you are in
control of the results. But that's just me of course.
Already someone has got laser-cutting done of turnout bases which are scrap because although Templot appears to produce sockets under the V-crossing they are a complete nonsense, just what the program spews out uncontrolled. Nothing is ready to be used until I say it is -- and even then it
might probably will change later!
When I have got this project a bit (or a lot) further on I shall be writing it all up, with advice on what settings and materials to use. But we are not there yet and I can only go at a sensible pace. It's my hobby, not work.
I have designed the trackwork up with Templot set to S Scale. Steve Cornford mentioned about the sleeper bricks spanning 60ft lengths, I presume that happens automatically? If I select 3D print presumably the base options should give what is needed
Nothing happens automatically! The "base options" as you call them are just what I am using for testing on my own printers! I'm still at the initial stage of
finding out what works. Only when I know that will I be able to automate any part of it to produce a usable Templot function, and a sensible user interface. At present the DXF dialog is just a jumble of settings and buttons to allow me to test things.
In particular do not attempt to print your track templates directly from your track plan. The idea is that you
copy parts of them into separate partial
brick templates which fit within the build area of your printer. And add connector clips to them so that they can be assembled back into the original track plan. There is no necessary correlation between the brick boundaries and prototype rail lengths or your track plan's template boundaries. That's unlikely to be very practical unless you have a printer with a very large build area. And as you increase the model scale it becomes even less practical. Especially it's not a good idea to put the connector clips on the track centre line at rail joints because the timbers are too close to leave room for them.
More about all this in this topic:
https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?threads/extracting-a-3d-timbering-brick-from-a-track-plan.295/
Unfortunately there is a lot in that topic which is now out of date. See also my more recent posts about the connector clips.
I think this would be the first time that Plug Track has been printed for anything other than 4mm
I've done a few bits in T-55. I'm itching to switch to 7mm scale, but I know if I do that too soon I may never get back to 4mm, and I really must progress that first. I also want to do a bit it Gauge 3.
I'm sorry this reply might not be what you were hoping for, but I shall be upset if folks start spending good money and getting unusable stuff back as a result of my efforts on this project.
cheers,
Martin.