Plug track at Scaleforum

[Steve_Cornford]

Hi John,

I for one would rather 3D ( build and slice) the file myself.

But John, the slicing process is printer dependent.
And any .stl file submitted might have erroneous overlapping or duplicate templates etc.
So Terry is correct in asking for the .box file, plus he should ask for any corresponding .bgs3 file

Even for laser cutting I would surmise a .box file is prefereable, as Terry can then apply whatever colour mappings he requires in the layers tab of the export process dialog.

Steve

 

[Hayfield]

Hi John,

But John, the slicing process is printer dependent.
And any .stl file submitted might have erroneous overlapping or duplicate templates etc.
So Terry is correct in asking for the .box file, plus he should ask for any corresponding .bgs3 file

Even for laser cutting I would surmise a .box file is prefereable, as Terry can then apply whatever colour mappings he requires in the layers tab of the export process dialog.

Steve

Steve

It seems I should have said Box file, but I would still be wary about duplicate files etc. With the exceptions of bespoke design, I personally feel it would be easier and quicker for me to make the template, simply as I would know what has been done

 

[Terry Downes]

I do work from the box file and have found that I usually spend a lot of time thoroughly checking, fixing, removing duplicates or a little timber shoving before I actually get onto exporting 2D dxf for laser cutting. Oh, almost forgot, I also export the soleplate layer as I etch around the respective soleplates etc.

 

[Phil G]

Hi John,

But John, the slicing process is printer dependent.
And any .stl file submitted might have erroneous overlapping or duplicate templates etc.
So Terry is correct in asking for the .box file, plus he should ask for any corresponding .bgs3 file

Even for laser cutting I would surmise a .box file is prefereable, as Terry can then apply whatever colour mappings he requires in the layers tab of the export process dialog.

Steve

Hi Steve,
Your exactly right, maybe the very best way to think about this is, the box file is the last thing you do whist your still in Templot. IE design mode if you like, The bgs.3 also paints a clear picture. The Box file is quite literally the design you want to have made. Once you create either a DXF for STL your actually entering the world of CAM. From a business perspective you would always do the CAM in house.

I do agree once somebody receives the box file, and maybe the bgs.3. There is a certain amount of understanding needed by the manufacture. So questions could certainly be aired before committing to actually making anything. Things such as misalignment or maybe duplication of templates is certainly possible and would become part of that dialog.
cheers
Phil

 

[Martin Wynne]

@Hayfield @James Walters

Hi John,

What, if anything, should we add to this topic:

https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9639

Bearing in mind that the Alkaid printer is now below £85 inc. post, and a bottle of resin costs £20.

https://www.geeetech.com/alkaid-lcd-light-curing-resin-3d-printer-p-1210.html (click UK)

How many Exactoscale or C&L sprues does that equate to?

cheers,

Martin.

 

[James Walters]

Exactoscale Check Chairs are a £10 for 10 sprues. So 10p a chair.
I wonder how many chairs we could make with a bottle of resin, allowing for cleaning wastage etc?

As to what to add to that particular thread, I’ve no idea, save perhaps pointing out the Templot now labels the chairs which might save confusion for first-time builders.
But that’s been mentioned before.


Cheers,

James

 

[Hayfield]

#James # Martin

Looks like the blind leading the blind, in reality an awful bit of retailing by selling items without instructions

Firstly the chairs I think are about to be increase in price, if not increased already, but you need access to the stores of either Scalefour or EMGS to buy them, so add in the cost of membership, think plain chairs may be a little cheaper. If you are not a member then C&L plus some others have a much smaller ranges of chairs but are quite a bit dearer

In 7mm scale C&L are charging £2.66 for 10 checkrail chairs and 11 p per S1 chair). I think using my Neprune4 I printed 10 chairs for next to nothing (less than 2p per chair)

Its very sad that both society stores fail to make customers aware of the Exactoscale information sheets which are available on line, plus the P4 track Company turnout and crossing (including slips) plans which were available online but not at the present

I don't wish to up set certain persons. but when C&L advertise a point kit (4mm just south of £100 and 7mm north of £100 ) I believe what we should be focusing on is the cost of a Templot turnout.

I can print a 7mm base with chairs for £1.50, depending on where you buy rail, a turnout will cost between £8 & £10 in materials. OK Templot is far more than an A5 or a B7, but these things are the first step in opening up what Templot can really do

I may be speaking out of turn I think only a couple of us realize what a gold nugget we have with 7mm Plug and Cot track

John
.

 

[Phil O]

James, John and Martin,

I wonder why check chairs are cheaper than S1 chairs, they are smaller and less complex to draw up, unless I'm missing something fundamental in commercial chair production.

 

[Hayfield]

James, John and Martin,

I wonder why check chairs are cheaper than S1 chairs, they are smaller and less complex to draw up, unless I'm missing something fundamental in commercial chair production.

Phil

I cannot find check chairs being cheaper than plain chairs (if I gave the impression it was a typo) I have just set out below a comparison

4mm scale

S1 chairs (old) C&L 9.6p Exactoscale 4.6p
S1 Chairs (new) C&L 8.4p (sprue also includes L1 & S1j)
Slide C&L 12p Exactoscale 10p

Other chairs Exactoscale 8.5/10p
Special chair packs Exactoscale £2.50

7mm scale

S1 (old) C&L 9.9p Exactoscale 4.8p
S1 (new) C&L 8.4 (sprue also includes L1 & S1j) Phoenix Perma way 14.3p (sprue also includes slide, L1 & S1)
Slide C&L 15p Exactoscale 10p

Check C&L 16p
Other chairs Exactoscale 10p

Templot plug track 64 S1 chairs use 3g of filament = 4.5p
14 chairs cost 1p. From my basic calculations 16 chairs cost 1p (that's not including resin wasted when surplus is washed away and not attached to a raft)
The other element in track building is the turnout bases
4mm
C&L £12 for between 1 & 1.5 turnouts
Exactoscale £6 for between 2 & 2.5 turnouts

7mm

C&L £10-£15 for between 1 & 1.5 turnouts
Phoenix £9.35

Whilst in my opinion turnouts looking as prototypical as possible is the most important aspect, cost actually plays an important part in the equation

More worrying is the cost of turnout kits
C&L starting at just under £100 for 4mm kits but increasing to nearly £200 for 7mm slips, these do however included machined switch rails, and machined and built common crossings

Sorry to ramble on but sometimes I feel we don't fully appreciate the true value of what Martin has created

John

In 4mm scale British Finescale sell resin base kits from £30 ish. Making trackwork more affordable

 

[Hayfield]

#Phil #Martin #James

To follow up on the previous post I think I must qualify one part.

The single S1 chairs supplied on the file Martin posted/sent me, these chairs whilst visually looks splendid as they have no keys it is impossible to any experiments with them other than how to stick them to sleepers/timbers

Whilst removing S1 (and many other chairs) from the filament build plate, great care must be taken in removing and storing handed chairs. Printing these chairs in resin may cause issues with chairs falling off the build plate.

I can certainly see a benefit with those building turnouts using traditional methods, in being able to source specialist chairs unavailable commercially, but this causes possibly an extra branch of users

Please could someone show me which boxes need unticking so I can test at least test the usability of these chairs, some may see this as a step backwards, but I believe it will add to our understanding of 3D printed chairs

John

 

[Martin Wynne]

Sorry to ramble on but sometimes I feel we don't fully appreciate the true value of what Martin has created

@Hayfield

Hi John,

Thanks. It is difficult to get exact costs for home resin-printed chairs, but they are clearly a significant order of magnitude below the cost of commercial chairs.

According to Chitubox, a raft of 30 S1 chairs for 4mm scale, with solid jaws and complete with plugs, supports and raft weighs 2.4 g. As far as I can measure on the kitchen scales, that is about right.

Assuming no wastage*, this means you can get

1000 / 2.4 = 416 rafts per Kg bottle of resin.

Which is 30 x 416 = 12,480 chairs per Kg of resin.

A kg bottle of ABS-Like resin typically costs in the low 20s (never the same 2 days running, and currently on a black friday offer).

For ease of calculation, let's assume it costs a maximum of £24.96

So the cost per chair is 2496 / 12480 = 0.2p per chair, i.e. S1 chairs are literally 5 a penny.

According to Templot there are 110 chairs in a B-7 turnout, so for all S1 that would be a cost of 110 x 0.2 = 22p total chairs for a turnout.

*In practice some of the chairs will be larger than S1, and there will be some resin wastage, so let's say 50p max for a turnout.

If as you say Exactoscale chairs cost in the range 4.6p - 10p each, let's say an average of 7p within a turnout.

So for a B-7 with 110 chairs that's £7.70 per turnout for Exactoscale chairs (and seemingly more for C&L).

So the saving per B-7 turnout from making your own chairs will be £7.70 - 50p = £7.20 saving per turnout.

An Alkaid printer currently costs £85 inc. post, and say £10 for a simple UV lamp:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MWYRVPG

So that's £95 up front, which will pay for itself after:

95 / 7.20 = 13.2 turnouts.

In round figures say a dozen turnouts. Not including all the other modelmaking you can do on a resin printer.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Steve_Cornford]

Templot plug track 64 S1 chairs use 3g of filament = 4.5p
14 chairs cost 1p. From my basic calculations 16 chairs cost 1p (that's not including resin wasted when surplus is washed away and not attached to a raft)

Hi John,
I think you are forgetting to amortise the capital cost of a resin printer and any accessories needed in your calculation.

Also the maintenance & running costs etc.

Steve

 

[Hayfield]

@Hayfield

Hi John,

Thanks. It is difficult to get exact costs for home resin-printed chairs, but they are clearly a significant order of magnitude below the cost of commercial chairs.

According to Chitubox, a raft of 30 S1 chairs for 4mm scale, with solid jaws and complete with plugs, supports and raft weighs 2.4 g. As far as I can measure on the kitchen scales, that is about right.

Assuming no wastage*, this means you can get

1000 / 2.4 = 416 rafts per Kg bottle of resin.

Which is 30 x 416 = 12,480 chairs per Kg of resin.

A kg bottle of ABS-Like resin typically costs in the low 20s (never the same 2 days running, and currently on a black friday offer).

For ease of calculation, let's assume it costs a maximum of £24.96

So the cost per chair is 2496 / 12480 = 0.2p per chair, i.e. S1 chairs are literally 5 a penny.

According to Templot there are 110 chairs in a B-7 turnout, so for all S1 that would be a cost of 110 x 0.2 = 22p total chairs for a turnout.

*In practice some of the chairs will be larger than S1, and there will be some resin wastage, so let's say 50p max for a turnout.

If as you say Exactoscale chairs cost in the range 4.6p - 10p each, let's say an average of 7p within a turnout.

So for a B-7 with 110 chairs that's £7.70 per turnout for Exactoscale chairs (and seemingly more for C&L).

So the saving per B-7 turnout from making your own chairs will be £7.70 - 50p = £7.20 saving per turnout.

An Alkaid printer currently costs £85 inc. post, and say £10 for a simple UV lamp:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MWYRVPG

So that's £95 up front, which will pay for itself after:

95 / 7.20 = 13.2 turnouts.

In round figures say a dozen turnouts. Not including all the other modelmaking you can do on a resin printer.

cheers,

Martin.

Martin

Thanks for the detailed costing, but looking at the cost of either a RTR turnout in 7mm scale, £80 for a decent size turnout or a kit being £100+

I think a FDM base costs about £1.50. Even if someone pays one of us £10 for a print + £8 for some rail its a massive saving on both RTR items or kits

Another way of looking at it, as I said aimed at a new market. The scratch builder !! we have the ability of printing chairs (especially in 7mm scale) in an unlimited combinations, that the builders could only obtain in a limited number from Shapeways who are now not in business. I have seen others printing their own plain chairs, but nothing like Templot can offer

But why go to all that bother, COT track does it all for you, a no brainer !!

As I said, thank you for an amazing bit of programming

Regards

John

 

[Martin Wynne]

But why go to all that bother, COT track does it all for you, a no brainer !!

@Hayfield @James Walters

Hi John,

I agree that when you jump to 0 gauge the differences in costs reach new heights, due to the high-cost of commercial 0 gauge track.

Not least because with COT track you don't need a resin printer, it can all be done on a Neptune 4 -- including the rail filing jigs. In fact we need a new name for PLUG track in 7mm, because that can all be done on an FDM printer too. Which means complex formations can be built all-FDM where slide-in COT rails aren't practical. Admittedly the loose-jaw option isn't feasible in FDM, these are all one-piece solid jaw:

Not easy to see which chairs were integral COT, and which were plugged in.

And then there is the option of integral gauge-jaw-only chairs, with the glue-on outers. That is an alternative to plug-in chairs and sockets. Which glue are you using with those, and how convenient is it to use? How fast does it set? Do we need to FDM-print some sort of clips to hold the rail while it sets? Or does the traditional bent paper-clip work ok?

There are so many options, so much stuff still to try, best methods to be discovered, etc., that it is all getting a bit much for me to keep explaining. Hopefully the new Wiki will help with that -- would you like to write a page about COT track? -- it barely gets a mention yet. I need to go and hide for a while to have any chance of getting more chairs done.

At least I have just managed to fix a bad link on the Club home page, after spending all morning trying to find it in the forum code. I think I've earned a boiled egg for lunch.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Hayfield]

@Hayfield @James Walters

Hi John,

I agree that when you jump to 0 gauge the differences in costs reach new heights, due to the high-cost of commercial 0 gauge track.

Not least because with COT track you don't need a resin printer, it can all be done on a Neptune 4 -- including the rail filing jigs. In fact we need a new name for PLUG track in 7mm, because that can all be done on an FDM printer too. Which means complex formations can be built all-FDM where slide-in COT rails aren't practical. Admittedly the loose-jaw option isn't feasible in FDM, these are all one-piece solid jaw:

Not easy to see which chairs were integral COT, and which were plugged in.

And then there is the option of integral gauge-jaw-only chairs, with the glue-on outers. That is an alternative to plug-in chairs and sockets. Which glue are you using with those, and how convenient is it to use? How fast does it set? Do we need to FDM-print some sort of clips to hold the rail while it sets? Or does the traditional bent paper-clip work ok?

There are so many options, so much stuff still to try, best methods to be discovered, etc., that it is all getting a bit much for me to keep explaining. Hopefully the new Wiki will help with that -- would you like to write a page about COT track? -- it barely gets a mention yet. I need to go and hide for a while to have any chance of getting more chairs done.

At least I have just managed to fix a bad link on the Club home page, after spending all morning trying to find it in the forum code. I think I've earned a boiled egg for lunch.

cheers,

Martin.

Martin

I am more than happy to help in anyway I can and don't mind in taking over (initial) queries re COT track

As for glue I have done nothing much other than what you suggested

For the loose jaws I followed your suggestions of using 2 part epoxy, in this case Zap, Z-Poxy 5 minute (I guess decent super glue (gel?) could be used

Broken chairs I use Industrial grade thin super glue

Cant see any issues either way providing quality glue is used

 

[KHC1]

One other item for the Alkaid that could help. Is the heater to fit inside the printer. About a year ago they were more expensive than the printer. However over time costs have come down to £43.99. And yes mine is arriving tomorrow.

Keith
Ps If however you have the printer in a heated room you can get away without it.

 

[Hayfield]

Martin

I think certainly for the short term it will be the minority that will print their own turnouts. I have found that those now modelling in 7mm scale whilst growing are still a relatively a small group. Many newcomers are older and use RTR items, those who do build things are on the whole are more likely to use older traditional methods.

I think your fears of being inundated by a rush of eager newbies is more likely to be from the 4mm side of the hobby. My feelings about COT track catching on, is that it will be a slow burn.

I have a couple of ideas to promote COT track, one being my old clubs 0 gauge section, their new exhibition layout uses Peco points !! They have a large 40' oval layout, I have replaced a couple of turnouts and a slip, and they have one large curved turnout that just about works but looks awful, I might go down and trace it and make a replacement COT turnout, whether they use it is another thing, but it interests me. Certainly I can guarantee none will either buy a printer or join Templot club

The second I will put on hold at the moment

I will leave the options about Plug COT integration for another day as I have no experience of a dual format build, may be needed for slips and 3 ways etc

John

 

[Martin Wynne]

I will leave the options about Plug COT integration for another day as I have no experience of a dual format build

@Hayfield @James Walters

Hi John,

Nor has anyone else, yet. It is all too new.

I have all the stuff here -- printers, resin, filament, rail. I would love to be tinkering with it and building something. But if I start doing that the extra chairs needed will never get done. I have spent the whole of this afternoon trying to find a bug in Templot5, and still haven't found it. I can't go any further until I have found it. I know it is something I've done, because the previous version is working fine.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Phil O]

Martin,

I think you should concentrate on getting the additional chairs sorted, but not to the detriment of your health, hopefully the rest of us regulars can hold the fort for the basics.

 

[Phil G]

Hi guys,
One point that does seem to keep getting over looked here, it's the one pointed out by Martin right at the beginning of the experiment. In order to sail a smooth path though making your own trackwork, it does require you to understand more than a bit about how Templot works itself.

I agree if you follow James excellent videos you can make a turnout or two, with very little understanding of Templot, you may even be able to change the size of a turnout with little understanding of Templot. However the real truth is its only when you master Templot to at least an intermediate level, can you really get the best out of any of what are in reality 3D addons tools to Templot.

In my opinion what we should be doing is encouraging new comers to play with Templot and upskill them to at least an intermediate level before they really move any further then lets make a simple turnout concepts. Otherwise its going to be an endless explaining of the same things again and again.

If you want only 1 example of what in truth are many, look at the number of times issues have risen, because people are trying to create STL files with two templates superposed on each other.
Cheers
Phil

 

[Hayfield]

We get very little questions about plug or COT track from those outside the inner circle, however if we want to take the pressure off Martin, firstly us users should step up to the plate, in answering certainly the opening questions, but also stop going off in tangents not relating to migrating to Templot 5 and 8 sided chairs

I have stepped back, and only react when asked, perhaps we all should take a step back and give Martin some breathing space, allowing him to do what he does best, we seem to be creating quite a few pages of non Templot 5 migration or 8 sided chairs, some may be important, others are just using up Martins time.

In the meantime I will try and build up something to add to Wicky about a COT track explanation, perhaps others may look a bit harder at what they can also add to the project

John