The Google SketchUp Thread

[marc_reusser]

Paul:
I will post it as soon as I get the quote....for some reason my brain was on the fritz last night, and I screwed up the scaling for the final parts...drew all the parts full size in millimeters, then for some reason thought all I needed to do was scale them down by .035........but....errr....that was wrong and about 20% to big.....so have now scaled the whole tree with parts down to the correct size, and need to go through the whole upload/.STL conversion thing again.   

Overall footprint of the parts tree (including projecting parts) is about 1.9" x 1.3" x 1.2" (I will know for sure once PAP calcs it.)


Russ:
The putting the pieces on the tree is actually quite simple....just time consuming.


Havard,
You are of course correct on your observations. In my defense, I chose this medium as it was the easiest an most workable solution for me.  I suck at forming and soldering brass....so to get 10 loops the exact same shape would have been impossible at this juncture. Though doing them half-assed in brass may still be the end result....printing them was more of an experiment, than a likely solution....was just hoping to possibly get off easy.

Insofar as the PE...yes and no....some parts are too thick dimensionally to do PE...it least from the rsults I have seen as far as alignment from double sided etching (which would be needed)...other parts would have been perfect candidates....but here again came the easy choice out....not having dealt with any PE guys, the learning curve and time to get the templates set-up, the discussions with the etcher, etc, just seemed more than I wanted to tackle at the moment.

....sitting at the monitor and emailing the whole thing off, just felt so easy and quick.

I should probably look into the idea of some kind of combination PE, and PAP or resin compilation.....could open a side business selling them to the 1/35 crod now that more and more rail subjects/kits are showing up.

marc

[marc_reusser]

paul,

The order is away and paid for ...some wierd happenings in the new conversion/download and then upload to PAP.

1. The conversion process with CADSPAN Pro, and the way resulting STL file was dealt with seemed different this time around than last time...maybe because I used it in SU-8 (their plugin notes it is meant for v.7x and down...they don't have an 8-specific one yet...but I manually dropped the plug in files into v.

2. Because of the resilting confusion in the converion and delivery of STL....I think inadvertantly wrapped and converted  the file multiple times with different settings as far as resolution, gap fill etc.....so I am not sure what one was finally on my PC and uploaded to PAP.

3. PAP took the part, checked it and accepted it just fine.....however afterward when I set the units to millimeters, it gave me an error message that some portions of parts were less than .25mm..(couldn't imagine what part that could have been...I was careful...but now in retrospect it could have been one of the thin rectangular sprue tree arms).....and due to quality control all parts needed to be thicker than this....so out of curiosity I set units to inches....and got no error message (nor did the overal dims of the part change).  Just to be sure I went into their little part viewing screen and checked all the angles/views and parts (as best one can in that viewport)....all seemed fine....so I left it at "inches" and sent it off.  I am most curious to see what I end up with after all this .....live and learn....saving grace will always be that this is hidden under the car and in shadow...with lots of grease. 


Final Dimensions on the print were around 1.75 x 1.4.  Printing cost was $39.00 plus shipping. IMO not bad, considering how long it would have taken me to scratchbuild 70 small, fussy, repetetive parts.  It would be interesting to see how this stacks up to having done it in PE.....I have a feeling PE would have been far more expensive.

Marc

[RoughboyModelworks]

That's very reasonable Marc considering the quantity of parts being produced at one time. Treeing up on the sprues is obviously the way to go. I'm considering setting up the Heywood van wheel centers four per sprue then layering four or five sprues depending on vertical space limitations to produce wheel centers for four or five vans all at one time.

Fortunately Cobalt (the 3D software I use) generates its own STL files so hopefully that will simplify the process to some degree. The wheel centers are drawn by radiating a cross-section profile through 360 degrees around the inner hub. I'm leaving the tread off as I plan to machine those individually on the lathe from nickel silver. The centers have raised lettering which will present something of a challenge since they are flat to the surface of the wheel center but not at 90° to the axle and small. I may have to make them slightly larger to remain within the PAP resolution limitations.

Paul

[JohnP]

Marc, that is an impressive part sprue tree. In other mediums the parts would need to be one layer. And as I recall, PAP has a small surface area but you can go tall with it so in that respect your layout makes sense.

But my question is, did you check to see how much multiple copies of a single layer (single car) sprue would cost? They might be easier to work with and maybe have taken less time to draw.

Of course, a single sprue could then be resin cast by the many.

Looking forward to the PAP photos.

John

[marc_reusser]

John,

All those parts are actually only for a single car. I probably could have reduced the number by drawing subassemblies as one piece, but because likely issues between the DML kit and prototype dims, I wanted the linkage to be fully flexible and adjustable.

I don't know how much difference a shallower/less tall sprue would make costwise.  Most not too much...or at the very least only the cost of the volume of resin the parts needed. PAP on it's site seems to indicate that their primary cost factors are square area of footprint the parts occupy on the printing plate, and resin volume.  I am sure that there must be some minimum cost...but I have no idea what that is.....both prints i have made with them have been just about the same price, and i really do't see how much cheaper it could be.....they have to have some kind of income off this, if not jut to cover the time doing data entry, having a person remove and rough clean the print, package and mail it. (their packaging is great...they even have their own logo imprinted boxes....I really can't believe that they can do these for the $39.  The cost also is easily in line with some of the aftermarket detail sets out there (that is if there is one for your kit )

Marc

[Chuck Doan]

Wow! Be interested to see the results. I agree with the PAP comments; I am amazed they can clean up some of the delicate parts I have done. Very well packaged.

[JohnP]

OK Marc I went back and reread your explanation, and found a picture on the web. Lots of parts per wheel I see now.

I was also very pleased with the PAP service and packaging. The entire experience shows a great deal of back room development to sell a service on a machine anyone can buy.

John

[marc_reusser]

WOW...talk about service....the PAP parts arrived today (8-day turn around).  The photos below are of the sprue tree right out of the box, before rinsing off any wax residue with acetone.  To give an idea of scale, the bow shaped brake retainer arms are about 0,3 mm thick. As you can see one of the bows did break during shipping...but that's ok, as I made extras, and one damaged piece is nothing considering the finesse of these parts).






Marc

[RoughboyModelworks]

Whoa... that's excellent Marc.

Paul

[eTraxx]

Marc, need to jump in with a "most excellent" .. but that's not why I am posting. I wanted to thank you. I was getting frustrated trying to get CadSpan to work with SU8. I went to the download site and changed the download location for the plugin folder to the SU8 folder .. but no luck. Then went back a bit and saw where you had dropped the SU7 files into the SU8 folder manually. I looked .. and sure enough the 'automated' install hadn't work. A little copy-n-paste .. cranked up SU8 .. and CadSpan worked fine. MOST EXCELLENT!! Thanks bunches.

[Hauk]

WOW...talk about service....the PAP parts arrived today (8-day turn around).  The photos below are of the sprue tree right out of the box, before rinsing off any wax residue with acetone.  To give an idea of scale, the bow shaped brake retainer arms are about 0,3 mm thick. As you can see one of the bows did break during shipping...but that's ok, as I made extras, and one damaged piece is nothing considering the finesse of these parts).

Talk about taking things to the limit!
It´s a great inspiration to see what you can achive with PAP-printing.

But cleaning up those 0,3mm loops...

Regards, Håvard H

PS: How many pages of ads has PAP ordered for the modelling Annual?
And a more fitting sponsor for this forum is hard to find!

[finescalerr]

You must be kidding! Businesses have been dropping ads, not asking for new ones! Nobody takes people like us seriously. They think we are strange.

Hmm. Maybe we are ....

Russ

[Hauk]

You must be kidding? People have been dropping ads, not asking for new ones! Nobody takes people like us seriously. They think we are strange.

Hmm. Maybe we are ....

Russ

Of course we are strange!
But PAP´s business plan depends entirely on strange people like us.

So I still think they would make a very likely sponsor for your little forum.

-Haavard

[finescalerr]

You are correct, of course. But I doubt PAP would see it that way. -- Russ

[eTraxx]

I just sent off an order to PAP for a critter I'm working on.