3D Printed Driver

[753]

Although a member of G3S I am also a member of the G1MRA who have an offshoot 3D Group. An exchange on making spoked driver wheels with CNC I posed the question has anyone made a 3D printed wheel with oval spokes as I had a CAD file of the Jubilee wheels. One member offered to have a go as an experiment.
I received the wheel last week and was impressed with the print, but wondered how strong was it with those slender spokes, I rigged up a test with heavy bits of steel and a chuck total weight 5.8kg, the wheel did not distort and that's without a tyre.
I will pursue this technology in future projects.

Mike

[John Branch]

I do love an empirical test!

John

[Spitfire2865]

How do you plan to put tyres on them?
Id be most interested in seeing how this progresses since Im stalled on my own wheels. Having the center printed would make it much easier.

[753]

Trevor

This was a test exercise, the CAD file I already had as it was for the Jubilee build found in the Loco Projects section. I do not intend machining a tyre for the printed wheel.

Loco driver wheels I have made in the past have aluminium centres and steel tyres as here.

Mike



image upload

[MikeWilliams]

I am suspicious of all new materials, having seen many proclaimed as the new wonder material, and then fail.  Plastikard was to be wonderful for carriages, but I've seen many warp and twist, or shrink and go brittle.  But the wheel does seem very impressive.

Mike

[John Candy]

Apart from the steel rim (already mentioned), how would the steel axle be fitted?
Loctite or superglue, with a keyway to prevent rotation?

John.

[Nick]

Do you know which material was used for the centre?

Nick

[IanT]

The wheel was a sample printed by a G1MRA member for Mike. The files are available on the G13Dcircle Group IO site

By "centre" if you mean the print material - I believe he uses HIPS for his wheels, so assume this sample will be the same. He's also mentioned Carbon-fibre loaded PLA in an earlier post but that was in relation to something else.

Regards,

IanT   

[753]

John
The Jubilee wheel has a large raised boss in the centre I chose to make this part in brass with the quartering square milled in the back to receive the axle

Nick
The wheel was printed with HIPS, I don't know if other material would be as robust!

Mike
I posted an thread on a carriage made from styrene Oct 2019, you posted a positive reply.

I think the important point missing in discussion of all these methods is that some of us are having to make our own models of loco's and stock we like is that they are not commercially available.
Given the amount of use that models are subjected to i.e. very little, the need for them to be built like the proverbial brick out house is questionable.
Colin Chapman of Lotus fame constructed his Formula 1 cars to be as light as possible and was quoted to say "If it falls apart AFTER it crosses the line, I will be content".
I am not suggesting we follow this philosophy, but a reasonable compromise between the two extremes.


Mike

[MikeWilliams]

Yes Mike, my Plastikard carriage comparison needs explanation!  Some carriages written up in the model press in the '70s by a couple of well known people have disintegrated, but it is quite possible to make a perfectly durable coach that way, as you have shown.  I guess its not just the material, but its limitations and learning how to get around them, which takes time.

Mike