CN Yellowhead Division

[Scottl]

I wondered about that too.  I printed it in slow mode this time and the resin is very fluid with the heated vat. The slicer claims the holes exist though.  I'm going to try another slicer next but the exposure is an interesting thing to consider.

[Scottl]

A test to see what is going on with fine holes.  The walkways design calls for 0.25 mm dia holes.  In this test, 0.39 mm holes print consistently.  Based on this test and some others. The minimum hole resolution on my Saturn 4 16k ultra is about 0.35 mm using 8K (high speed) resin.  There are folks on Reddit that claim 0.15 mm is possible. But I see no evidence for that.

I could reduce the exposure, but this machine eats FEP and I'm not going to fool around with less exposure and get blobs to push it finer.  0.35 mm will do for my purposes.

Ironically, my old Photon 4k had no problem printing 0.25 mm holes.  Most days now, I regret not continuing with the Anycubic line of products.

[GaryHinshaw]

Ironically, my old Photon 4k had no problem printing 0.25 mm holes.  Most days now, I regret not continuing with the Anycubic line of products.

What made you switch?

[Scottl]

I talked myself into thinking I needed a larger printer. The heated vat also helps, I think.  For casual users, large printers are a pain in the 

It can print freight cars in the horizontal position, which is the main benefit for me.

[Scottl]

Long time since an update.  I've been away a lot but busy working on a variety of projects related to 3D printed freight cars and buildings. 

I finished up a fleet of intermodal well cars with paint, decals and weathering.  They look good and run well on printed trucks.  I've largely completed a third 30-car intermodal train, just need to refinish a whack of Kato containers to fill the cars.



I've also re-done a number of the Jasper street front buildings to get the scales correct and fix egregious printing defects.  These are all scaled to 80% to add to the visual distance in the scene.  I need to complete a few additional buildings for the town but this covers most of them.





The last major project is the Jasper Station.  This is a large and signature structure for the layout, so I have designed it from scratch.  Despite being a heritage building of note in a national park, plans have been elusive, so I have done this mostly through photos from a variety of sources including a friend who visited Jasper last year and generously took a lot of reference photos.

I printed a 30% scale model a study piece and to see if all of the proportions work.  This version is 17 cm long, the full version will be 56 cm long and 20 cm tall.  I've managed to solve my problem of modeling river rock wainscotting that is throughout the building exterior.  I had considered printing the building as 5 built up sections, but I think I will do it as wall units and build it up that way. 

This is the track-side that viewers will see:



This is the street-side that will largely be hidden when placed (Tinkercad is acting up and dropped many window and door placeholders...):



So some progress, even if I have not kept this thread up to date.  I have a lot of time this spring due to cancelled fieldwork so I expect I will advance the station to completion in the month ahead.

[James Costello]

I finished up a fleet of intermodal well cars with paint, decals and weathering.  They look good and run well on printed trucks.  I've largely completed a third 30-car intermodal train, just need to refinish a whack of Kato containers to fill the cars.

Well cars are looking great mate!

[GaryHinshaw]

It's all looking great!  Looking forward to your clinic! 

[Scottl]

Layout progress continues.  I'm working on the Jasper scene and trying to figure out all of the pieces. 

For the roads, I'm going with black 1 mm foam sheet I bought from AliExpress.  It will be painted and weathered and should be a good substrate that is easy to cut and work with.  I printed out some stencils to paint the lines and crosswalks on my printer from specs in the government manual.  I think I might dry brush or air brush with these, taping over the bits I don't want exposed.





I've figured out how to print nice curb profiles that include the curb itself and the gutter in the road.  These are sized to fit perfectly over the foam to cover any minor irregularities and to support the sidewalk that will be made from styrene strip.  I have corners, accessibility dips and other special curb shapes all designed and I think I have perfected using thin wedge supports to print these on their side with the thin (0.1 mm) gutter pointing down (on the printer).  It seems to work very well and I think I am getting close to cutting the roads and moving forward.



This past week I was able to travel to Jasper for a 3-day research trip.  I took photos of everything, including every storefront window, garbage can and other thing I found.  I must have looked pretty sketchy scoping the place out, but I think I have everything I need now to get this part of the layout done.  I also managed to spend some time watching trains and saw all sorts of good stuff including a full train of Kato GBRX oil cans heading to BC!  Great stuff and very inspiring.  Also great to see the massive efforts to house displaced residents and to rebuild the town after the disastrous 2024 fire.  It is really coming together!

[samusi01]

I printed out some stencils to paint the lines and crosswalks on my printer from specs in the government manual.

In the unlikely event you have access to a largish UV printer consider simply printing - in color - the appropriate road markings directly on the foam. I did that with some 1mm from Hobby Lobby - worked well.

[Scottl]

Interesting, I never thought of that.  Thanks.

[dandopinski]

The yard sure has changed since I worked there. It looks like all the short tracks are gone.

[Scottl]

I was surprised by how the operations have changed.  Basically, there are two mainline tracks that West and East bound trains come in on for a brief crew change.  The east bound trains don't even come in the yard, but stop just outside before a grade crossing.

Once in a while, a slower train will put into one of the station tracks to allow a faster train to pass, usually an intermodal.

There was no spare power on site, and the only other action was VIA trains.  The Skeena took most of a morning to turn around on the wye, lol. 

It is all a shadow of it's past.  Busy with traffic but nothing complicated operationally.  Just like my layout!  Except I use Jasper yard as visible staging.

[robert3985]

A test to see what is going on with fine holes.  The walkways design calls for 0.25 mm dia holes.  In this test, 0.39 mm holes print consistently.  Based on this test and some others. The minimum hole resolution on my Saturn 4 16k ultra is about 0.35 mm using 8K (high speed) resin.  There are folks on Reddit that claim 0.15 mm is possible. But I see no evidence for that.

I could reduce the exposure, but this machine eats FEP and I'm not going to fool around with less exposure and get blobs to push it finer.  0.35 mm will do for my purposes.

Ironically, my old Photon 4k had no problem printing 0.25 mm holes.  Most days now, I regret not continuing with the Anycubic line of products.

In the YouTube video FauxHammer review of the Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra 16K machine, his testing indicated the 16K machine's print results were way worse than the 12K's.  After much attempting to fix the problem, he adjusted the UV intensity (Light PWM) in Chitubox, which cured the problem.  His deduction was that the 16K screens are "denser" than the 12K's and so require a higher intensity of UV light, and, in his machine, the factory setting was too high and induced much more blooming than is "normal"...meaning that finer details were larger and smaller holes were filled in.  Here's a link to the review:

which may solve your problem.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Scottl]

Thanks for this link @robert3985 , I'll do some experiments the UV intensity.  It does seem to be the issue I have.

[dkerber123]

I just finished going through this whole thread and, WOW! I’m very impressed with your railroad and modeling skills, it’s inspirational!