Subject:
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Re: Has anyone considered molding track ourselves?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 9 Oct 2009 04:30:41 GMT
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Viewed:
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18484 times
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In lugnet.trains, Jonathan Wilson wrote:
> Clifton D. Chambers wrote:
> > In lugnet.trains, Thomas Holzer wrote:
> > > In lugnet.trains, Jonathan Wilson wrote:
> > > > Has anyone ever considered extending this and doing some kind of molding of
> > > > new track pieces ourselves? Has anyone ever done some investigation of how
> > > > much it would cost for a mold for a larger radius curve or other new track
> > > > shapes?
> > > During the last year I got a lot of experiences in 3d printing. I think that
> > > can be an alternative to molding since that is very costly.
> > >
> > > Take a look at my results for minifigs at:
> > > http://www.shapeways.com/shops/MinifigCustomsIn3d
> > >
> > > With the same technique it should be possible to mold also new track pieces.
> > >
> > > Woody64
> >
> > There has been a lot of DISCUSSION on molding new track, but what we need is an
> > actual demonstration of a technique that works and produces a real product.
> > Anyone producing good quality 9V LEGO compatible track will find that there is a
> > waiting market.
> I think someone needs to just go to some plastics manufacturers (molding,
> 3d printing, whatever) and say "this is what we want, how much would it
> cost for a mold or design and how much would it cost per unit"
> I think that if someone said "We can do a new radius of curve thats 100%
> lego 9v compatible but it will cost $5000 for the mold and setup and 20c
> per piece including the metal rails", we could find people willing to
> donate towards the upfront costs IMO.
> Same for other 9v parts (straigts in various sizes, points etc)
The TechShop (www.techshop.ws) charnges members about $15 per in^3 of material consumed to do a 3D print in ABS. The output is a little "grainy", but it could probably make acceptable non-conductive track. Still have the conductive rail problem. Laser cutting from something like acrylic is another option for non-conductive track. That would be cheap. And another option is milling it out of a slab of ABS using a 3D mill. All of these are cheaper than injection molding.
Yeah, I just added more "talk" to a "enough talk, who's done it?" thread. To
make up for that, here is some real data. I've been investigating injection
molding for a completely different product, so I've learned a lot about actual
tooling costs.
An aluminum insert mold, with a simple planar parting line, dimensional
tolerances slightly less than TLG standards, good for around 5K-10K shots, will
cost $2K-$5K. Add $$ for TLG tolerances (their molding is very precise). Add $$
for a non-planar parting line. Add $$$ for "core pulls", that is any side-action
parts to the mold for transverse holes and so forth.
If you want tool steel that will last for 100K shots before wear destroys the
tolerances, a "real" mold with embedded cooling lines and not just an insert
mold, TLG tolerances, $5K probably won't buy the blank to give to the machinst.
Think around $50K for the mold.
Variable costs are dominated by the cycle time, not the material, quite often.
If your mold produces 4 pieces of standard straight track per shot (or maybe one
turnout per shot) and the clamp-shoot-cool-eject cycle takes 60 seconds per
shot, you can divide the burdened shop rate by pieces per hour and work out your
time charges.
For conductive track, I agree that the best bet is probably some existing rail
(Gauge 1?) that has about the right profile and just scratch build. It might be
reasonable to do a cheap aluminum insert mold for ties (sleepers) that could
produce 10 or so per shot. Or maybe laser cut the ties.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Has anyone considered molding track ourselves?
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| (...) I think someone needs to just go to some plastics manufacturers (molding, 3d printing, whatever) and say "this is what we want, how much would it cost for a mold or design and how much would it cost per unit" I think that if someone said "We (...) (16 years ago, 28-Sep-09, to lugnet.trains)
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