Dear Antonio,
thanks, for coming up with this question to the rp-ml.
I think that this is a question that touch not only Brazilian hobby model makers and collectors.
In Germany I'm also quite interested in the idea of using rp for fabricating detailed toys like HO model trains and cars etc.; and I would like to hear comments from the "professionals" / rp-users to this topic.
Problems that I can see are:
1. Where to get the digital data from?
2. RP-Models are still too expensive for pure "hobby"-applications because as a hobbyist you have to use professional RP-service, which is no obstruction but cost intensive.
3. Disturbing support structures, that have to be removed afterwards from very detailed structures (processes which don't need support structures like LOM (or related) and 3D-printing (drop on powder) don't achieve the needed accuracy and surface qualities).
4. Models would be very fragile, which means for presentation use only.
Regards
Hendrik John
>>> "Antonio Augusto Gorni" <agorni@iron.com.br> 01/04 4:29 >>>
Hi!
May be this question is too silly to this forum but... here it goes.
As everybody knows, the cost of injection moulds is high. A plastic
injection molded piece is feasible only if thousands or thousands
of parts are to be produced.
This is a real problem whre only some dozens or even hundreds of
parts are to be made. This is the case, for example, of HO scale
model trains, cars and locomotives.
The variety of model cars and locomotives in the HO scale here in Brazil
is very scarce. The main cause, of course, is the high price of the
injection molds...
A group of rail fans approached me and asked if RP could be used for
the production of small series of specific model locomotives and
cars in the HO scale. As this technology is very new to me, I do
not know if this is feasible, so I am forwarding the question to the
list...
Nevertheless, I think that some toys eventually used RP during its
development.
Thanking you very much in advance!
All the best,
Antonio A. Gorni
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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