A different 3D printed diesel

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philipy
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A different 3D printed diesel

Post by philipy » Sat Jul 25, 2020 7:03 am

As I mentioned on Rik's recent thread about his pair of 3D printed diesels, I had looked at the same drawings on Thingiverse, and even downloaded the files a couple of years ago, but did nothing with them.
However Rik's project got me thinking, I've had a 2nd hand IP Engineering DeLuxe chassis kit sitting on the shelf for about 6 or 7 years and I wondered if the two could be put together. Some quick measuring soon showed me that it wasn't worth the effort that would be required, but the motor, gears, bearings, etc, could be pressed into service. I was never very keen on the IP plastic chassis anyway, which is why it had been on the shelf for so long.

So, I looked again at the Thingiverse files and discovered, as Rik had, that there had been several 'remix' versions of the original and that started me thinking again. I downloaded all of the files for all of the versions and started to mix and match because I didn't want to just do a 'me too' of Rik's project.

One of the files was for a louvred front grille which I rather liked, but it wasn't until I had printed it that I realised that it was actually a real, open grille, not just a solid panel with slats on the surface.

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Then I remembered that I had a 40mm miniature speaker in stock which fitted perfectly behind the grille....!

The trouble now was that there wasn't enough room in the bonnet for the soundcard and speaker as well as the necessary batteries, resettable fuse, Rx, motor and wiring. The only answer was to lengthen the bonnet... and the footplate... and the chassis... and the sideplates.

A session on Sketchup gave me an extra 35mm to play with, although in hindsight another 5mm would have been useful.

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I also opened up the cab front between the drivers console and the bonnet, which made better use of the space, and whilst I was at it I hollowed out the originally solid bonnet top, which gave me about 5mm extra internal height.

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Lengthening the bonnet additionally required a redraw of the dummy ventilated side panels/access doors.

The end result was space for a battery pack of 3 x 14500 Lipo batteries (with protection board) at the bottom, a MyLocoSound board sitting on top of the batteries and a Deltang Rx65c on top of of the pile. That lot just fits between the inside of the cab console and the vertical MFA 385 motor. I also drew up a box to hold the speaker in an airtight enclosure, which fits snugly behind the front grille between the bonnet sides. The gap between the speaker and the motor is just large enough for the charging socket and the flying balance lead.
To simplify the wiring and save some spaghetti, I fixed a length of copper tape along one side to act as a common negative bus.

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The vertically mounted motor, drives one axle via a worm & wheel. The second axle is linked by a Delrin chain so providing 4-wheel drive.

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Also just for construction convenience I modified the drawings for the cab sides. The original files have two separate panels on each side, which are supposed to be glued to the footplate with a separation of 26mm at the door but there is nothing to locate anything to anything else. To keep the panels vertical and evenly spaced, I added a 1.5mm deep bar at the top to join them together and print as one piece. The bar is hidden by the bottom edge of the curved roof so it doesn't affect the appearance.
Whilst I was playing with the drawings I took the opportunity to alter the head and tail lights. The glued-on-top 'old car headlight' type always look odd to me and extremely vulnerable, so I decided to fit integral lights in the bonnet front and just under the roof at the back. Like Rik, I used micro LED's in them and then poured transparent glue in to form the lamp glass/lens.

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The MLS soundcards have an IR receiver on a flying lead to enable the soundcard settings to be changed from the outside when everything is assembled. By gluing a piece of styrene to its back, adding a loop handle and painting the whole thing black, it makes a reasonable representation of an unlit bullseye railwayman's lamp which I mounted on the drivers console.

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The only thing missing was a driver. I didn't have a suitable figure, so I had a play with 'Makehuman' and then put him into Blender to pose him leaning on his dashboard with one hand on the control handle. It isn't as easy as that makes it sound and I couldn't have done it without the excellent tutorial that Metalmuncher of this parish sent me some time ago - Thanks again Richard.

Overall I'm quite pleased with the outcome and to my eye it doesn't look quite as 'twee' as the originals.

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Philip

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