Does anyone know how to make grilles in cad? I am looking high and low, but haven't found anything. Should I use photoetched screen? David
A photoscreen would look the best most likely. I am still waiting to see how my mesh turned out in FUD. The problem is the material thickness that can be printed verses the spacing. Those details, scaled down, are way beyond our eyes to see, and so you have to fake it. The process goes like this: - make a frame like you did for the louvers, .2mm thick - make a box that is the same size as the frame hole, but .3mm thick and align it with the hole of the box (you'll be subtracting the box from the body to give more depth to the grille) - make "sticks" for the mesh: the size is up to you. My next version will use .15mm x .3mm sticks that are spaced .2mm apart - after making a row of sticks, copy the whole row and rotate 90 degrees - union the two stick rows together to make the mesh - position them so that they will fill the hole from above, but make sure the .2mm of the frame is not encroached upon - use the frame or hole to chop the ends off of the sticks It's going to look really bad in CAD, but remember, we're deailing with elements that are maybe the thickness of a few hairs. When printed, it will just feel textured. Paint will almost completely obscure the detail (which is why it's important to make that .3mm deep hole) So, the end result should look like the body had a bunch of .3mm deep square(ish) holes punched in it, with a frame placed on top of it. Also, as a general recommendation for the message board here: There is a 3D modeling group here that you should probably put these questions in.
It actually wasn't necessary to make grilles... according to prototype pics, the locomotive used louvers instead. David
