Well finally got back on the coal mine during layout party here the first of 2022. Dottie and I spent a lot of time in Phoenix helping her mom out and I had a lot of time to work on this. Probably well over a 100 hours total. Finally got all the different parts of the coal mine designed except for the uprights below the center train loading area. Now starting to print the various parts out and a number of these are 8-12 hour prints so will be working on that for a while or at least the printer will be. If you haven't read the beginning of the idea behind the coal mine project it will make more sense if you take a minute and go back ( HERE ). Basically there will be two identical coal trains and engines. One loaded and the other empty. The empty enters the mine facility and the full one exits. The following building and one that attaches to it will be where the empty train disappears. Above is a screenshot in Cura which I use to slice and print the parts with the Ender 3 Pro filament printer. You can see that the print is set for 'Dynamic Quality' one step under the highest print quality which just takes too long and I'm happy with the detail 'Dynamic Quality' provides for most buildings. You be the judge but I'm happy with the following. . . I designed the supports under the overhangs. Cura could of put them in but would of also probably put supports into all the window areas which would have been then removed after the print was done. . . If I'm doing a smaller print where I want the best detail I'll usually print on 'Super Quality' which is a little better than what you see in these images. There will be more parts of the mine to the left of the mine's loading chutes over the two parallel tracks, shown by the two left arrows. Another building will be attached to the one above at an angle to the right. It will hide the empty train until it enters a hill that butts up against a retaining wall at the end of the next building. The train will then proceed out of sight to a hidden staging yard. Above we can also see part of the chute section in the background (previous page) that will be above the tracks and would be how the train is loaded. I'm going to try and keep printing since I have over 95% of the design work done on the project. This is a big mine about 18 inches long and about 12-14 inches wide so not sure if anyone is interested in the print files. As I find time I might make some of these various parts of the mine into standalone buildings. I've already done that with a coaling tower that you can load coal into trucks under. I'll cover that elsewhere. You can also find the images and info above on my site ( HERE ), Sumner
Nice work! Maybe you've tried this and had trouble with it for some reason, but when I have large areas that need support, I'll often do something like this: It cuts down on the filament used and print time. Also, it looks like you manually added the connections between the support and the model. If you leave a gap between the support and the model and let the slicing software add the the connections (what the slicer calls supports) they're easier to remove, though it may cause problems elsewhere (such as in windows) depending on the particular model.
Good idea on the tapered supports. I'll give that a try. This is my first go at building my own supports and I have a couple generic ones now that I can quickly cut and or extrude into an opening. The ones shown came out really easily in less than a minute with hardly any cleanup. I might try taking them almost to the supported area and see what Cura does from there with the support option. In the past though I have had problems with it filling in windows and other areas where they really weren't needed like you mentioned so have stayed away from them as much as possible but have used them. Sumner
East Building (North) Continued... The roof (above) for this part of the structure was designed to not be glued onto the building. The square tabs locate it on the top of the building. Since a track will go through this building and the next adjacent one I wanted to have access to that track or to the 'Empty' coal train that will be on it. I didn't design the two notches that need to be in the roof to clear the coaling tower that sits beside it. They were marked after putting the coaling tower in place and then using a small file to make them. This went pretty fast. Above and in the next image I show the coaling tower structure in place after the notches were cut. This is a trial fit without the rest of the coaling tower in place. The coaling tower will be discussed in a subsequent page. Next up with be what I call the East Building (South) which attaches to the one above on the left side and is shown above. And a link to the info on my site...... http://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Coal Mine/page-3.html Sumner
Been out of town so haven't been able to do anything physically on the layout but .... ... have been working on the supports for the coal mine complex. About the last items that need to be done. The supports and retaining wall above are for the north end of the complex. Still need to do the ones from there south but won't take as long as I can mirror and modify these for that end. Sumner
Back home again for a few days . Got the supports for the south end of the coal mine complex designed. I'll start printing them out soon. I'm back to work tomorrow on the elevator for the layout. Sumner
