Balti and Ohio GP-9s Illionois GP-35 BNSF SILVER/RED SD70i Alaska F7 And NYC E7 Couple of questionZ aZ well- does notch still produce Z vehicles? I Zee them on ebay a lot and the quality of them are really nice, juZt like marklins vehicleZ. There good for cloZe up ShotZ on your layout. (not like the japaneZ back ground carZ) DoeZ marklin produce american style 18 wheelerZ or any 18 wheelerZ of that matter? used for intermodal, maybe even some intermodal boxes/loads. I need good stuff that I can use for close up shots on my lay out, don't want to order anything cheap looking like the Tokyo wonder of 200pack car lot, or trucks. As soon as you recieve them they look like my dog chewed them and they look like monster trucks compared to my marklin beautys. Come on Z makerZ would an AMERICAN! line put out decent vehicles please!!! Maybe even a few trucks here and there, hey maybe even a nice operational crane. Heck I'd pay 200$ for one! add a z scale metal boulder to the end and knock down my buildings too
The cars that you speak of are NOT made in Tokyo or Japan... they are Chinese. Then, again... we're not describing Toyota's.
Hey don't get me wrong, I like the cars they make great fill ins for parking lots and highways, but I just don't like how out of 50 cars I bought 20 of them can't be used because of sloppy paint, broken chases/broken parts, defects in proportion or uneven balance when laid on flat surfaces. Thats just my opinion. You can get 10 guys in here who hate them and 10 guys who love them so its all up in the air, and all depends who you buy from and what pack you get. It boggles me how in every picture they always show orange cars in the lot, but when they arrive there is nothing even close to orange in the packs. And its def not red in the pictures you guys use, its clearly orange. I've always wanted an orange japan car. I like to have color verity on my layout and not the same boring blah colors of autos. Thats why marklin does such a good job with realistic colorways and detail. They are very easy to paint also due to the fact they come in 3 piece kits, which makes it hella easy to mod your cars to any color you desire. Just my 2 cents but heck who am I. PS the N scale cars you carry and ship look 100 times better then the Z. Guess there just not met to be made in Z due to such a smaller size, and lack of press and molds for Z sizes.
The N-scale cars are made for KATO and TOMIX by a different manufacturer, with different quality control standards. The cheap, Chinese-made Z cars you mention that are all over feeBay, are not sold seperately here in Japan. No one would buy such junk here. Yes... these same, cheap Z cars are included in the ProZ layout pieces... but, they are not sold seperately. As Jürg as proven in his post... the best Z autos available are made by Alvaro.
See, this is a situation where having a little money will really help Z Scale... Here is what we need to do: Purchase one of these NextEngine Desktop 3D Scanners with the Multidrive attachment, and software, then scan a bunch of larger models, adjust the resultant 3D drawings to Z Scale, and send to a company who has the NEW Perfactory RP machine to printout the cars in smooth hearing aid shell plastic. Desktop Scanner with Multidrive: The NextEngine machine with it's software, is fully capable of scanning an HO scale model, and creating the file needed for replication in Z Scale. Here is a 5 minute video of the whole process: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX0rSZDUtiw Next you send a file that has 200 scanned cars on one sheet to a company that owns an Envisiontec Ultra Perfactory Printer to print out your cars. Print them laying on their side, so the carsides have .0007" resolution, and the hood, roof, and trunk will have .0034" resolution. If you can see any steps, then would only be on the hood, roof, and trunk then, and a swipe with 600 grit would smooth them perfect. X & Y resolution 80 microns with ERM module(0.0032 in) Z-resolution adjustable from to 20 to 100 microns (0.0007 to 0.004 in) uild speed 0.5 in/hr (12.7 mm) at 100 microns Voxel depth for the full build envelope Wide material choice, from ABS- and polypropylene-like to wax-based materials for investment casting Extremely smooth surface finishes Office-friendly, low power requirements and plug and play operation Built with proven high-reliability DLP technology. 10" x 7.5" x 8" build area. After that, it's just a matter of painting them. You can probably fit 200 completely different cars in that build area, and at 1/2" an hour Z, finish them in 1 hour. Alternately, you export your car files in Solidworks format, send them to China, and have a company die cast and paint for you to sell as a new product line, with the same quality level the N Scalers are getting from CMW .
With 5 years experience of owning and operating a high-res laser scanner and a Perfactory I wouldn't do it that way, Robert.
Can you tell us from your experience why you wouldn't do it that way? Is there a good way to use a 3D laser scanner?
With no experience with 3D whatsoever, it is the most logical sounding approach... so please tell us what the experienced user would do different Mark?
If money wasn't an issue, why not just go the injection mold route. I bet you could purchase a real covered hopper load of plastic pellets for the cost of that kind of RP work, at least any significant volume. 3D scanners are nice to get mesh data, but there still is a lot of design/engineering work involved. Plus not all models scale down with detail that meets a machines capabilities. Heck, I'll do the CAD work, just get me some machine/EDM time and steel tooling!
Rob, I have been going to the trade shows and giving each of the scanner company a model to scan and giving the file to the RP guys to print, not one has worked well. Nextengine being the worst, they took my model and never responded, the next year I found the CEO at the show and told him my model disappeared under his watch and he promised me that he is personally going to see that I get the scan and my model back... Jeff was there too at that time.. and it never happened..... so anyway we saw the scanned penny from their machine and with their resolution it will be blob in Z scale. The second problem is reconstruction of the scanned model is not easy the software does some work but there is a long manual cleanup process needed to make it good, at which time one can draw it from scratch instead. The RP printing machines... each one has its own issues but many have good resolutions for Z, you need a few microns resolution and ~4K-5KDPI for a good finish. Not all RP can do that. 80-100 microns even for G scale will have rough finish. If money is available I would just hire a ME to draw all the models I want made in 3D, once you have it in 3D there is a world out there that can mass produce it for you with different processes and cost . I have been playing with solidworks to make the drawings myself, we'll see how far I can go with that to actually making a model. Kim
There are several good suppliers of inexpensive, but reasonably good quality white metal castings. I have a few very good samples of knock-offs, so I know what I'm talking about. The whole 3D printed tray of various models can be used as masters for multiple castings. The charm of the concept, the masters can be re-printed as many times as needed.
Putting copyright issues aside, 3D scanning produces files that require massive amounts of work to make them usable. The field of reverse engineering is specialized and generally requires specialized software (at very high prices) and specialized skills. Starting a 3D model from scratch using good photos and 2D drawings and, where possibile, access to the real thing is best (and those who think that a 3D parametric solid model package such as Solidworks will do the job are going to be disappointed). A Perfactory with resolution better than 80 micron is needed and even then, orientation of the part during the build is critical. Thin layers in the Z direction is a red herring; it looks great on a data sheet but if the other 2 axes are much coarser they will determine the resolution of the overall model. Consideration of supports is needed (somewhere where evidence of there removal won't show) and they need for rinsing, cleaning trimming and finishing of the final models need to be borne in mind. Producing RP parts can be labor-intensive and some of that labor is Optivisor stuff. Purveyors of scanners and RP machines will always quote figures that show their machines in the best light. They don't tell you the downsides. Finally, designing vehicles takes a lot longer than the average item of rolling stock and, in general, the price that can be commanded is much less. There are also trademark risks associated with producing models of vehicles from auto manufacturers. The question then becomes why would you do it. I am adding a 3rd vehicle to my range (a 1970 C10 pickup) but only because I want it for my own purposes. Income from sales will never pay back the effort that goes into it.
If money was not in the equation, just let the normal manufacturing routes (Kador, Sanda Kan, etc.) have at it making proper injection mould tooling. That way, we get the best but someone has to bite the $50K - $250K to make the various cars and locos. Eventually most models will payback, +/- costs and some may reach profit levels. You give them your drawings or example work. The main issue is lead time of around a year. .
I don't think we need to copy the details of a fine Pocher model. The available lower resolution scanning, then 3D printing or milling is good enough for acceptable Z-scale auto models. I'm OK with the quality of Roland scanners and milling machine combos, and they come with good reverse engineering software. Do you think a simple model like this can not be done with today's lower or moderately priced technology? Think simple, produce the masters using affordable 3D technology, then cast white metal copies. A good paint job and some decals make wonder.
Provided you are satisfied with copying someone elses work and then receiving a pittance for the work you subsequently put in and capital you employ, yes, you could produce acceptable Z scale vehicles.
What a crap. I'm not writing about stinky, cheesy, cheap ways to produce Z-scale cars. The model I've showed is to illustrate my point, no high resolution details are necessary to get satisfactory appearance. By the way this car was 100% hand made by me about five or so years ago, not a copy of someone else's work. Now, to build a master for casting, like this one in true Z-scale takes lots of time. But -for example- to make a 5" long model from wood, junk parts and bondo with the same level of details shouldn't take longer than a couple of hours. That large raw model can be scanned, scaled and printed or milled with good results. After having an easily maintainable row of Z-scale masters, there are many ways to make multiple copies, I think, good quality white metal casting gives the best results.
I don't think scanning and shrinking a 1:44 car model, then scaling it down to Z, and maybe distort it a bit would be un-ethical. After all, what did the guy who made the 1:44 scale car do? He scaled down a 1:1 car. Now, I would not copy them exactly anyways, because I would WANT to sideskirt the licensing too. I would not call them chevy or ford, but call them 40-50's era autos, 60-70's era autos etc. In Z Scale, we don't need 1 officially licensed, highly detailed replica of a 55 chevy, an F150, and an Audi XXX... we need hundreds of familiar and reasonably convincing cars per layout. That means prices of about $1-2 a car tops. We already have We Honest cars, but that is only 8 modern body styles. I propose 100 random different cars spanning a 20 year window, that look familiar, but we just can't quite put a name on.
Absolutely. I totally agree. A good paint job and some decals should give substantially better impression than a bunch of fine, but invisible details.
Robert and Lajos are right on the money. I'd even settle for something like classic metal works where you pay around 10 bucks for two quailty painted vehicles in N or about 12 bucks for a couple of tracktors and trailors. Being able to populate a layout with vehicles is sorely lacking. Unless you have deep pockets.
