Cable Support Posts - a candidate for 3D printing?

[John Donnelly]

For my model of South Pelaw, I need to include a lot (at least 100) cable support posts. As per the photo below, a lot of these posts remain at the location almost 40 years after the last train ran.



It seems to me that these would be a good candidate for 3D (resin?) printing but, as I have no experience of this, I don't know if the resolution on the printers is good enough to do that brackets that hang off the posts?

John

[Guy Rixon]

Dimensions would help. Assuming that the posts are about 12" high, I think they could be printed in Shapeways FUD and the brackets could be represented. FUD can be printed with "walls" down to 0.6mm if they are attached at one end and down to 0.3mm if they are attached on two or more sides. The brackets on these posts are only attached on one side, but I'd model them as a hoop between two brackets of each post so that they can be done ~0.3mm --- i.e. as fine as an etch. After fitting the cables to the brackets, which would strengthen them, the front of the hoop could them be carefully cut away with fine sprue-cutters. Given the small size, I'd expect to sprue about 30-50 posts before reaching the minimum print charge of $7.50.

[John Donnelly]

Thanks for the reply Guy, much appreciated.

I'll have a walk up to the location and do some measuring...