A channel dedicated to my numerous interests from 3D design and printing to full-size and model trains, to fixing various items. I aim to get videos up on the 1st Saturday of the month, with some short content filling it in during the rest of the month. If this is your kind of content, feel free to drop me a subscription!
Very cool. Many cars from other countries too. A note found about the one marked "Zürich" from the website: "In June, 2004, Market Street Railway facilitated the delivery of Brussels No. 7037 to the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) following its retirement. Muni modified the tram for service in San Francisco, and renumbered it to 737 to avoid a numbering conflict with a trolley coach in the Muni fleet. In June, 2005, the car made its first appearance on the street, but at the request of Mayor Gavin Newsom, it wears the blue and white livery of San Francisco’s sister city Zurich, Switzerland, which operated similar looking cars (but narrow gauge and non-PCC). In the future, No. 737 may be restored to its original 1952 cream Brussels livery. For now, to honor both its actual original city (Brussels) and its tribute livery (Zurich), we usually refer to it as the “EuroPCC”."
The boat trams from Blackpool are honestly my favorite, especially on nice days they are a treat to ride in! The Brussels/Zurich tram is really neat, although I think it would be better if it was done up in the original livery, but that's just me being picky.
Oh the Blackpool is amazing. Before the heritage weekend I was able to ride the Blackpool tram along the J line from Balboa Park to Powell and that was an incredible experience.
New drinking game. Take a shot every time Calvin says dumpster fire. LOL!!!! But seriously, I'm sorry brother. They totally screwed the pooch on this one.
Dude you know I am fried when I just drop "dumpster fire" constantly in a video! They really screwed up and it was at the worst time possible after all the hoopla and fanfare of the new equipment.
I wanted to jump in here and thank everyone for the feedback on this! When I filmed the video I had the intention of showing some of the issues that are frustrating for regular users like myself, and had no clue there was going to be vandalism of the power to the train, triggering the massive delay on Monday. That was exacerbated by the fact that there have been ongoing issues with the Positive Train Control system and then all the delays that causes. It was nice to see that the issue was not due to the actual train breaking down, it was a circumstance outside their control. I will say my Thursday commute was pretty uneventful other than being about 15 minutes late on average, I made all my connections so I am happy! Sometime next month I will shoot a revisit and hopefully things will go better.
I'm from Spain and I'm telling you that going electric is the best thing you can hope for and Stadler builds excellent train. That said, every new system, especially where those systems are new and you have little experience with them teething problems are unavoidable and happens with new rolling stock (and in any other area) all the time - regardless of the type. Where I'm originally from they are in an advance electrification process of the whole system. The 1st electric line that was opened suffered from many problems when it started service, those decreed as time passed and after a few weeks all went well and the service was much better than before. When they finished electrification on other lines it went smoothly as they were more experienced with the system. In Spain, an other countries, that use electrified systems for year, new trains or new electrified system that goes online is smooth or with a short transit stage due to experience . It's the same in the US with local systems like BART, Subways or the NEC, things work well now but there were problems when they started. CalTrain will work well as time passes and you'll enjoy better and faster service. As for the train sets, nothing is perfect and internal design depends on what the investment and for shorter regional services a fast an efficient service is more important than a few amenities. Around the world regional services, like Cal train, do not have bathrooms at all or have just one as with short trips it's not as important. There are buses and metro lines that can take as long without bathrooms and with a regional train larger capacity is more important. As for Gilroy, the problem is that they cannot electrify this section as it's owned by freight but they should have bought electric battery/catenary units from the start to provide direct services and they should allow for longer connections. They are planning on replacing the current diesel train with electric battery/catenary units but that will take years as Stadler has a long backlog.
Having heard the stories of my family and friends who have been to Europe and used their fast electric trains, I am SUPER jealous! My main issue is the number of times units have been taken out of service because the bathroom wasn't functioning, the crew could not get into a cab, door issues, things like that which inevitably cause massive delays. In the past when they ran baseball trains, the units that had 1 bathroom/car still had lines when you had a ton of baseball fan who chugged one beer too many before jumping on. What was the biggest cause of the massive delays was the fact that they are trying to run an overly ambitious schedule where they try to run more trains than they have crews available, and that is an issue. Even on good days, trains now run consistently 10-15 minutes late, but at leas they are running consistently until they scale the schedule back a little. You are totally correct, there will be issues in the beginning, I just wish they were a bit more conservative with the rollout and then scaled it up as needed as I know there were lots of frustrated riders who were late because of that.
@@MakeItWithCalvin I agree that they probably should have done a slower rollout. A big change like this takes time stabilize and no matter how many tests you do it will never be like the real thing. Usually new services starts with a lower frequency to adjust to the new system while finding all the problems and kinks. Maybe they felt pressure to provide immediate improvements after such a long construction time for a pretty short rail segment.
@@AL5520 I do think you are onto something there. Especially in the tunnels leading into San Francisco, lots of off-peak trains were delayed due to single tracking since they were installing the overhead line equipment in there. Also, I know they lost a lot of staff over the pandemic due to various reasons, so that did not help either. The old schedule during the off peak hours had 1 local making all stops, followed by 1 limited that skipped selected stations going down. That worked great, especially for people like me who run the whole length of the line. Now it is 3 locals/hour but that causes a ton of congestion, especially if there is a person needing assistance, any signal issues. 2/hr off peak would have been the wiser move until they got all the bugs ironed out. Plus, more buffer time for the inevitable delay!
Im from finland, and have not been on these train and probably will never be, so i have zero experience about these CalTrain´s KISS units, but i´d like to voice my opinion on this matter anyway. all new trains have what some call "teething problems", which just means that they are brand new and the new technology that has been standing still has started moving and aquiring normal wear and tear, what they are not used to. these problems happen with every new train in europe and usually go away within the first year or so, finland bought 80 flirt-trains in batches from stadler in 2008 to 2015 and they had their issues, and now all of them work like a charm. give the new trains some time, stadler is a very good manufacturer and the trains they have provided all around europe work very well.
That's honestly good to know! I do genuinely hope they can fix the issues with people tampering with the electrical infrastructure, but that is more of a city this is happening in and them catching the people doing it issue than Stadetler made a train that had a bad morning :). When I rode on Thursday, we were late about 15 minutes both ways, but I made it to class with plenty of time so I was happy!
Terrible emus they keep breaking and soft launch didn’t help them work the glitches. The new schedule is super aggressive and makes the delays worst. Only had one train I rode that was on time this week and all other trains I rode were late. Last week was so much better the delays weren’t as easy to become severe. Monday there was a fire due to vandalism in San Mateo that caused a power failure waited 90 mins for a train to even show up.
I agree the new schedule is way too aggressive! The issue is there is ZERO buffer time if there is a delay. Case in point my train from Gilroy, 805, was down ~5 out of Gilroy. When we got to Diridon the crew then jumped on 405, which conveniently was at the OTHER END OF THE PLATFORM. They did their brake check, and pulled in about 10 mins after we got off. When I got off at Millbrae, they were down 15 min and I had to RUN to my BART connection! I genuinely hope they can iron the bugs out because lots of people rely on the system but if it is not going to run reliably, no one is going to ride. Ridership is creeping up again but issues like this will alienate their riders.
@@MakeItWithCalvin have you heard of the shore line east. They put a lot of electrification for a commuter rail that would run from stamford to new london in conneticut. but after that section was electrified, they still could not regain passengers and service was cut.
Not until now, I had it mixed up with the one between Chicago/South Bend. I did a little research and it sounds like it was death by a thousand cuts for them. It's always a shame when they invest heavily into something only to turn around and have ridership vanish due to various reasons.
That's good! It is an interesting setup for sure, but looks like it has a strong rider base given the route it runs. I am happy to report that my Thursday trip to school was relatively uneventful!
Yeah, the main issue is they are trying to run more trains than they have crews available, and that means there is zero buffer time if the train gets delayed for any reason. If they hold a public meeting, I may make the trek up from Salinas to hold the board accountable because this is not right to the riders, or the crew.
gosh glad to know U had so much fun! wallpaper would look nice! two tones are far nicer then snow blind walls!! no time for Diner! well! imagine this! good luck !
There is a lot to it, but if you broke it down into the individual parts, it's just a bunch of basic shapes that either get added up, or subtracted, to make the design. I decided to make it fancy just for the sake of making it fancy! As for the song, oh gosh I can't even remember it has been so long!
What print method were you using? I remember I did an order on Oct 4 of last year with MJF & PolyJet parts and it shipped on Oct 13, I can't access what print method I used, but odds are I just used the standard print method...
I-Materialise out of Belgium is another online 3D printing house that you can use. I used them over 10yrs ago, before Shapeways. They offer many of the same materials as Shapeways did. I haven't ordered anything from them in years, but they always gave fast and efficient service. I've also heard that the European division of Shapeways is being bought and renamed into something else. But I'm not sure that info is current or accurate. Even though I have three DLP/resin printers of my own, I still used Shapeways for certain items right up until the end. Like you, I do model trains and design/build a lot of my own gearboxes and mechanisms. Shapeways clear detail plastic (the old FUD and FXD) was excellent for this purpose. The process allowed for reasonably accurate parts, and the benefit of being a plastic like material was ideal for mechanisms and gearboxes, which would eliminate any chance of electrical shorts. Combined with some machining and laser cut metal parts, a very good locomotive mechanism could be made using the Shapeways part as a base.
That's good to know about I-Materialize. As for the Euro division of Shapeways, I am curious to see what becomes of that and if the shipping on prints will make it cost-ineffective or not to order prints here in the states. You do have a good point on combining manufacturing methods to produce models. That's one of the more fun sides of the hobby if you are mechanically inclined, is the ability to produce items that are otherwise unavailable is a huge accomplishment.
Hi, Nice. Are there some special reasons why you use resin for these stone-castings instead of simply concrete/gypsum? For our model-train-scenes, my father and I used those all the time, also combined with papier-maché for bigger structures but that last one needed extra painting-jobs afterwards while rocks with castings came in mostly the right colours. (papier-maché we made was mostly old newspapers and just wall-paper-glue so not optimal colours).
The main reasons why I went with resin is the fact that it set up fast on camera and the fact it is much stronger than plaster, especially for something that thin. I have tried doing thin plaster casts of things like the charcoal kilns but all sadly failed due to the lack of strength inherent to it. Also, once you throw a little paint onto the resin part and stick it at the back of the tunnel, no one knows if it is plaster or rock or resin.
That's why I made the comment that this trick only works IF you know the starting level was good, which I knew my car was. Also, it's an easy way to track how much oil you lost if you suspect a leak...
If you are interested in purchasing the kilns shown, you can do so through my Etsy shop, here. calvinwitt.etsy.com/listing/1780398855/o-scale-charcoal-kiln
Thanks... Sadly not YET, but I have wanted to get it finished soon-ish. I need to work on getting the trucks figured out, and then it's easy as in theory.
I have been waiting for this for years. can you make a video going over the design parameters for making the file you sent them. Was there a lot of back & forth? Did you need to make adjustments?
Next video, Saturday, I talk about that a little more but if you want to see an actual design video I can see what I can do about that. As for the parts shown in the video, I just sent them to Laser Bros and got an email saying "Your parts are shipping" about a day later! The only back and forth with them was when they sent me the video files via Instagram and I thanked them profusely for it! As for adjustments, yes I did send another batch of parts out with a tolerance built in/a few changes to make assembly easier in the future. When I drew the parts initially I completely blanked on leaving ~0.003" gap between the parts so that there was a little play for assembly. Thankfully that was pretty easily remedied with filing, but I factored that in on the new batch. That gets covered in the upcoming video so hopefully, others can learn from the minor mistakes I made but check with your supplier on their recommended design practices for interlocking parts.
There are two reasons Shapeways went under. 1. Their pricing was unsustainably low. How they stayed afloat so long is a mystery. 2. The print on demand (JIT) marketplace Calvin is talking about was also underpriced. The handling, machine time, incidental costs of Just in Time manufacturing plus the insane mix is super challenging to do and costs need to be carefully controlled or the business becomes insolvent. I used Shapeways for many years and appreciated their quality, cost and speed. I even had parts waiting to print when they went under. I think they thought they could command markete share and prevent competition by keeping their costs low. Unfortunately, this created an artificial landscape the we will not see again at such low cost. You can have a combination of Cheap, Good and Fast...pick two.
You raised some really good points, especially when it came to just in time manufacturing, you have to juggle competitive costs with reasonable lead times and quality parts. I do wonder what plan of recourse, if any, those who have outstanding prints/payouts from the company have?
For me Shapeways was always the least expensive way to get a part compared to other vendors. I always found their customer service was excellent. I've been in a 'scramble' to replace them - the closest one price wise I found and have used them in the past is Sculpteo - But I've had terrible customer service from them. I remember I had to fight tooth and nail with a polished brass job they did(for refund or redo) - It was like someone had left the wax print stage out on a window sill in the sun while they went to lunch, in the meantime it got all distorted and bent out of shape about 10x the tolerance. Don't know how they let that one out the door. Same model with Shapeways, bang - done perfectly first time no issues. I've just tried Scupteo the last 2 weeks three times - all three times the uploads finish but they never show up in the model section. I've reached out 3 times too, and they still haven't got back to me. I wonder if they are going out of business. I tried uploading a model to xometry - and their process seems smooth and they have the options I'm looking for(the plastics, steel/bronze, polished silver/brass) - But unfortunately, they are about twice the cost as what I would pay for with Shapeways. Yep, I'm missing Shapeways for sure.
That's true, but for some of us we need things done in materials/methods that you can't do at home. I for one use SLS printing quite a bit for my model trains.
You design for niche that is not feasible and more costly to do in other ways. You also do it in conjunction with other disciplines. Not just 3d print a piece of plastic. There's other points, but 3d printing definitely has a role and place.
what happens when cost-sell=profit is ignored - bad nbusiness model same as voodoo something or another in brooklyn - its a hobby still powered by people that want "cheap" -
Yes, that is a fair point. I am fine paying a premium, to a point, for commercially printed parts. Where it becomes an issue is when you have a cool kit you want to offer and you need to charge $250 to turn a profit... As for cheap in the 3D printing world, that's going to be a spicy topic for another time...
The way it worked on Shapeways was everything was made "to order." I could run a batch of parts through a company like Xometry, or do it myself, but then I am stuck sitting on a huge inventory of stuff that may or may not sell.
Great video exploring what can be done for the hobby from industrial capacity laser cutters. I've fabricated many parts using a similar producer. In my experience fore thinner materials stainless steel tends to hold up finding that thin brass tends to "un-anneal" and distort from the Industrial power lasers. I've had parts run from HO to 1:1.
That makes total sense with the material "un-annealing." I have had that problem when silver-soldering thin brass parts together and after figuring out that it has gotten really soft on me. How thin is the thinnest you found that brass and stainless could be reliably be laser cut without major issues?
Rivers, not yet. I have taken it out a little bit into Monterey Bay and it felt very stable in open water so I think if you were in a calm river without much submerged stuff it could work fine, but use common sense!
Same. My issue is where do I put one, how do I get the material, disposal... You get the idea! This not someone with a few Elgoo Mars printers in their garage.
@@MakeItWithCalvin All good points. Disposal? You mean what do you do with the plastic waste? I could easily find a solution to where to put the machine. And I think disposal would be a solvable problem. But where to find the material is a head scratcher.
@@gishgishgish As I understand part of the cost of owning these machines is having a tech come out to service them which is all well and good till you get a $5,000 bill for someone to poke around for half an hr!
Calvin, In addition to items in my Shapeways Shop to be printed in one of the resins, I had parts to be ordered in lost-wax brass. I think Shapeways did a very good job with these, with detail as small as .015mm and ,4mm wall thicknesses. Can you recommend another vendor who can cast brass parts from my STL files with that level of resolution? (I tried Craft Cloud, i.materialise, eMachineshop and others, but so far have not found anyone who can meet the same level of detail from the same STL files with which I have been getting parts from Shapeways; still waiting to hear back from Sculpteo.) Tom K.
Hi Tom, I was just going to say Sculpteo but it seems like you are waiting to hear back from them. There is Xometry but currently they only offer binder jetting and metal sintering, neither of which will do the details that you wanted. Other than that, I honestly am not sure who would be able to do it, sadly.
I have been uploading a dozen or so of my Shapeways products a day on Cults3d. Better than nothing. I hope someone is able to make a print market like Shapeways had.
Oh, for sure. There are companies like Xometry which will farm the printing out to a company for you, the only bummer is they do not have a "marketplace" where anyone can cruise on up and buy your "product" and go from there. It will be interesting to see how much of a void this causes, or if someone steps in to fill the void.
Honestly it's because of a horribly scaled train model I did in Google Sketchup and Shapeways that I even got into 3D printing and model trains in the first place. For someone who needed a handful of prints done, or things done in materials other than the usual FDM/resin, it was a lifesaver. I know I am not the only one who relied on them directly, or indirectly, too.
So, Calvin, what will you do about continuing to produce the products you had on Shapeways? Will you be looking for another producer? I really hope so, because I think you had some really great O narrow items there, which were both well designed and reasonably priced. I never understood the pricing structure at Shapeways as I would see two practically identical items , with one priced $40-50 more than the other. Frankly I thought some of the prices there were outrageous for what people were actually getting for their money. Anyway, I have an extensive list of your products that I will be needing in the coming months and I sincerely wish you the best of luck in finding another manufacturer!!!
That's an awesome question and while I will dedicate a video directly to what are my plans moving forward. I do have some ideas in mind, don't worry there. I can say the pricing thing was a bit of a mess but I believe it was based on both the volume of the prints AND the volume of the print inside the machine too. You can only fit so much into the build volume per run, and you need to price accordingly. When I did my models I tried to hollow them out whenever possible since you can put weights inside, and no point in paying extra for material that does not need to be there. It helped, but it can only do so much.
Interesting content and thoughts. In many respects you touched on the reasons why I never went forward and got a printer. It simply wouldn't have even begun to pay for itself. And now that you explained in simple terms why Shapeways went under, I now feel bad that I had you do a few special orders for me as now I realize the effort put in to preparing a computer program to do 10 pieces that, theoretically you'll never have to make again... You learn new things every day!!!
Honestly, that's why I still have my sub $500 laser cutter. Eventually I will get a more capable machine but until I come to that point, I will keep cranking out parts with what I have since it's already paid itself off many times over. There is a time and a place for upgrading stuff if there is a guaranteed job there that NEEDS that equipment and it makes financial sense. Otherwise, it is a massive gamble that can very easily backfire on you. As for the prints I did for you, I still have the files so it' no big deal. I just either print them myself, or have another company like Xometry do it for me.
