The New 3D Printing Thread

I don't know if you recall, but some time back one of our members posted about some track they had designed for use with the PlaRail Advance range of Tomy trains.  Well at the time I said I would be interested in printing some to see how good they are.  Well I've finally found some time to start looking at this and have printed one of each type of track piece apart from the points (or turnouts if you're american lol).  They seem to have come out pretty good and will need only minor cleanup, the only thing I think that needs working on are the little connectors that join the track pieces together as I have found the sample a bit of a tight fit.  This is not unusual and is maybe just down to the printer and/or the filament as sometimes you can get slight expansion of parts if there is something that doesn't work 100% perfectly.  I'll be trying printing some at 95% width and see if this fixes the issue, other wise it will mean lots of sanding to adjust them when printed at full size.

Hey Nigels, first of all thanks alot for giving my tracks a test. They are a tight fit because the Plarail Advance trains are very sensitive to imperfect track. Im not sure how bad it is on your end but for me its still possible to connect the tracks. Looking at the pictures you send the tracks seem to have very harsh imperfections, maybe your printer is ready for a service? Maybe your filament needs a drying session? It looks all so mushy to me. My printer prints edges quite well. Maybe just a few tweaks to the slicer could already improve it.

Cheers Ron