I am working with a model railroader to use light, sound and/or motion to create animations in an office tower that is over three feet in height. Plastic people miniatures moving through offices, miniature giant screen TV's in suites and an elevator opening a closing between floors are three. At last count, there were over 10 animations in development.
I primarily use Arduino microcontrollers, supplementing them with some Raspberry Pis for heavier processing. We started the project in October of 2024 and it has become the focus of our efforts ever since. We estimated that the project would take a year to complete. I’m hoping for sooner.
Projects from community leaders like shabaz , Jan Cumps and dougw challenge me to improve. I’m rather proud of this accomplishment. I had to learn new skills in drafting using FreeCAD and from bare metal 3D printing using Cura slicer and an obsolete BIBO printer to make it happen.
I would recommend OctoPrint running on a Raspberry Pi as the interface to this 3D printer. This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBWJgo1nHqQ got me started. After using the software for a month, I payPal’ed some money to the developer. Building the software, sharing it and continuing to maintain it, deserved some recognition. The browser interface to my printers allows me to move from sneaker'ing SD cards to just accessing the printer over my network. Now I drag and drop files to print.
The elevator door, the box assembly to make it movable and the servo mounts are some of my first crude 3D printing models. 3D printing is so much faster than cutting and gluing styrene.
I figured I would share this small success with the community, while some window frame boxes are being 3D printed. Something about a canoe display in a window store front like the old department stores. That's new!
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