3rd-May-23, 05:07 PM
Below is the design for a 3dp replacement light gantry for the GT Raceways track.
Given the age of the old gantry @30years (shown below) and recent issues with the IR senders and track receivers a decision was made to build a brand new gantry complete with sensors and corresponding track pieces offline. This could be debugged, then brought to the track and hot swapped over via plugs so we would have 2 complete systems.
The new gantry has been printed in 9 sections (6 for the gantry plus 3 twin IR transmitter trays) and spans 640mm of the GT Raceways 6 lane Ninco track plus borders. The design is telescopic with around 40mm of adjustment to get the span correct. The IR transmitters leds are are ganged in pairs in each tray (shown in green) at the exact lane width of the Ninco track, and are designed to be slid along the gantry to align with the track sensors. The sections will bolt together to sandwich the centre section and then be screwed to the track board.
The design draws inspiration more from Brunel rather than any particular real life gantry and is all about making it strong enough to sit still and not wave around over the track sensors.
This was printed on a Creality CR10s which has a 330 x 330mm bed which allows the longest section @270mm to be printed with plenty of clearance. Material is PLA + which is easy to print and tougher/more flexible than the standard PLA and printed with a 0.8mm nozzle at 0.32mm layers.
Above is the sections just placed together for a pic to show the size of the gantry compared to a Ninco XK120 1/32 bodyshell. This will now have the basic wiring for the LEDs put in then handed over to the club electronics wizard to complete.
Cheers
John.
Given the age of the old gantry @30years (shown below) and recent issues with the IR senders and track receivers a decision was made to build a brand new gantry complete with sensors and corresponding track pieces offline. This could be debugged, then brought to the track and hot swapped over via plugs so we would have 2 complete systems.
The new gantry has been printed in 9 sections (6 for the gantry plus 3 twin IR transmitter trays) and spans 640mm of the GT Raceways 6 lane Ninco track plus borders. The design is telescopic with around 40mm of adjustment to get the span correct. The IR transmitters leds are are ganged in pairs in each tray (shown in green) at the exact lane width of the Ninco track, and are designed to be slid along the gantry to align with the track sensors. The sections will bolt together to sandwich the centre section and then be screwed to the track board.
The design draws inspiration more from Brunel rather than any particular real life gantry and is all about making it strong enough to sit still and not wave around over the track sensors.
This was printed on a Creality CR10s which has a 330 x 330mm bed which allows the longest section @270mm to be printed with plenty of clearance. Material is PLA + which is easy to print and tougher/more flexible than the standard PLA and printed with a 0.8mm nozzle at 0.32mm layers.
Above is the sections just placed together for a pic to show the size of the gantry compared to a Ninco XK120 1/32 bodyshell. This will now have the basic wiring for the LEDs put in then handed over to the club electronics wizard to complete.
Cheers
John.
Mr Fit for Function.
![[+]](https://slotracer.online/community/images/bootbb/collapse_collapsed.png)
