TOPIC:

Love your work

Started the top half chassis on Wednesday... That did not worked out like I wanted... So yesterday, I scrapped it, and restarted differently...

The masses are complex, but I feel like I'm on the right path this time...


The right side is even more complex due to the motor placement and some work to do to get room for it...


Later I had this



I checked and it seems it fits


In my original plan I had no intention to print the top half. That has changed

Again some work this afternoon, as I took my afternoon off today...

I did try my best to do the driver figure body, but it won't work the way I want. I stopped bothering about this and will rely on the body I had in one of the Tamiya box for a driver which only required the head as there was a body already on the chassis... The head will be the Nichimo one...


I'm not sure at all about my measurements, as even the tool doesn't help me much for this one. I decided to build a plate with the holes as per what is in the design right now, and I'll print it for a quick check of accuracy.


Here is what I have right now :


I did inspect the key potential touching points and all is sorted out...



Next is the roll cage. This will require a 3D sketchs to do some pipe along a designed path. Another first for me...


One comforting thing is that most of the key measurement are derived from existing points already in the design. I'll start once measure are validated/corrected...

After my last post, I had a detail look at the roll cage, and laid out a plan...

First I set all the mounting points. Each one is a different body, but that's not really an issue, as they are going to join together once they are assembled at the end...

Then I worked out the rear side of the roll cage. It's all on the same plan, so one single sketch makes for it.


Next I worked out the front part, which is on a perpendicular plan as well... Last was the joining part, for which I used an axis between the two extreme points of the parts to be joined...
And voilà...


Then a mirror component


And I added the 3 braces between the roll cage, and that's it...




And that was easier than what I thought it would be...
And the good news is that I do now have a CAD model for each single part I need to print to revive this Nichimo Spirit FF :-D

I decided this morning to finish the roll cage and complete with all red plastic parts as I do consider printing them in SLS dyed red, so there is no color mismatch on the car (maybe I'm a bit perfectionist)...


Then I decided to play around with colours in Fusion 360...


It looks so much better now . And do you know what, I started to like this ugly car
The servo mounts confirm the design is right for the speed servo holes


I did all the part fixing the pillow balls on the suspension arms



I still have a few remaining red parts :
- battery door - 2 components
- Steering joints - 1 component (x4)
- Front Sway bars joint - 1 compoenent (x2)
- Transmission axis - 1 component
- front and rear sway bars attachment - 2 components

Once all of this will be done, would remain in plastic parts to be modeled
- Front Wheel - 3 components
- Rear Wheel - 2 component plus one identical to one of the front components
- Servo Saver - 3 components
- Steering Servo horn - 1 component
- MSC components - not sure I would bother about this...

😥😱I like it..  

Today, I wanted to tackle some additional parts...

I started by using a plugin to model the internal gear (with FMGear, it's really easy).


Then I decided to tackle the battery door and the rear sway bar. And yes, I did put some red on an original black part, but I do like it this way. And I did the sway bar, just because it was easy to do...


Then I worked out the Servo Saver (4 components which were originally black, but it will be red :-D)


For the front sway bar links, I decided to model the sway bar first, then to build the pillow balls and then to do the link. Somehow, it's a great pleasure to estimate an angle, to put everything in place and then to measure the distance between the balls and to have it almost identical to the one you have when you look at the caliper


I then worked out the steering rods... Same principle : pillow balls first, then identify the center point, use an axis through the two point and build a construction plane at angle...


For the last link, I got the servo from a very good friend in the design  (as well as his motor), and positioned them in the chassis.


Next, a servo horn (red because why not ) and again a pillow ball (different from the others) to model before being able to get the link done...


Status as of today for red parts :
- battery door - 2 components - Done
- Steering joints - 1 component (x4) - Done
- Front Sway bars joint - 1 compoenent (x2) - Done
- Transmission axis - 1 component - Done
- front and rear sway bars attachment - 2 components - Done

Added :
- Servo saver (4 components)
- sway bar front and rear attachement (2 components)

When I started the project, there was the box of the car with the components, and I took a small box where I did put the small component which where due to be modeled within the day... At some point, I had another box in which I started to put all the parts modeled. I have now a bucket  (15 cm diameter, 10 cm height) in which there is the remaining parts to be modeled. One thing is I'm quite I can even put the metal component I've not modeled in, it would not be full... That means I'll see the end of this modeling exercise at some point...

I think I lost my evenning trying to sort out the bevel gears... To finish by a suspicion that the mod is different from motor pinion and internal gear: it's far too big to be a .8 it should be 1 or 1.2 on the bevel gears. The good thing is that it is more robust, the bad thing is I spend my evenning doing something ready to go to the bin

(and don't ask why I'm doing this while the gears are all ok for this car )

silvertriple wrote:

(and don't ask why I'm doing this while the gears are all ok for this car :lol
 

I understand completely.  Once you've come this far, it is tempting to finish all the details.  Next you will have decide if you are going to model all the fasteners!

There is a database for the fasteners, so it won't be much issue... But  yeah, you're right, it is super tempting to go all the way around and to discover this in motion