nicherotors
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Posts posted by nicherotors
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On page 5 of this thread I drew reference to a modern incarnation of the Renault 5.
This is another, this time all electric!
Amazing colour scheme and provides inspiration for Wheeler projects.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/renault-5-turbo-3e-374bhp-all-electric-drifter
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Attention has recently turned to seeing if Wild Willy could get comfortable on the inside of a Bullhead.
The first mock up suggests a tight fit but possible - the sunroof will be kept while the tinted windows will be cut away. Hoping to squeeze in a roll cage in line with monster trucks of this size.
The first version of parts have just been sent to Shapeways.
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Have continued to evolve the bikini roof first shown on page 1. Only compromise is that the two spot lights need to be permanently cut from the rollover bar. Otherwise, quite like the look for a bit of a change.
Shown here in tan, rubber black and olive green on a WR-02 Wild Willy 2 - the model where new designs get thrashed about to destruction by a nephew.
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On 8/24/2022 at 5:29 PM, Willy iine said:Final update for today.. I’m real happy how it turned out. Special thanks to @bRIBEGuy for the idea and also very special thanks to @nicherotors for his superior designs… I hope my version doesn’t ruin his day.
lol
This is great - nothing you do could ruin my day - quite the opposite sir - loving how you are able to fabricate and paint these parts so quickly.
… and any project with a NOS bottle inside gets my vote!
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Yes - the exhaust has been designed to mount onto the custom chassis. Let us know how you get on with the wheel adapters.
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On 7/14/2022 at 1:52 PM, GeeWings said:Oh, and @nicherotors does your custom chassis allow the body to sit lower? It looks like it from your pictures.
Yes, the ride height can be lowered by reducing the throw of the piston with washers (.5 mm) or one/ two of those spare little pistons/ doughnuts (2 mm) found on the damper sprue.
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Good question - I don't see why you couldn't use a set of front rims on the rear axle (with the correct hub Wheeler - rear wheel hub (83C6QTME8) by Nicherotors (shapeways.com)). From testing this 4wd chassis with four identical tyres the rear grip was markedly reduced (as expected) which added to the cartoonish charm of the model.
But in the end I preferred the predictability of the handling with the wider rear tyres - just personal choice.
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I wanted to keep the body untouched so found it helpful to reduce the track of the front axle; we shaved a mm off each side be redesigning the 'black adapters'.
Naturally two will be needed and can be found at cost here:
Wheeler - front wheel hub (VCD6AD4MC) by Nicherotors (shapeways.com)
One thing to bear in mind is; just because you can compress the front suspension and find rubbing when the steering is turned to the extremes you may find that in real life the car never fully compresses the front suspension under normal driving conditions anyway - with the HCT you are more likely to scuff the bottom lip of the front bumper on the ground.
For the custom chassis we also moved the axle further forward (~1.25 mm) relative to the body.
Smaller hexes at the back will reduce the rear track too. It's all good fun and interesting to see the difference in the handling.
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Thanks for the encouragement.
I’ve finally got happy with the design for my M38 wheels and have just painted a set. I found that running them on an old gearbox meant it was fairly straightforward to sand each coat of primer and paint to a smooth finish. Despite looking the same from the outside the offset is different front to back so as to replicate the track of the original 1983 model. The magnets used to hold the hub caps (that hide the 4mm lock nuts) in place are certainly strong enough.
In terms of a new chassis design we’ve started work on a 4x4 chassis for the Ford Ranger XLT/ Blackfoot body - if it goes anywhere I’ll start a new thread (leaving this thread for Willy related designs).
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Having enjoyed seeing Wild Willy come to life with an animated head on the M38 I thought I’d do the same with the Wheeler given there is space on this custom chassis.
The shape of the chest cavity is slightly different between the two models but it was easy enough to redesign the servo mount.
I’ve previously seen a Wheeler head animated but only when moved across to being left hand drive due to space constraints on the WR-02c chassis.
Again, the mounting hole was expanded from 3mm to 6mm (turning 4, 5 and then 6mm drill bits by hand) so as to accept the first of two 3x6x2.5 flanged bearings. The second bearing was mounted in the servo mount. After roughing up the inside of the chest cavity a drop of epoxy was used to affix the servo mount. While the epoxy was curing there was time to tighten up an M3 bolt with a shim on each side of both inner races (three shims in total). The head of the bolt, preferably serrated, was then pushed inside a short silicon tube which aligned to the output spline of a micro servo (HS-55). Thin double sided tape was enough to hold the servo in place.
The front body post had been epoxied in place - the rear two are fine held in place with snap pins.
The final picture shows where a surplus NOS bottle found a new home (glued to only one side of the chassis so as not to hinder maintenance). A lighter shade than I would normally choose, otherwise, it appeared too dark behind the tinted windows.
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I found these stickers on the internet a couple of projects back and liked both the quality and that they were pre-cut. Being pre-cut especially makes the little round turbo boost gauge easy to apply. Couldn’t come this far and not have a turbo boost gauge - especially since it looks an after-thought by Honda given the way they positioned it on top of the binnacle. So it made sense to design the instrument cluster and header unit to accommodate these specific stickers. The double din header unit is particularly retro with a DVD player!
I found the air filter logo on another one of their smaller sheets.
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Some progress with the paint.
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1 hour ago, Busdriver said:Does he sell it as a complete kit or are the parts individually priced? I know with Shapeways sometimes the total for all the parts individually can mount up , like the VW motors!
Good question - all the parts are individual at the moment and you are right - they do mount up. This was deliberate so that each scale part and it’s material/ finish/ price can be selected individually since a few items are partially concealed anyway (or behind smoked windows!). The structural/ functional items are kept individual given they are expensive and if replacements are needed you’d probably only want to buy the item that needs replacing. Probably a separate topic on its own but happy to help and feel free to contact me because it’s easy to put a few items on a sprue where some savings can be made. Parts can be found here: https://www.shapeways.com/shops/nicherotors
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The end is in sight on this Wheeler project; two hours after opening the Shapeways box was all I needed to strip the previous test mule of the Tamiya parts and electronics and move them over to this new version of the chassis.
The silver wheels are both front rims/ tyres but tuck in the rear wheel arch and can therefore sit a bit lower at the back - the white rims, as shown on the left hand side, are as per how Mr T had them set up on the original and re-release. Think I prefer the handling with a wider rear tyre but prefer the look of having the same rim/ offset front and back.
Only minor tweaks left - predominantly on the small scale items. Rather pleased with the turbo boost gauge that sits atop the instrument binnacle as per the full size which adds to the comical nature of the model. The exhaust tips are going to be polished aluminium tubes that slide over the exhaust pipes.
You can see, especially in the first picture, how the chassis parts are different shades of black; I'll most likely spray that area matt black when I rebuild and paint everything up over the next couple of weekends (will also tidy up the cables!).
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We have the choice!
As a coincidence, two sets of front tyres arrived today from the Far East. Disappointingly they seem to be getting harder to find. We’ve designed a custom hub to allow the front rims to sit on the rear axle allowing the tyre to just tuck inside the wheel arch. The rear track is slightly wider because we have a custom hub running on the front axle that reduces the track and gives more clearance between the tyres and any of the bodywork. I will build two models - one chassis in this format and another with the original rim/ tyre combo at the original ride height.
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A complete set of files have just been sent to Shapeways to be printed in a combination of materials. Several small but subtle updates to pretty much everything; turbo boost gauge added to instrument binnacle, central console is asymmetric like the full size (only just discovered a picture!), more details on the faux engine parts, four exhaust pipes, hole for servo to rotate Willys helmet, multipart seats, flappy paddles, etc etc.
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Have applied some paint to the engine parts, interior parts and changed the colour of the seats. Also managed to squeeze a little servo into the drivers chest to animate the helmet (not sure I’ve seen this done before on the Wheeler given the traditional lack of space).
I want to make a handful of changes to the design over the next couple of days before getting Shapeways to print a complete set - if everything goes together well then the design phase of this project will draw to a close. Then I’ll return to painting and completing three M38s and two of these Wheelers.
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Here is a design @Jamesssb made earlier. Happy to share files if helpful.
From Shapeways there aren’t many combinations of appropriate material and colour choices to choose from for this project - closest I think will be PA12 in gray.
https://www.shapeways.com/materials/multi-jet-fusion-pa12
In PA12 I doubt the debossed text will be that sharp. Suspect versatile plastic would be a bit sharper but then you’ve really only got white or black as practical colours to choose from. Fine detail plastic would certainly give you the precision but would be too brittle in my opinion and would need painting.
These two shells have been designed to be glued together to save space on the inside.
Was reluctant to put Ni-Cd on the outside if actually a lipo was hidden inside for fear of someone else later down the line incorrectly charging it.
A couple of strange things you only notice when measuring things - the chrome sticker isn’t round (and neither is its recess) and the chamfered top and bottom isn’t at 45 degrees but again I question whether this will be noticeable once printed.
I think a commercial hump pack (with the leads on the correct side - we’ve seen them on both sides from the same manufacturer) with the heat shrink removed would fit but this is currently untested. Although, given this thread I’m minded to get a set printed to find out.
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Some more Shapeways parts have just arrived for the Wheeler. The front bumper has already been modelled by "RMC Designs RC Parts" and up for sale on Shapeways - the tube is 5mm diameter so the same dimension was used on our roll cage. The fire extinguisher and the fuel filler are modelled on the M38 items. Willy has a sequential gear shift - flappy paddles to follow. A rear view mirror also arrived today but it turned out to be too brittle and broke during fitment - will fix the design soon enough.
Only a handful of tweaks remain and then we are done with the design work. I'll paint the fine detail plastic parts next because they don't show up very well in the pictures because they are translucent.
Quite like the seats dyed red by Shapeways - they are nice and bright.
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In between designing parts for the Wheeler and waiting for prototype parts to arrive from Shapeways I’ve managed to return to the M38.
This is inspired by both what @IBIFTKH had done with the amazing Wild Winter Willy (https://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=136851&id=34614) and the release of the Toyota Land Cruiser Quadtrack.
Have gone for a desert scheme to be a bit different and used the grouser tracks just in case we find ourselves in some sand. A most enjoyable few hours putting the units together.
I’ll probably end up lowering the suspension a bit further but this is a start.
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Things are starting to find their place on this second test mule. There are compromises with all designs - one with this chassis is that the steering servo needs to be dropped out to get access to the screws holding the motor in place. I doubt I’ll be changing the pinion that often so it’s an acceptable price to pay to keep everything as low in the chassis as possible. Keeping things low both improves handling and creates more space for the interior. (At least I don’t have to upend the front suspension and servo linkage when changing batteries - starting to think my Super Avante will stay in the box for a while!).
The clean interior is an open invitation for lots of detailed parts to be designed. Equally, rather than mask off the air vents at the front with mesh (as I’ve done before) I’m thinking of placing some faux engine parts in strategic places to give the illusion of a turbo four pot engine inside - we’ll see.
Focus now shifts to the interior with a roll cage, dashboard and fuel cell (modelled on the M38).
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… and, asking for a friend, where did you get the wing mirrors?
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These cars are so much fun - loving the turbo fan wheels. @Dewin - where did you find them and how do they fix onto the rim?
Wild Willy’s 3d printing adventure - by NicheRotors
in TC Designs...
Posted
With operational headlights a WR-02 based Wild Willy 2 became a popular choice with my nephew as the sun started to set. At such times, in conjunction with the bikini roof (which is still work in progress), we had the idea of trying to illuminate the instrument cluster given the interior was dark.
Given there isn’t much space behind the dashboard I knew that a light box made of thin plastic alone would not prevent light escaping and thus making the inside of the engine bay glow. So, armed with PowerPoint, I designed some brass that, once etched, would wrap around a thin plastic walled light box and sit atop the standard sticker to reduce any stray light escaping - also had a number of US license plates made at the same time.
Hopefully the pictures explain. The Tamiya sticker is sandwiched between two sheets of brass - I found the whole sticker glowed without the top one in place. The brass is 6 thou (.15 mm) so when the electrics are off it looks just a regular kit.
The last picture shows how the rear view mirror, originally designed for the Wheeler, can be used in conjunction with the bikini roof.