Quote:
Originally Posted by Nige55
I created this project using some SW parts, and it got many views on Facebook, and a nice magazine article with Velocity RC magazine - https://www.facebook.com/NRC32Project/
I really love your Hornet project, and it's great to see it posted here on Oople !
Regards,
Nigel. |
Hi Nigel, Thanks! I love your NRC32. Looks amazing. Does it drive well too?
Alberto, the designer of the AMPro Engineering we're using, has 3D printed himself a half-scale Hornet chassis. Really cool!
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Time to get on with the build. Again, I'm posting this with a bit of a backlog, but we're almost up to date now. Only one more post to go.
"We've been busy the past week with filming the next episode of our video series, and this meant that all the 3D printed parts needed to be prepped for assembly.
The first thing to do was cut all the sprues and clean up all the parts.
Next up was to drill out each of the holes to the right size. Here's what sizes I've used;
Body/wing posts: 1.5mm
Kingpin and holes for screws to pass through: 3mm
Where M2 thread needed to be: 1.8mm
Where M3 thread needed to be: 2.4mm
After drilling each of the holes to the correct size, I ran a tap with M2 and M3 thread through them.
M2 was needed for the dampershafts and mounts, since the dampers we're using are made for a 1/16th truggy or something. Pintopower recommended these and I was happy that a black colour was an option. They are cheap Chinese ebay units, so let's see how well they perform. The springs are nice and soft, which was the main reason to go for 1/16th dampers.
The wheels are one of my favorite items. Just like some of the Stadiumtruck wheels and the HPI Vintage line of wheels they look small on the face, but actually run big, low sidewall tires. The faces still need to be painted, but eventually it will look like the car is still on its 1.5" (or is it 1.7?) wheels while we're using modern 2.2" tires. The tires I chose for now are the Tamiya DF03 tires, just so we can stay in the Tamiya family. If I ever bring the car to a race, I'm sure other tires that perform better will find their way on to the car.
To fit the C-hubs I cut down some screwpins I had left over from a TA02 build and made them fit nicely. The hubs still bind a little bit on the pins so I might have to drill them a bit bigger (3.1mm).
Here you can see the new wingmount Pintopower designed for us. It is made to be used with the AMPro wing and fits great.
While most of the AMPro parts are direct replacements for the factory parts, some require some effort to fit. The easiest of the bunch is the transmission brace/battery mount. It's moments like these where I wish I had more than two hands to hold stuff in place. All you need to do is drill two 3mm holes, but aligning them in a tight space is tricky.
We're using the canti-lever front suspension, and again the parts used for this don't line up with any factory holes. The front pieces that the actual canti-lever is mounted to is easy to install, as you can use the factory damperstay to align it. The dampermount however is really tricky. I used pictures of Pintopowers own Superfly to figure out where it should go and got it perfectly symetrical on both sides
succes!
When you buy the canti-lever set, AMPro mentions the bearings you need for the lever. It's pretty straight forward how all the pieces go together, however I did have to use a couple of shims to make sure the lever rotates without any play or binding. I used a tiny (small outer diameter) 0.3x3mm shim behind the bearing and another standard 3mm Tamiya shim behind that. This keeps the bearing from binding on the plastic mount and allows you to tighten the screw.
There you go, a fully 3D printed front suspension!
The last thing to do is get some ball-ends and make the links. It was already past midnight while taking these pictures and I ran out of turnbuckles a while ago so the top link is missing in the pictures. I did get some the day after, so don't worry about the loose ballends of crazy camber in some pictures.
And that concludes the pre-assembly of the car. Here's some extra pictures of the car with and without bodypanels.
And some more showing off!"
