[MrFlippant]

[BAracer]

#79

"2D printing, 3D printing, 4D printing..."

Petrucci started off as usual with some of his latest 2D prints. Not that he wanted them to be 2D, that's just how they keep coming out of the nozzle. Difficult to resolve in 2hrs...could be the printer, or it could be the file. Plan A was to find a 3DP forum dedicated to the make and model of printer he has. Plan B was to buy and Ender 3 like everyone else. At which point a grin started to form on Petrucci's face as he turned to see if he had any available slots on his shelving.

Neil popped in to show off his WSCCoZ prize winning car, a MR Slotcar Porsche white kit. But once everyone has congratulated him through gritted teeth, the truth came out. He couldn't find any instructions for assembling the kit and would welcome any advice from his fellow entrants. "It's not difficult Neil...the pieces only fit in one place, you just need to find where". He had also bought a Tyre Razor Reciptricater Super Bundle from MrF. So that's a Tyre Razor Recipricater, a bag of parts, and a bottle opener to drown your sorrows when you can't work out where all the bits go, even though they only go in one place.

Mike has been spending his housekeeping wisely...three new Revoslots. However, he now has the job of tuning them to create a balanced set of 'club cars' for his track. Lots of advice regarding various aftermarket tyres, and magnet and spacer configurations.

Dennis was straight back into the groove with three projects on his workbench; a Policar Surtees that was now a Mclaren, a Slot.it Nissan GT-R GT3 that just needed a bit of work to axle heights to make it perfect, and a already near perfect Black Arrow Aston Martin DBR..."nice quality parts". Alternatively, Chuck has happy to submit his entry for Ugly Car of the Chat...a well used Baja Buggy acquired with some well used Baja based track. 

Graham 'the shed' gave us an update on the construction of his routed track. He showed us his straight(aways) that were very straight due to a steady hand on the router, and pictures of the support structure beneath the track that is using up all his off cuts (although you wouldn't know it from the look of the build).

Don has been at his spray cans. And as he told us, when you live in an area with zero model shops and 500 car shops, you tend to go for 1:1 car spray paint cans. But as he showed, that won't stop you getting a finish that looked very good to all the experts on the chat. Don agreed that his blue Lola looked the part, but he could live with his red Sideways not quite being up to the same standard as "it was good enough for crashes". Spoken like a true slot racer.

Wayne than gave us a presentation on a recent 4D printing project for a race chassis. So that's 3D but with a time element added as we were able to follow through the process of getting a print of the prototype chassis, trying it out for fitment of parts, tweaking the design and then getting another chassis printed and seeing if that provided a better arrangement. Lots of detail and one way of developing a prototype chassis.

Coincidently, Greg had a presentation for us on how he designed a new chassis from scratch in CAD and developed it so that it fitted the intended body and would allow a Spanish Scalextric digital car to run with a UK Scalextric digital chip. And the reason for all his efforts were explained in a question from Bill..."how do you find a suitable 3D chassis for a particular body?". The simple answer is, you need to find one that says it is suitable. We are not at the stage where you can get generic 3DP chassi that can be adapted to suit a variety of bodies. As Greg highlighted, a body post only needs to be out of position by less than one millimeter and the body won't fit properly.

Bill showed us his recent 3DP exploits...lots and lots of track borders for his Carrera track; with the highlight being a perfectly designed connector piece to join the two parts together. But, such is the way with 3DP, this nirvana needed to be caveated by saying to was perfectly designed to be printed on his printer, at the temperature found in his mancave, day or night. He had experienced some warpage of pieces, but as Greg noted, this could be due to ABS, PLA, PLA+, base layers, IPA, PEI, creep, ASA or PGG. 5DP anyone?

And to finish off, some pictures from Dennis' recent visit to South Africa and his attendance and entry at the 55th National Championships. A brief flash of one result screen was spotted by the eagle eyed on the Chat and showed that he hadn't done badly at all for someone not based at the track. But he finished off with two contrasting photographs, one of the drivers podium containing a health spread of non-60-year-old male trigger fingers, and one of his mother's hand and fingers, that showed off a lifetime of experiences.

[MrFlippant]

For some reason, I expected more about Wayne's bit. ;-)

[Kevan]

I enjoyed Greg's chassis build in Fusion 360

I was fascinated to at last see a picture of a 10 lane track from last century, although I've heard about a 10 laner, google refuses to find one for me.  More info on this please 

Wayne's Slot Car World was full of interesting bits of info, some of which you can miss if you're not fully listening.

A fair few of the regulars are Proxy diehards, it would be great to have a 'setting up a proxy car' special one night, 2 hours won't be enough but it'd be a start.

One thing that for some reason I became aware of for the first time was how good a presenter Greg (and stand-in John) are, maybe like most things worth doing well practice makes perfect.

Looking forward to next week.

[BAracer]

For some reason, I expected more about Wayne's bit. ;-)

I did type a lot more but then someone pressed The Button.

However, I need to declare an interest in the chassis he was designing as I will be racing against it next Sunday. The problem is I think he might have stretched the regulation regarding having to use a zero offset pod firmly screwed to the chassis. Which sort of devalues some of the story he was telling.

But more interestingly, I hopefully will get to meet him and a few other regulars on here at that Derby event.

[MrFlippant]

LOL, that darned button! ;-)

Yes, Gary watched the show... hopefully Wayne has time for any corrections needed to participate.

And thanks, Kev. Can't you tell I'm a natural? ;-)

[MrFlippant]

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[KensRedZed]

I came racing home from work hoping to attend, only to realize I didn't notice the time change. I must be getting old.

[MrFlippant]

What time change? :P

[MrFlippant]

(Deleted old links to avoid accidental clicking.)