Saturday, August 18, 2012

Big Week This Week With Big Progress

This week at the Tinker's Workshop has been nothing short of crazy with all the progress that has been made on the Makerbot electric car model, my home life and believe it or not my dentist!  First off the progress on the electric car model was put on hold for a few days while I have been sorting out  other possible unexpected projects.  My faithful 17 1/2 year old Sony TV set died this week so I have been researching online for a new stand for the new flat screen TV that will replace it.  The problem has been finding a new stand that will fit on a small special platform in my living room where my  very old and now very dead TV decided to die in peace.  After a lot of research I found what I need so I have ordered the stand rather than try to duplicate it.  Simple was cheaper to do so.  Scratch that project off my to do list. 
  Along with this going on I had a dentist appointment this week to fix a cavity that managed to show up.  In the process of getting this taken care of I got into a conversation with my dentist about my blog site and the projects that I have been posting on it.  He was so impressed with what he saw that he has asked me to help him design a new piece of dental equipment!  You just never know what and where tinkering will take you. So that project is in the works for sure.  So without going any further here is the photos of the latest progress on the Makerbot electric car model for this week.


The floor for the chassis has been getting longer now with only a few more parts to print to complete it.  Lots of metric machine screws have been needed to keep everything together.  I am really happy with the alignment of the parts and with very little fussing to make it all work. 



These two photos are the front section of the frame for the model.  The panels that are mounted in the this portion of the model are the firewall and the motor controller mounting panel which is just ahead of the dash that you will see in the next few photos.


Here is the floor assembly with the front suspension installed and the front frame and passenger compartment side rails put together.  The dash mounted easily to hold the front and mid sections of the frame together.  The roll bar I printed in two pieces so that I could get a round bar instead of a square.  These parts were fastened together using modeling glue and then inserted into mating mounts in the side framework.  I set the roll bar up so that it can be removed if for some reason it should get broken (Heaven Forbid!).  If the roll bar was glued in place and it did get broken a lot more parts would have to be replaced to fix the model.  Just would not even want to think about going through that process so this is a nice precaution in the design. The white bar sitting next to these assemblies is a one foot ruler just to show you how large this model is getting to be.  


The steering wheel slide into the dash and mating mounting points in the front framework perfectly. I just need to print a new gear for the rack and pinion steering to make it all work. The new dash that I printed last week really stands out now with the black and white gauges in the  red framework.





I am printing the last few pieces of the frame and floor today and will post this progress when I get these ready for mounting.  I wanted to get this out while I had the chance to show you how it all is shaping up.  I will hold off in mounting the frame to the floor until more of the interior parts and electrical components have been made and mounted on to the floor of the model.  It will make it simpler to get these in place without the frame being in the way.  So with all that has been going on this week it is nice to see progress once again on this project.  Forward is always good!  Total hours printing at this point 86 hours 4 minutes. 

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