A very talented model engineer on the Model Engine Maker forum is building a 'bar stock' 1:3 scale Mercedes Benz W165 Grand Prix race car engine from the late 1930's. He does use his shop CNC for many parts but interestingly, he designs in 2D not 3D CAD. Anyway, what started as an unrelated side conversation turned to his forthcoming challenge of some very funky coolant & vent pipes that need to begin & end in rather exact positions/orientations & snake through the various engine components true to the FS engine. You can see a collection of slopes & angles & radii. One of them Siamese merge into a single larger section pipe. The FS engine I imagine was sections of pipe & fabricated sections welded together, not easy to replicate at 8-9mm OD
I volunteered to give it a crack because, well, just cool to have any involvement with a project like this. But I was also very interested in the end result which was 3DP in metal. He posted a picture on his build thread so I can show a few pics from my end. Actually sweeping a pipe section along a curving 3D path was somewhat familiar territory to me. The real work was was orientating & merging his 3 primary 2D views to interpolate & generate the desired path between them. So I learned some useful CAD techniques along the way too. After some 3DP plastic validation tester to confirm they fit & did not intersect other components he ordered the metal ones. One hiccup was apparently the first online estimate did not match the actual price quotation so he ended up switching print services. I got the impression the first estimate is kind of bot generated that initially assesses overall size & material for a quick cost turnaround. But if the part has complexity to the printing process (shape factor, thickness limits, things like that) then cost could increase when a human actually evaluates it. I'm not sure all services work this way but a useful takeaway point.
link
beginning of project thread
I volunteered to give it a crack because, well, just cool to have any involvement with a project like this. But I was also very interested in the end result which was 3DP in metal. He posted a picture on his build thread so I can show a few pics from my end. Actually sweeping a pipe section along a curving 3D path was somewhat familiar territory to me. The real work was was orientating & merging his 3 primary 2D views to interpolate & generate the desired path between them. So I learned some useful CAD techniques along the way too. After some 3DP plastic validation tester to confirm they fit & did not intersect other components he ordered the metal ones. One hiccup was apparently the first online estimate did not match the actual price quotation so he ended up switching print services. I got the impression the first estimate is kind of bot generated that initially assesses overall size & material for a quick cost turnaround. But if the part has complexity to the printing process (shape factor, thickness limits, things like that) then cost could increase when a human actually evaluates it. I'm not sure all services work this way but a useful takeaway point.
link
Mercedes-Benz W165 Grand Prix engine in 1:3 scale
Mercedes-Benz W165 Grand Prix engine in 1:3 scale
www.modelenginemaker.com
beginning of project thread
Mercedes-Benz W165 Grand Prix engine in 1:3 scale
Mercedes-Benz W165 Grand Prix engine in 1:3 scale
www.modelenginemaker.com
