simonr

A little gap, just a couple of weeks! A few people in SFX have been talking about building a home flight simulator for a couple of years. We've come up with all kinds of big and or expensive options but this seemed to tick the most boxes. One of them has written an Arduino (ESP32) interface to X-Plane which calculates the kinematics for a 3 or 6 Axis. There are a variety of 3D Printable yokes / joysticks out there. Coupled with VR Goggles - it could be quite good! Once we've got it working, it will be published fully open source.

I decided just to get on with it - and ordered a press (sort of a late Xmas prezzie for the workshop!). I have some parts I want to cut & fold - so it's not a bad time. This is what I ordered. This is what I'm going to build! A 3 Axis office chair (as you do).

I'll just keep quiet here.......🙂

If it's only to get it in the garage door - you could drop it down to just a few psi. You just need enough that the tyre isn't damaged by the rim touching the inside of the tread. I used to have to do the exact same thing on a 90 with 35"s. It lowered the roof by several inches, enough to get it inside. Si

15psi seems to be OK under most circumstances - I never (as far as I can remember) had a tyre come off the bead at that. I've run as low as 4psi - but soon regretted it and later fitted beadlocks. Then you can run anything down to practically zero.

That's really cool Steve! I'd missed the thread about your bender too. I also have a lump of press tooling which I've been beaning to do something like that with, but have never got around to it. I ought to buy / build a press first!

That's a quality motor! 🤣 While some of the 'experimental' things I've built have had a lick of the ugly-brush, at least I've had the good grace to cut them up at the end rather than inflict them on someone else!

I have a RRS with TDV6, currently at 174,000 miles, of which I've driven 70,000. The only problem was one of the induction hoses splitting - but that was easily fixed. Paul Bass (Challenger4x4) suggested I buy one with over 100k on the clock as most of the expensive things happen before then. Thus far, he's been right. My plan for it from day one was to drive it until the engine died, then convert it to electric. Unfortunately, 10 years on, it just won't die! I think it has outlasted my enthusiasm for building my own EV!

🙂 That's great! Angus thinks so too!

You can mount them in the little metal housings / covers for the rear lights, on top of the wheel boxes. I suspect the Mud Speaker housings either fit over or replace these - so that would be the obvious place to mount them.

Rather than gluing parts together, I usually print something similar to the lugs on Jigsaw Puzzle pieces so they snap together with perfect alignment. Also, for Automotive parts, seal them with laquer. The PLA absorbs water which can make it swell / change shape. Sealing with a coat of laquer seems to largely stop this, as well as helping glue the layers together better. First coat usually soaks into the print. Second coat stays on the surface & gives a potentially glossy finish - if that's what you want.

Neal 🙂

It should be able to fold flat - but I've seen the TUAM (Tuner Unit Amplifier) boxes fitted in unhelpful places on the wing before now, which might cause a problem. Fitted where they're supposed to go, the screen will fold. It's not quite the same, but I used to have a S3 FFR Lightweight.

I don't know about the volvo - but on a series, it's built in to the steering relay. Just a friction damper - but a damper none the less. While it's true that if there's no play in any of the components, if the castor & toe are set correctly, you don't need damping - but when is that ever the case with a Land Rover? Long ago, back when I had a Series 2, I had the same problem. I changed & adjusted everything that could be changed or adjusted - but the wobble persisted. Eventually I dismantled the relay (complete pig to remove I remember). Inside there was a spring, 2 thrust washers and two tapered friction bushings. There wasn't much left of the bushings and the thrust washers were paper thin. I replaced everything but the shaft - and the wobble vanished! But Hey, what do I know! 😜

My bet......Steering Damper Most other things (other than play in TRE's etc) seem to manifest at 50mph+ Steering Damper seems to at around 30. That's my experience anyway! The bushes on mine were fine but the damper itself had almost no resistance in the middle of it's stroke, where it spends most of it's life.

They've got some great ideas amongst the product lines. I like the idea of telescopic wing mirrors - and the wiper wheel-boxes. The prices look reasonable to me, when you look at the finish & apparent precision, they are not just made to a cost. I wonder if the owner is on here somewhere? Si

Mike - why are you not going for a Fibreglass roof? (or has your day-job changed?) If the matting is still too expensive - what about using something else? In the olden days, all kinds of things were used with resin to make a stiff board - cotton, wool blankets, even paper.

I came up with the cable rigging scheme for the car sliding through the shop, such that it would always land in the moving truck. The car was being towed by the truck through lots of pulleys. I did the upside down Armadillo. I was doing the Armadillo flip - but it was just too dangerous to shoot in the centre of Tbilisi. A half ton, 50cm diameter slug being fired using compressed air at 200 Bar - could do a lot of damage if it went wrong. We did build it though. That was the only big stunt that was CGI. It's a shame SFX didn't get a mention. Stunts & the Director specify what they want to happen - but we have to figure out how, then make it happen. I have high hopes for Fast10 & 11 - we've got some really good people & interesting ideas to push the bounds a bit further.

We've used hover-skates before. The problem, at least using them on set is the noise of the air escaping. The sound designers want to add their own effects and really want anything we build to be as silent as possible - even if it makes the correct noise for what it is! However, I've not used ones as big as that - perhaps with the surface area, because the pressure can be lower, there's less air escaping so quieter? If you want shot of them - I'm sure we could come up with a suitable consideration!

Definitely Land Rover - no tolerance specified on the dimensions!

We built a test rig, simulating one corner of the vehicle to see how much energy we could absorb on impact & that went fairly well. The results were within the sort of loadings I think an axle could survive. The second rig is almost complete, using a D2 Front axle (worst case, being the heavier of front & rear) - I want to see if I can break it! What I want to know is, will the axle break at decelerations lower than those that will break the driver. I'm going to order some adjustable bypass dampers, either air or coilover to test with this rig. It may be that the spring+damper is enough on it's own to absorb the impact - or maybe not. That's the point of testing. There are actually a number of other things we're testing with this and the previous rig - but I can't say as it will totally give the game away! I'll update the thread properly once the film is released. Once we know what the axle has to survive, we can go to Mike and say we need something which will survive a certain moment load / deceleration - then analyse his solution before testing it for real.

That does look bloody good! I wonder (hope) if they will release 3D CAD models of the parts? Being able to accurately design add-on bits would be great. Si

Why don't you post some photos of where it needs welding? Then we can see if it's worth repairing or ought to be replaced. I'm happy to assist (for free) if I can.

I agree with this. If the bearings cannot seat in the saddle, the only thing it can do is deform / ripple to take up the extra length. This will manifest as a gap between the crank bearing face & the shell, possibly wide enough to loose oil pressure. I've seen this on other types of high tolerance sleeve bearings. If you lubricate the sleeve (to make it easier to slide in to the hole) it actually makes it not fit at all!

I saw one of these in the sort of cammo they use, on the M25 last Monday morning (at about 5am). It was obviously a Land Rover vehicle, but I didn't know what sort. Now I do! It didn't look too ugly - but there was nothing about it that rang out as a great bit of design, just more of the same "sucked-sweet" look. Si