Heavy duty axles to survive hard landings?

[uninformed]

8 hours ago, muddy said:

Wait, so all those nurses can't actually measure blood pressure? what about the plumbers?😆

All I know is people eat a hell of a lot of pizza and can’t clean their own pools….

[LiftedDisco]

@simonr Did you ever get to speak to Mike Brown @discomikey at Blackbird Industries?

 

If not, PM me and I’ll pass on contact details...

[discomikey]

Hi Simon, 

 

I've dropped you a PM with my contact details, sorry I've missed this thread until now. 

 

I think we have exactly what you need in our EVO axles. I'm happy to discuss options, widths, drive ratios diff offset, and stud pattern are all open to your specification. And if you need something even more specific I'd be happy to work with you to come up with the right solution. 

 

Cheers,

Mike

[simonr]

1 hour ago, discomikey said:

Hi Simon, 

 

I've dropped you a PM with my contact details, sorry I've missed this thread until now. 

 

I think we have exactly what you need in our EVO axles. I'm happy to discuss options, widths, drive ratios diff offset, and stud pattern are all open to your specification. And if you need something even more specific I'd be happy to work with you to come up with the right solution. 

 

Cheers,

Mike

Thanks Mike,

I'll give you a call in the week.  We're going to be testing the suspension over the next few weeks (a single wheel on a test rig) to get a better handle on the amount of force the wheel / knuckle / axle will see.

Your axles are the best option I've seen so far, particularly as they can be adapted to suit the requirement.

Si

[Stellaghost]

@simonr any more snippets on your axle project regards Stephen

[simonr]

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.

[Stellaghost]

11 minutes ago, simonr said:

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.

Nothing to do with the above but might be useful for your future tasks, I have for want of better words 4 aluminium hover boards, used in conjunction with a manifold and compressed air for moving heavy equipment across a smooth floor, think hover craft, boards are a metre ish square sure they were used on equipment from whatever up to 30/40 tonnes. Will post some pictures up if you want a better idea let me know regards Stephen

[simonr]

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!

 

[Stellaghost]

29 minutes ago, simonr said:

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!

 

So just had a quick check they support a max off 22 tonnes each at 4 bar pressure

Manifold

bottom

top

side

My foot in photo gives you some scale

They are not going anywhere so no rush if you want them regards Stephen 

[Ed Poore]

5 minutes ago, Stellaghost said:

They are not going anywhere so no rush if you want them regards Stephen 

You mean you're not using them to move your MOG axles around? 

[FridgeFreezer]

This thread is turning into some real tech awesomeness - both on the original topic and with little tidbits like Stephen's slides.

[steve b]

Air skates are so useful , super low profile lifting and within the footprint of the lift .

Steve

[FridgeFreezer]

Just came across this which shows some very cool rigs - the little flippers are something I'd never seen before, would love to see how they work:

 

[simonr]

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.

[discomikey]

The size of the cannon installed to the chassis of the 110 that they flipped in spectre was serious! Nearly 10" in diameter and about 18" long from memory! There's some fascinating engineering that goes into stunts! 

[missingsid]

As I already said being Mr Grimpy, I don't watch these kind of films since oddly, I can do pretend films but not ones trying to be real films. But when ever there is a car flip in a film I just look for the cannon. So Simons work and this tread is great and interesting. I'm really interested in how you test your theories out, like on a quarter of an axle.

[simonr]

I can finally reveal what this was for!

If you go to 5m 20s....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VSK1P2Yh-k

We ended up using Disco 2 axles - mainly because time was too short for Mikey's.  I will use them in future though!

Thanks for all the help above.

[Snagger]

How did it work out?  We’re they strong enough?

[Ed Poore]

Assuming it's the car that flipped looks like the wheel / hub assembly snapped off.

[simonr]

The hub did break off on that one - but there were several jumps where they survived.

The original requirement was to use hydraulic cylinders for the jumping, such that it could jump repeatedly.  Then the plot evolved such that it needed more traditional cannons firing slugs, but fitted to the outside of the vehicle where they would be visible and play a part in the action.

 

At the very least from this video, you can see how much stuff we do for real, even if it gets tidied up with CG afterwards.  Things like the ball smashing through the bus took a great deal of coordination - as well as building a drivable but pre-weakened bus.  I suspect a lot of the stuff in this video and in the film, everyone will assume is CG, start to finish but the surprise to me has been how much of it is done for 'real' even if we use rigging to bend physics to our will sometimes.

[FridgeFreezer]

37 minutes ago, simonr said:

I suspect a lot of the stuff in this video and in the film, everyone will assume is CG, start to finish

I think the real stuff always shines through, CG is incredible these days but never quite has the same look as something real, as long as it's shot well.

I watch Corridor Crew on Yotube talk about stunts and effects, and what surprised me is how much stuff they did for real in the Marvel movies that ended up looking fake because of the atrocious direction/editing.

Most of the modern superhero stuff is so boring I may as well be watching someone playing a computer game.

[simonr]

1 hour ago, FridgeFreezer said:

I may as well be watching someone playing a computer game

Sad, but true!

[ThreePointFive]

I've found CGI looks like it's getting worse, if anything.

I would wish we could watch 2 hours of the stunts and being talked through the technicalities of shooting this stuff than watch one second of the finished F&F trash though.

[simonr]

1 hour ago, ThreePointFive said:

I would wish we could watch 2 hours of the stunts and being talked through the technicalities of shooting this stuff than watch one second of the finished F&F trash though.

That kind of sums up my job! 🙂

 

[FridgeFreezer]

13 hours ago, ThreePointFive said:

I would wish we could watch 2 hours of the stunts and being talked through the technicalities of shooting this stuff than watch one second of the finished F&F trash though.

 

Me too! I mentioned these guys earlier - despite the default stupid video thumbnails that have become mandatory on youtube their videos are actually pretty good and they got a lot of knowledgeable folks in to talk about stuff: