TimNT
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Posts posted by TimNT
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On 5/4/2025 at 7:45 PM, thaipham101 said:
Sorry guys,
I know everyone is anxious about it and that I'm wayyyy past the promised window of delivery, just know that I'm not scamming anyone and I gotta get it done since it's my livelyhood too, I dropped verything and threw a bunch of money out the window to do this.
I just want y'all to know that I've finally ironed things out and packing things up for shipping as we speak. Right now I can average about 1 kits a day with my Jupiter SE and Saturn 2 running but once the SOB Saturn 4 Ultra is fixed I can bump that up to probably 2-3 kits a day, if nothing bad happens.
I'm not looking for sympathy or making any excuse, it's all on me, just some background so you guys have more understanding and feel less in the dark.
Anyway, technical first. I bought the Saturn 4 Ultra last Sept because the Saturn 2 started having bad Z layer shift due to its aging z rail and stepper motor, plus the S4U greatly reduces the pull force on prints and in turn print faster and I can use smaller supports, less things for y'all to clean up. Around the same time I also got the Jupiter SE but that thing grips tighter than a gorilla and I wasn't able to make any good model part out of it. I print at 0.03mm layer line so on the S2 and Jupiter SE it takes me 24 hours or so to print the fuselage, while on the S4U it's about 11 hours for example. Well, that printer is good when it works and it doesn't work half the time. It's mired with problems, first they updated the firmware and its AA gone to ****, making my prints look like it comes out of some 2k printer, not 12k.
Got that dialed in with new AA setting and the "auto leveling" bed started showing signs that it's not leveled by making stress fracture patterns on the PFA and creating pinhole leaks on it.
Took apart the bed and manually leveled it, got some good prints out of it, and the LCD went bad at 3 months/197 hours in, despite LCD having typical life of 2000 hours. Had to work with Elegoo to get a new screen and that printer is a bit to replace screen. I accidentally pulled a capacitor off the mainboard while replacing the LCD because they figured it was a good idea to put a capacitor next to where the UV light cable plugs in and smear hot glue all over it, so I had to solder it back on.
I thought that was it but then things start to get cut off mid-print. Took me a while to figure out that they had a terrible design and the LCD ribbon cable plugs into the extended ribbon cable connecting to the mainboard right where it would get caught on the UV light shroud and interrupting the LCD signal, sending nothing to the LCD and causing missing layers.
Thought that was it, I'm good to go, then the replacement screen goes bad just like the original one, at around 3 months, at least this time I got around 500 hours on it before it broke.
So, now, I've got a new set of rails and Z motor for the Saturn 2 and changed the FEP on the Jupiter SE to PFA which greatly reduce pull force and they both are printing fine now. The Jupiter SE is used mostly for bigger parts, in one go I can print 3 rear fuselages in around 17 hours, 2 front fuselages in 11 hours, 3 sets of inboard wings and 2 sets of outboard wings in around 12 hours. I don't use it for smaller parts because its pull force is still too much for those. Even then, I have to redo support work on many of them because they worked on the S4U but was too small for the S2.
Elegoo refused to send me a replacement screen for warranty, citing that the warranty is based on the printer, not the screen that they sent me, and since it's just barely past 6 months since I got the printer already, they wouldn't warranty it anymore, but they gave me 10% off a new screen on their website instead, but that thing is on back order until the end of May. That's a blow to the face to a loyal customer, considering that my PC's PSU gave out at the same time and Corsair sent me a newer model to replace it despite it being 3 months past the 10-year warranty period and it was totally normal for PSUs to go out after 10 years.
That's about the technical hurdles.
Things are chaotic in my personal life too.
First, finally I proposed to my girlfriend last March and she said yes. We'll have our wedding late April 2026 and the 2 T of TTModelworks will now be together.
Sadly, that's the only nice thing in my life and it becomes an issue too.
My fiance's family are Southwestern and Southern Buddhist Vietnamese. Her grandpa was an officer in the ARVN and their lineage traced back to some government official/land owner back in feudal Vietnam, so it's natural for them to have a deep hatred toward Northern Vietnamese and Christian, which is not really logical but well... Her parents and her grandpa love me though, it's just her other relatives and older brother.
The thing is, my family originated from the North (my grandparents and the older uncles and aunts moved to the South in 1954 and my parents and the younger siblings as well as me was born in the South), I was born in the South but I sound a look nothing like a Southern Vietnamese, and we're Christian, with my parents being extremely religious to the point of borderline radical. My parents hated Southwestern Vietnamese because if you're Vietnamese, you'll know the stereotype that Northern Vietnamese are the bean counter type while South and Southwestern Vietnamese are the YOLO type, which is kinda true with the older people in my fiance's family. And my parents wants to force my fiance to convert to Christian and they dislike non-Christians.
I'm the first one in my family across at least 4 generations to marry out of my religion, and my fiance is also the first across at least 8 or 9 generations in her family to do so, which is a pretty big point. That have led to countless arguments and stressful days, which, along with the preparation for the wedding, really did me in, I was going to give up on everything so many times but my fiance was always by my side to keep me going. I was going to start shipping things out in late Feb but dealing with both sides and with wedding vendors took all my energy.
I can't count how many time our families threatened to disown us and don't go to our wedding anymore but whatever, I have orders to fulfill and a wedding to prepare.
Thank you for reading my Ted talk and I'll see the kits delivered to you guys soon. My plan right now is having all preorders shipped within May, also I'll have some new announcements later this week.
I'm very grateful for y'all patience and support. It wouldn't have happened without you guys.
This has nothing to do with large scale airplanes but I just have to chime in given you had spilled the beans: coming from a guy with similar background and family dynamics, my suggestion to you is to elope and forget about the traditional wedding formalities. They would spoil all the fun of getting married. We did and have no regrets.
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Where is the kit?
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If I understood Thai correctly, he would be producing an entirely new kit of the AD-5 then a kit of the AD-5W, not just a conversion set to modify Paul's A-1E conversion. Please correct me if I am wrong, Thai.
Tim
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Hmm. Interesting, the VNAF never warmed up to the B-57, especially after Major Bien's demise. The program lasted less than 2 years. I was more hoping for an F-35A/B or A-37.
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Hi Thai,
I think that it is very important that you produce a very accurate first kit, so please take your time to study the material and pictures available on the internet and in real life. There is a real A-1E (not AD-5W) at the Aerospace Museum of California in McClellan AFB, Sacramento.
Aerospace Museum of California
(916) 643-3192You may want to come out to take pictures and measurements of it before you commit yourself to mass production.
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There is also a Vought A-7 on display, among others, and we badly need a SLUF in 1/32 scale (the only kit in existence is the Trumpeter one which is awful!)
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Hi Thai,
My brother and I grew up in Vietnam, so the A-1 Skyraider was near and dear to our hearts, my brother being an A-1 aficionado much more than I am. After I told him about your A-1E project, he was very enthusiastic but soon started to point out a few errors:
1. The airplane in Riverside, CA which you inspected was an AD-5W with its radar radome removed. Its underbelly is different from the AD-5, the latter being flat and carrying a center pylon.
https://images.app.goo.gl/YXC6Swq77c5Bt3pJA
2. The shape of the fillet of the vertical stabilizer is different and there should be no crease on the vertical portion of the stabilizer.
We would like your first baby to be as perfect as you could make it, so I hope that you would not mind our input.
Tim
- thaipham101, Kagemusha, paul fisher and 2 others
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5
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Hi Thai,
The horizontal stabilizers on the actual aircraft seem to have straighter edges than the ones on your prototype: can you double check their shape?
https://images.app.goo.gl/cNy9Tjng5xbVJyuo7
The horizontal stabilizers on your sample have rounder edges, reminiscent of the Revell 1/40 AD-6 ones.
Thank you for your attention, I am very interested in the kit. I presume that the kit will come with VNAF markings (It has to.)
Tim
TTModelworks 1/32 AD-5 (A-1E) Skyraider
in Vendors Board
Posted
I received the long awaited A-1E today: my first impression is, for a first attempt and many hardware issues encountered during its production, the kit looks pretty darn good! The French would have said: "Oh là là! Coup d'essai, coup de maître."
Kudos to Thai Pham for a job well done. QA notwithstanding, the other hiccups that I noticed so far are chips on very thin parts. A foam wrap should help.
Hope that things will go smoothly for Thai from this point on, and I look forward to future productions from TT Modelworks.
Whar about an 1/32 F-5 series, Thai?