Valkyrie Designs - Lockheed Electra Junior

[Jim Barry]

It's not easy adding details. It is some tedious work, but I'm getting some game on here with rivets, panels ,vents, and exhausts and even tread pattern on flattened tires. Having learned CAD in 1984 when just rotating a cube would bring your workstation to its knees, it's just stunning it will display so much moving geometry, shade it and not sweat. I do have concerns that so many rivets, each one being its own body will be problem but the R3C-2 had 2000 tubes curved over its wings so maybe I should stop worrying about that. Something is slowing down the save time. We'll see! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mozart]

I believe Peter added somewhere in the region of 18000 rivets to the Typhoon Jim! 

[RCPlym]

49 minutes ago, mozart said:

I believe Peter added somewhere in the region of 18000 rivets to the Typhoon Jim! 

 

One at a time... 😂😂😂😂😂😂 (not really!)

[RCPlym]

1 hour ago, Jim Barry said:

it will display so much moving geometry, shade it and not sweat

 

I like sitting back and rotating designs and watching the shading and highlighting shift. Changing 'material' can show some showy effects!

[Jim Barry]

Testing the print here with the rivets. They are a little proud so I need to back them off a little on the front, but in I love the size. I can so easily adjust the size if needed since all rivets map back to a master. Edit the master and they all fall in line. 
 

ok back to the grindstone 
 

 

[AlexM]

Very impressive project, including the propeller, something I'm struggling to create in 3D to this day. Would you share some hints on how you made them?

 

May I suggest that the cowling would benefit from a bit more "roundness"/more circular segments, since the wireframe model is still pretty visible on the printed part? It would be difficult to sand them smooth without eliminating the raised rivets. I get good results with round cowlings when they are all around based on about 200 circular segments. 

 

Cheers

Alex

[Hubert Boillot]

The cowlings « pattern » looks like a result of the output format and poly count …

I had an identical issue with some parts I created in Alibre and exported to the slicer as .obj files … Problem solved by going to high-resolution .stl files … But their size grew fast to a few Gb … To the point where the computer was struggling to produce them, or Chitubox to open them …

 

Alex’s point is valid though. Th rivets detail will be lost by the necessary work to sand the cowlings to a more acceptable shape …

 

Another design question Jim. Have you tried fitting the engines into the one-piece cowlings ? Given the shape of the cowlings, I doubt the engines will shoehorn in the back opening …

For the same reason, I had to split the cowling on my conversion of the Lukgraph Duck to a -4 version 

 

 

 

 

 

Hubert

 

[mozart]

What I know about 3D printing could be written on the nail of my (little) little finger, but as an experienced modeller and aviation enthusiast I can see that some surface refinement is needed with those cowlings Jim, even more so since my potential model will have a bright metal, unforgiving, finish.

[airscale]

this happens in rhino at least when the mesh settings to turn a polysurface into a mesh for the stl print file is set too coarse. You can be looking at a lovely smooth cowling on screen and get this when you print it because the minimum sizes of all the polygons the process creates are too large. They will go almost infinitely small, resulting in a totally smooth surface

 

these are the mesh settings I use in Rhino - if you show the problem to ChatGPT it will tell you how to correct it in whatever program you are using

 

 

nice work, but I think you can get more out of the design by refining those prints

 

TTFN

Peter

 

[RCPlym]

This is an extreme example of what the above settings can change...

 

The chunky version is set to a 1mm mesh giving 2664 facets. It takes my ancient laptop a blink of an eye to render.

The smoother version is set to 0.001mm and results in over 1.5 million facets. It takes my ancient laptop almost one minute to render.

 

 

Edited August 8 by RCPlym

[RCPlym]

22 hours ago, Jim Barry said:

Edit the master and they all fall in line. 

 

The joys of parametrics!

[Jim Barry]

Thanks everybody for weighing in. I’m looking into the issue today. Most everything has printed really well to date but I don’t think I’ve printed a large cylinder. The conversion to the STL file is, as Peter suggests, probably the culprit. 

[RCPlym]

1 hour ago, Jim Barry said:

conversion to the STL file is, as Peter suggests, probably the culprit. 

 

100% definitely.

Super thing is, it absolutely won't alter your designs.

My ones looked like lego first off! 🤣🤣🤣 

FreeCAD that I'm using can export stl at any stage to check bits, but they are naturally all 'faceted'. When the final MESH export is on at 'print' quality, the results are staggeringly smooth.

[Jim Barry]

Ok, I found by going to the mesh workspace and converting the solid bodies into meshes via the "Tessellate" function and selecting "high" I get much smoother rendering when I then export as an STL file. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SO BEFORE: Blocky 

 

 

 

 

 

And After. Smooth        This does multiply the file size by 5.  Elegoo Satellite had no problem opening this. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to Hubert's concern about the engine fit. Yes, to get it  in there, I will print the front of the cowl separately. Something like this. if you want to show off the engines perhaps micro magnets like Jay W's Jug. Maybe I can design fitting features that are magnet ready ?? 

 

 

[Breaker]

7 minutes ago, Jim Barry said:

Maybe I can design fitting features that are magnet ready ?? 

 

 

 

Utterly batsh*t useless idea. Make them threaded so they screw on and off! 🤪