Here's a trip down the memory lane, so to speak..
Had nothing to do so looked through some screencaps I had on my photo accounts of most of the 'concepts' I've done..
Been through so many phases that I can't even remeber with this thing.
The very first one:
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/BEFOREjpg.jpg
^Now that's just embarassing
Still had the all the same features that I will include in the 2.0 version though.. so will give minor props to myself! 👍 (still maintaining to be hugely embarassing though!) But that really
is the starting point of this project, the first picture I asked an opinion for from an 'outsider' - a friend of mine. (thanks zabeu for all the honest opinions & comments 👍)
Next one, almost the same though - but still not quite:
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/ScreenHunter_36Jul072006-1.jpg
^Seems obvious that I was still very much into the 3-screen stuff.
(maybe it just made the 3d-model look better..)
As of now it's clear to me that at this point I basically had no clue of what I'm doing..
But it was a learning process and just something I did beside all other things so I partly forgive myself!
.
.
Moving to the next phase... I think at this point I have not saved much model pics or then I've deleted those at some point, only ones I could find (that are really close to the one built as a proto):
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/AFTERjpg-1.jpg
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/AFTER2jpg.jpg?t=1324069511
Which actually was to be my first prototype, and from which I learned tremendously. There's nothing as important as testing things in real life with these kind of things. You can always try to imagine how things will be / behave, but in the end you'll notice that there were many things missed in the thought process (that might even seem obvious now). Maybe some things did go as thought also, but in general was a great learning experience (behind scenes info: still haven't got the bill for the plywoods that actually were CNC machined & painted
It was a little family company, and could I say the manager was very laid back. When I asked for the bill when I went to pick up the parts, he just said that I'd get the bill at some point..
)
Here's pics of the real thing:
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/Picture072.jpg?t=1324069638
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/Picture077.jpg?t=1324070100
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/Picture068.jpg?t=1324070459
After that I think it took a good while to get the next one out. I tried to apply all I had learned and the end result proved that I did learn something. But I see clearly now that there were still a lot to learn (and I'm sure there still is).
So this is what came out of that process.. (can't find any pics of the phases meanwhile)
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6033/6378397507_993763dce5_z.jpg
And the real:
http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1090/5103008262_57ebf43c64_z.jpg
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4131/5061026914_4634140a7f_z.jpg
The end result with that one was really great. There were still many issues for me to take care of though, and that really came obvious only after I had put a few of them together & used one for a while myself. And I hope also that you notice the difference in looks with the real one and the 3d model. It's just a fact that in real life all these kind of things look much better and if I may say so when you see something in person that also surpasses any photo with almost the same margin. 👍
Even though everything that I wanted was possible (adjustment wise) & the rig was plenty sturdy (more than enough), the process for both was still much too complicated. Too many parts, too much hassle putting it all together, too troublesome to adjust. (still remeber the comment form Mr.Latte in the early days of the first thread - you were right
) Can't even begin to think how the first model seen also here would have been like!!
These things mentioned all of course meant there were a lot of unnecessary cost still built in.
From here on I had a much clearer vision & knowledge of what to do and how. Here's some pics of the stages between the latest build model & the time I posted this thread.
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/ScreenHunter_08Oct261759.jpg?t=1324072838
--
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/ScreenHunter_01Oct311941.jpg?t=1324073481
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/ScreenHunter_04Nov031434.jpg?t=1324073377
--
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/ScreenHunter_05Nov111446.jpg?t=1324073649
--
And this is the exact model I had for many months in my HD (when I had a long break with this project) Before suddenly getting a brain(fart)storm and suprisingly getting the spark back to keep this going..
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/ScreenHunter_08Jan201728.jpg?t=1324073995
At this point I still had a few important things that I thought I had not found an answer for and still were bugging me.
- too complicated to adjust the height of the seat (I know not very important maybe for many, but still doing this whole thing basically for myself and against my own requirements) (If you're wondering, it was complicated because you had to completely remove the seat part of the 'main rig' and change the hole that the seat part is connected to).
- the (almost) horizontal 'seat alu tube bars' (without a better word for it) going to the main vertical beams were still too much in the way of getting into the cockpit & out of there (tbh, in real world there really was no issue at all imo, but still hoped to come up with something better in this area..) Luckily I killed two flies with one strike as changing this part of the structure as it is now changed the adjustment of the seat angle/height to something much easier & at the same time took most of the obstruction away.
- too many parts. There has to be a way to do things more simple but as I had thought about this for so long, my brains were jammed basically. So the break did good for me I believe, as I did manage to lower the part count on most parts of the rig. The changed way of adjusting the seat angle / height does add to the part count number but the benefit far overweights the nominal amount of the parts, imo.
- the main 90deg. joint of the base frame. With 2 drilled holes there would be 2 problems: 1. Is it reasonable to require really accurate drilling from a DIY'er? 2. Would the needed tightening force deform the alu tubes?
All these lead to the latest model, that I opened this thread for. There are still some slight question marks in the air though. Will it all be/behave like I imagined? I will be taking a sight a 'risk' once I order all the parts, because you never can foresee everything - you'll see when you'll put one together .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
So just for fun here's a side by side comparison between the very 1st concept & the current one:
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk341/Timppaq/GTrr/BEFOREjpg.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7010/6515946621_bf482ed5f0_z.jpg
Of course, I'm still to see if I've got it more right this time (in relation to the prev. real life build), but based on the previous experience with these experiments I strongly do believe so.
One thing I do notice, this all again proves the point that you always come up first with the most complex solutions for most problems / issues. A simple solution is usually the hardest one to do!
I've seen the same thing happen with my everyday job as well.
At this point, I've modelled over 250 parts for this project overall and must have used 500+ hours (through 2 years) thinking about it. Sounds like a lot to me, but as the saying goes in here - you can't get far with a moped, and even if you do, not very fast (it seems
))
Even if I say it myself, I do see some improvement through time though, thank gawd.
Disclaimer: this post may not be here tomorrow after I wake up and sober up!