Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

All the other areas of this forum have a showcase, so why not one for CAD?

If you've designed something "cool", or have used in CAD in any way related to RC, post some images. This should be a fun gallery for us geeks.

Here's an image of what I wish I had for a workshop.

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

Hey Mike.......



I think you are trying to embarass us older computer drafters by your graphics.

I am from the 3-view, plain white paper school. How do you fold up the color graphic drawing and insert it into a kit box? I am of the propeller era and know the designs fly, as they were stolen from someone else's works. I your designs look to fly quite sleek, unlike my dripping fuel and mud encrusted aircraft. The desk looks familiar as to it's size, but around here the room almost touches the edges of the desk.

Your images in white give such a clean effect to them. I have a friend in Kotzebue and one about 30 miles N.E. of Juneau. They tell me most everything gets painted black or a dark color. They can't find a white fuselage and wings when it crashes in the deep snow, until the next melt down. Most of the designs I see of yours are white colored. Does that mean they either fly perfect the first time, or do you only get one flight out of them? What method do you use to find your designs once they touch down in an unfamiliar area? The friends tell me relocate methods have something to do with circling flying insects and moose.



The question being, what methods do you use to put a Autocad.DWG onna web? Most of the standard systems and a couple secondary conversion programs I have used make the linework to look Chinese? Would be nice to be able to have a web viewer zoom into a black line of white and then read the text, and see the different weight and type of lines. I have a few of my projects now onna web at other person's sites, and to me they still look poorer than a printed out plan.



Am going to begin to try your method of making up a fuselage plug this weekend. Am using a section of EMT instead of the broomstick, as it is straighter. Will either cuss you out or kiss up afterwards.


Wm.

CAD in Alaska
 

Hi Wm,

Well, I grew up in Florida, and have only been here (Anchorage) since 1995. The Anchorage RC club has about 130 members, who are all the same as RCers everywhere. They are a bunch of great people, and build every variety of RC vehicle. Personally, I'm too much of a wimp to fly heavily in the winter, so the issue of the white color isn't too important. This is building season, to me! Mosquitos? HA! Alaska has some large mosquitos, but they are seriously underpowered, compared to what I grew up with in the south. ...all bark and no bite. Don't fly into a moose though. They are LARGE.

As far as the CAD stuff goes, I'd just say that it's not the tools you use, so much as it is your familiarity with them. I use, and am pretty happy with what I use, which is only around $400. It's called "Carrara Studio". ( http://www.eovia.com ) It's not nearly as powerful as AutoCad, but I can work relatively fast, and after all, this is for personal use, not a big corporation.

When it's time for plans, I just print some 8 1/2" X 11" images at 300 dpi, and take them to a local printer, who will enlarge them for $1 per square yard...typical cost for a great set of "plans" is $3 or $4. I then tape these down, and as you said, trace them onto vellum for the final details. I just use CAD to design the models, and to make sure all the components fit where they should. (So, to answer your question, I'm just posting standard Jpegs and GIFs, not DXF files. I can export to DXF, but rarely have a need to.) Once my plans are "final", I do all the plug and mold making by hand. Nothing would tickle me more than to be able to export my 3D stuff to a CNC machine and have "instant plugs" for molds, but it's out of my league, financially.

The image attached shows why I like "Carrara Studio". It lets me try almost everything, including even adding a crew and passengers to my "Avanti".

Good luck with your new plugs. What are you building?

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

My Latest, the Henderson Longster

here's mine
 

Not sure what to call it yet...

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

The top

cad image
 

My latest scratch project.

CAD
 

Cool! That's a "Eurofighter" ?

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

COOOL IMAGES!!! You guys ROCK! Makes me all the more motivated to keep learning more about CAD.

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

My Kwickee

Hey Uproar, is that what you want to form a canopy for? You should just try cutting down one of Sigs Bubble canopy's. They are cheap and will save you a lot of time.

--Paul

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

yeah, thats the one. i'll have to try that. I've got plenty more designs, but they're all on paper and not in any CAD format...

Canopy for your Eurofighter
 

Hi Uproar,

If you're making plugs of these parts for fiberglass moldings, the canopy plug will be fine to use in pulling a clear canopy, via vacuum forming. Just build a small "base" for it to sit on, so that it's elevated enough to pull the plastic down past the lower edge. This gives you a nice trim line. I assume it's coated with some sort of tooling resin or epoxy primer...?

I've done this myself in the past, although I don't currently own a vacuum forming machine.

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

dont quite understand the vacuum forming? is that like the thing that was at the MAN site?

Vacuum forming
 

This is really a brief description, but should give you the idea...

Basically, you have a male form, such as the plug for your canopy, sitting on a vacuum "table" which is perforated with thousands of little pin-sized holes in it. On a hinge, attached to the table, is a frame, big enough to hold a piece of plastic for your canopy.

There is some means to heat the plastic... sometimes a part of the vacuum forming unit itself, sometimes not. Anyway, heat the plastic until it's soft.

Then, with a quick motion, to prevent the plastic from cooling, the frame is swung down, stretching the plastic around your form. To add precision to this process, a vacuum is created under the table, and air is sucked out through the perforations, pulling the plastic tightly against your form.

In just a few seconds, the plastic is cool enough to be removed and hold it's shape, even including any panel lines or rivet details you may have on your canopy form.

You can buy these units (I think $200 to $300) or build one yourself from plans offered by various model magazines. I'm sure there are other "vacuum forming" threads on this forum, too.

PS> Image attached is from "Catia" software, Boeing. Now THAT's CAD!

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

Don't tell me you did that one too Mike! Holy smokes! Obviously we're dealing with industry professionals here...not just hobbyists. At first I was feeling CAD was within' the realm of my simple mind, now I'm feeling depressed....

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

Flugzoid,

Forget about it! I didn't do that image. (in my dreams) Boeing did. (Check the logos at the bottom.)

Hey, we're all just modelers here. My CAD package costs less than $400.
(Boeing just makes BIGGER models.)

Eurofighter? X-31 !
 

Mike,
Actually, its a sport scale X-31 ;) Im wanting something that no one else has so I came up with this Sport Scale Version. The fuse
is pretty close to scale, simplified a little. The wing is about twice as large as a scale wing would be to get the wing loading down for slower landings and grass field operation.
The fuse is framed up now and hope to have sheeted in the next couple of weeks. Foam core wings are in the works.
Check out www(dot)geocities(dot)com/protoloft. Will have construction pics up in next few days.
OAL - 65" approx.
WS - 68"
Weight - 14-16 lbs est.
Eng - OS 91 DF, Byron Fan
Airframe Cost (finished) $<200.
Cheers.

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

X-31 - cool! You have to do the vector paddles!

vector paddles
 

Hi Ron,
I wont have vector paddles for the maiden flight, but if the first few flights go well I was planning on casting some out of fiber filled epoxy.
See how things go over the next couple months. :)
Cheers.
James

Let's see your CAD RC images here
 

I tried the CATIA V5 thing, BIG disappointment when i got the disk. I got all excited about trying it, but then found out you need a Windows 2000 or NT platform. I have 98! Arghhhhhh....
it would be great for modeling, since you could test the strength of stabs or wings, etc before building the design.

could watch the videos on the "View it" disk.

rob o'

Rickey Rat Q40 Project
 

Hello CADs!

This is a project I've been working on sporadically for some time now. It is a Q40 racing plane and is called a Rickey Rat. I plan to be able to make a Shoestring and an El Bandito from the same fuse mold; I'll just change the wing and tail outlines.

For this project I used ModelCAD for 2d work, and what you see here are screen shots of RC-CAD. I'd like to work with Rhino 3d but between airplane toys and computer geek toys, there isn't room in my budget. ModelCAD and RC-CAD are quite affordable IMO.

Right now, I'm working on the fuse plug. I hope to have a flying prototype by the end of the year but the way things go, I don't know about that.

http://home.attbi.com/~deuce50/images/rickeyrat1.jpg

http://home.attbi.com/~deuce50/images/rickeyrat2.jpg

http://home.attbi.com/~deuce50/images/rickeyrat7.jpg

flanker
 

Here are some screenshots of an su27 design that I'm playing with. These were produced by slicing up a 1/72 scale plastic model, digitizing the slabs via a flatbed scanner, and then tracing the outlines of each slab using a home grown "2-1/2 D" cad system that I wrote myself (I'm a programmer by day). The 2D slabs were then stacked to form a 3D model. Some day I hope to print everything onto foam slabs and then cut & glue the slabs to form a 1/10 scale foam model. The foam will then be glassed and dissolved away to leave a hollow fuse. I'm thinking about a mid-engine pusher configuration using conventional prop, rather than a turbine or ducted fan.
--Derek

flanker
 

first view

flanker
 

another view

flanker
 

last view