Aeromaster LMP

I wanted to ask you why you divided this part into several pieces for the mold… I didn’t see any obvious undercuts, at least from the image… But then, while I was writing to you, I went back to the post and realized that you had actually already given the explanation. Simply, as I scrolled down the page, I had missed that part of the text and I erased my doubt about why you didn’t make the mold with a cavity and lid instead of dividing it like this.

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Thank you for the explanation! Now I see. The shape for that interior cover was driven by the fact that the side protection tubes of the chassis are located at a higher level than the door’s opening, hence the need for a raised step-like area on the panel. The CNC-machine used to carve the foam plug for the left and right interior covers is a basic 3-axis type, meaning its milling head is always vertical and unable to reach the prominent area (when the plug is attached horizontal on the CNC-milling table).

Here is a quick cross-section of the same plug:

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Thank you for the explanation, it would be great to also see some videos while the machine is working on the parts. You’re doing a magnificent job.

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Thanks! Having a video footage with the CNC-milling would be great. The CNC-machine shop commissioned for this particular task is located in another city. I’m just the design engineer of the project. Other people do the sanding and finishing of the plug, and the actual composite panels then.

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Your work blows me away every time I see it. Thanks for sharing

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Thank you for the kind words! I appreciate that. :handshake:

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PTC is one of the early CAD companies, they were publishing Pro-Engineer years before SolidWorks came to market.
Their current products are Creo and Onshape.
I thought it was funny that a CAD company was sponsoring a product not created with their software.

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Since this is a replica of a famous racing car, most owners demand for a proper livery including the logos of all the original sponsors. It’s a nice touch that some of those logos are the correct old designs instead of their modern replacements. :slight_smile:

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Some pictures of the bell housing that connects the Audi V6 TFSI Supercharged engine to the “Holinger” transaxle. It’s being CNC-milled now and I will post photos of the actual part as soon as it gets delivered.

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For the CNC-machines we have where I work, we now have 24h webcams set up in case one of them gets stuck and people arrive at the office one morning to find every inch of the building covered in thick smoke… maybe if that ever happens to the shop you commissioned, they might also put a camera up? :smile:

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I wish I had a chance to see the CNC-milling of these parts in person, but the place is located about 150 km away from me. Most importantly, they do the work wherever they are free from other projects, so the schedule is always different. However, for my personal project I plan to capture videos with the whole process.

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I’m surprised you do tons of work that look like would be perfect for parametric solid modeler type cad’s but instead you use Rhino. :face_holding_back_tears:

What are your thoughts on this? Are you fine with not having dimensional constraints and geometrical constraints? Or even formulas that could rather link assemblies features etc.?

Rather than editing parameters, you just rebuild everything depending on the situation?

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I have always found it very absurd that in his project, which he is carrying forward and sharing with all of us, I, on the other hand, in mine, where I deal with mold design as well as modeling, find myself saying — or rather, the company always says — that they are done with a parametric CAD, like Catia, Cimatron, etc. However, in the most difficult situations, I solve them with Rhinoceros. Still, it’s more common to say they are done with a parametric CAD, as if complex projects couldn’t be done with a surface modeler like Rhinoceros. I must honestly say that some of the industrial projects I’ve completed throughout my professional career, if they hadn’t been done with Rhinoceros, ZBrush, Blender, I wouldn’t have solved even 10% of the problems during the design phase with a parametric program. So I’m very happy with what he’s showing here in this forum.

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This resonates with me as I use also a mix of 3d software for client projects. But Rhino still is my main CAD software :slight_smile:

You should check this video about Vitaly Bulgarov, where he explains his workflow with Softimage, ZBrush and MoI3D.

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@rhinouser141 Oh yes! I know him very well; I follow his work on Instagram; Artstation :love_you_gesture:.
I played Mortal Shell just because I knew that the design of some parts of the game was modeled by him.

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I feel pretty comfortable with Rhino’s tools most of the time, except for the usual shortcomings we all know related to the fillets, blend surfaces and matching surfaces. :smiley: Having constraints for designing mechanical parts would be awesome (the long awaited driving dimensions targeted for a release in Rhino 9 maybe?), however, I have no problems making everything the old-fashioned manual way. This manual approach sometimes gives me more freedom, actually.
Overall, I’m very satisfied by the capabilities of Rhino. Plus the extremely well made navigation with a 3d mouse and lens length that enables me to examine at close up the tight spots of my designs. The latter is quite bad in Solidworks and other CAD programs. :slight_smile:

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Exactly what I love in Rhino. Its “cons” sometimes are its greater “pros”. Parametric tools for modeling are great, but they also have their limitations. With the manual approach, you can do whatever you want and the only limit is your imagination, it just takes more time.

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Same here, I graduated only knowing how to use SolidWorks, but today I hardly use it anymore (if not at all). The last thing I did with it was to retrieve ISO bolts and nuts to import them into Rhino…

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Same! I’m very happy to say that I’m finally free of SolidWorks after more than a decade of using it. However, I would not like having to stop using parametric software in a professional environment (you need the traceability and accountability, especially with medical stuff that I’m working on now… I did prototype it in Rhino, though).

It’s super impressive to see what Bobi is doing, but some of the 40minute+ videos are (to me) a bit painful to watch as I know some of it is literally a 10 second fix in well made parametric software (and I don’t count SW amongst those). :sweat_smile:

What I don’t understand, however, is why McNeel seemingly don’t take any of his feedback and incorporates it into their tools. I don’t know of anyone else here who posts more real-world examples of things to improve (and before anyone says any thing about this being a corner case, just stop).

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Ha-ha, I totally agree with you that my older videos show quite slow workflow that’s painful to watch. Certain tasks in Rhino take a lot more time than the same tasks in other CAD programs. :smiley: The Rhino user are forced to figure out various approaches (even custom made scripts) to overcome the lack of proper NURBS surfacing and point editing tools. The VSR plug-in was a perfect example of what Rhino should offer natively.


It would be interesting if “McNeel” develops an alternative test version of Rhino and makes a poll to ask the Rhino users which version they prefer more:

  1. Version A: Current Rhino 8.
  2. Version B: Alternative Rhino 8 with the Rhino 7’s angular tab design, Rhino 7’s super fast mouse click response, removed distracting dots for each docked tab, and all the tool improvements listed in the following link:

Meantime, some extra pieces were made for the Aeromaster LMP kit car.

Front and rear uprights:

Wheel center caps:

Dummy instrument panel for a display car. Paint will be applied later:



I used this photo of the real racing car as a reference:

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