TCR cars bodies 3D printed

1708 Views 18 Replies 12 Participants Last post by kmyler, 9 mo ago

Ayrton

Discussion Starter · 9 mo ago

10

Hello everyone,

I started to be interested in the 3D medeling and the 3D printing around a year and a half ago. In my dad's place, I saw different 3D printed cars he bought and I was quite amazed by the quality of these bodies. Then I decided to learn how to model and print my own cars and I already created different ones.

I decided to begin my journey with TCR cars, for various reasons: these are cars we can't find in the slot car market (only Scalextric did some BTCCs, but no TCRs), these are modern cars so there are plenty of pictures to help me in the modeling phase and there are many different cars from many constructors (here is a list of the 26 homologated cars: CARS - TCR HUB)

There is a very important to me: to make sure that these bodies can run as well as possible. That's why I have decided to adapt my bodies to high performance chassis that are easily available on the market! For these TCRs, all bodies are adapted to the Slot.it Porsche 962 chassis. Wheelbase of this chassis is close to the TCR cars which is the most important thing to chose the right chassis. Also, as I want to see these cars as efficient as possible I take care about the body weight, without neglecting robustness.

Let me introduce you the 4 cars I already printed until today!

The Cupra Leon Competicion was the very first one I did. The paint was inspired by old WTCC (around 2005) Seat Leon and made by my dad:

Motor vehicle Automotive lighting Gadget Rectangle Automotive design

Wheel Tire Vehicle Car Hood

Then, I built the Honda Civic FK8. Livery from TCR Asutralia:

Car Hood Vehicle Motor vehicle Tire

Wheel Vehicle Car Tire Automotive design

The Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce (the favorite TCR model from my dad) was the 3rd one:

Vehicle Car Motor vehicle Automotive lighting Textile

Car Tire Wheel Vehicle Hood

The latest body I printed is the Audi RS3 LMS (the newest version of it). Painting isn't finished yet, we have some issues with the decals:

Land vehicle Car Vehicle Hood Automotive lighting

Automotive lighting Hood Automotive design Toy Bumper

Last but not least, some pictures of the 4 cars together:

Tire Land vehicle Wheel Car Vehicle

Car Tire Vehicle Land vehicle Wheel

I should take a break with the TCR cars, my new target is to print the 3 new WRC cars (Toyota Yaris, Hyundai i20 and Ford Puma). The Yaris is almost finished, I'll post something in a near future when it will be 100% over.

Thanks for the reading, feel free to ask me if you have any question!

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LMP

· #2 · 9 mo ago

Very interesting. I can’t understand why the hobby has slept on TCR for so long, so it’s great to see your project making strides. The quality of the body design looks good.

I’m not sure the selection of the 962 chassis was the right choice - but I’ll reserve judgement on that. The most obvious question for me is that if you’re a competent 3D designer, why not just design and print your own chassis? The AlfaRomeo looks particularly awkward in this respect.

Regardless, I think if you were to sell these bodies, there would be a market for them. Especially as additive manufacturing is much more closer to being “the norm” in the slot car scene. If you provide a kit with the interior, glazing and maybe some detail parts I’m sure there would be interested buyers. So speak up if you are reading this and agree - let’s show some support for Ayrton!

Good work.

Reactions: 4

Ayrton

Discussion Starter · #3 · 9 mo ago

6

Thanks a lot for your message LMP, I appreciate it!

The TCR category is not the most dreamy one I guess. Touring cars aren't as exciting as GT cars or single seaters. Also I'm not sure that WTCR is as attractive as WTCC or DTM were in the middle for the 2000's. Cars aren't as iconic as 90's BTCCs either, but the interesting thing with TCR class is the fact that you can see the same car in European championships, in Japan, USA, Australia and in the World Championship too.

About the chassis, I never expected the 962 chassis to work well with these bodies, but as surprising as it may be. The Slot.it chassis has a 84mm wheelbase which is a 2688mm (84x32) wheelbase in scale 1. The Audi has a 2665mm wheelbase, 2700mm for the Honda, but indeed the Alfa Romeo is shorter with a 2625mm wheelbase. I cheated a little bit on this one to have the same chassis than the other TCR cars 🤐

There are several reasons about why I didn't do my own 3D chassis. First of all, I'm really new to 3D modeling and printing as I started to learn the modeling a year ago and bought my printer in October 2021.My printer is a resin printer and doing resin chassis would not work well. I would need a FDM printer (to print plastic parts), and I wanted to focus on one technology only at the beggining. Also, my goal is to make these cars enjoyable to play with. With a slot.it, NSR, Sideways or Scaleauto chassis, I know it could work well (and I even was surprised of how well does it work!). Here are some pictures of the chassis and the bodies:

Vehicle Tire Automotive tire Sports equipment Hood

Wheel Tire Automotive tire Vehicle Hood

Tire Toy Vehicle Hood Automotive tire

Tire Wheel Car Vehicle Hood

Vehicle Car Tire Motor vehicle Hood

Tire Vehicle Hood Car Wheel

That being said, I know that I will invest in a FDM printer and learn to design chassis in a near future because one of my 2023 projects is to start to work on Hypercars/LMDH and there isn't any existing chassis in the slot car market with a wheelbase as large as Hypercars are.

These TCR are the very first cars I worked on, I hope to improve in the future!

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GRUNZ

· #4 · 9 mo ago

Very nice post and excellent project.
I totally agree with the fact that slotcar manufacturers are missing something by not doing a TCR category with a proper chassis.
I am also surprised that you used the slot.it 962 chassis, but the more I think about it the more I like the idea.
Also, the fact that you have "cheated" with the dimensions of the Alfa to make fit onto this chassis, I take it as a bonus: the cars should have similar performance - similar to the Australian super V8.
You did a good job with the Alfa preserving the overall dimensions (much better job that Ford did with their V8 Mustang).

Reactions: 1

chappyman66

· #5 · 9 mo ago

First off very nice modeling and printing work.

Secondly using a common chassis is a good idea in the beginning. Slot car manufacturers have tweaked body dimensions to fit chassis since the very beginning. So that's nothing new. It just depends on what you want. Some people want scale fidelity others want similar performance in a common chassis. It's not right or wrong it's just a preference.

Well done, I say.

Reactions: 2

Cdub

· #6 · 9 mo ago

Wow! Great effort and results! Did you print a buck and vac form the windows?

GDSLOT

· #7 · 9 mo ago

Great work, the issue of cheating it’s not, it’s slotification 😉

Also depending on your intentions you could share your job on sites like Thingiverse or Cults, and also maybe guys like @chappyman66 or @Kevan could make a proper 3dp chasis for it, since it’s a one for all models, that would make a fine and full 3dp kit; there are very few full kits available out there like the 356 made by Chappy that works wonders(available on Thingiverse for example).

Congrats on your work mate, it’s a class that it’s fun to watch on 1:1 and surely it’s fun to race on slot cars👌🏼👍🏼
Cheers

Daniel

Reactions: 1

MrFlippant

· #8 · 9 mo ago

GDSLOT said:
Also depending on your intentions you could share your job on sites like Thingiverse or Cults, and also maybe guys like @chappyman66 or @Kevan could make a proper 3dp chasis for it, since it’s a one for all models, that would make a fine and full 3dp kit; there are very few full kits available out there like the 356 made by Chappy that works wonders(available on Thingiverse for example).

Ayrton said:
I don't plan to share or sell my 3D files, but if some people want to own a model, I can do some shipments.

Ayrton

Discussion Starter · #9 · 9 mo ago

Well indeed I didn't plan to share/sell my 3D files, but I might change my mind if people are interested in them.

The Alfa was indeed a bit of "slotification" as we really wanted to allow different cars to be really close in term of performances. This is also why I was careful about the body weight to don't have big differences between cars from a same category.

GRUNZ said:
I take it as a bonus: the cars should have similar performance - similar to the Australian super V8.
You did a good job with the Alfa preserving the overall dimensions (much better job that Ford did with their V8 Mustang).

Who knows, maybe I'll work on the Supercars Gen3 soon, Ilove this championship (I was the French commentator of it between 2017 & 2019) 😄

About the windows, I indeed print a resin mould an then doing some vaccum forming with my oven. Result is quite good but could be improved with a better vaccum forming system.

Reactions: 3

MrFlippant

· #10 · 9 mo ago

Ayrton said:
Well indeed I didn't plan to share/sell my 3D files, but I might change my mind if people are interested in them.

I think that's the way forward for any 3d designer. Printers are only going to move toward ubiquity. Even if the technology itself changes, there will be a lot less money to be made (if that's even a goal) in the selling of prints, but there will always be a need for good models to print. People already believe that they can just ask for something to be printed, and the world will simply conjure it up from thin air for them to print. ;-)
Lots of people freely share their models, but just as many ask a nominal fee for the model with a single user license, which I think is perfectly reasonable. Anywhere south of $5 is what I, personally, consider reasonable. When the cost of something exceeds that, I try harder to find a free version. ;-)

Reactions: 2

GRUNZ

· #11 · 9 mo ago

I have not joined the 3dp revolution although I think it is the way forward...only right now I do not need any damn hobby.
About the price point for a file: I think it depends how complex or easy to render the final object is. For instance, $5 for a scalextric border or a fence might be reasonable.
But for a car body, given that it is more complex, a more substantial price tag could be justified.
Of course, free is even better ;-)

GDSLOT

· #12 · 9 mo ago

Greg is right, I don’t know anyone that had become rich by selling files or 3d prints, or tuning cars, or painting them, however a small fee it’s ok(to allow auto finance of the hobby😉), tough free sharing is Imho better as it allows the hobby to grow ane expand and I think most of us do this (slot cars) not for a living but just as a hobby and sport, so rep is even better. 🙂

Atobit

· #13 · 9 mo ago

Great job Ayrton!
I'm sure with the newest LMDH and Hypercars you will have many fans!

conti_rowland

· #14 · 9 mo ago

Hi Ayrton,
Very impressive work.

I'd like to ask about the resin printing if I may?
Did you start your resin printing journey with these cars or was that something you already understood?
How long did it take to get to grips with the printing and once you've mastered it do you get perfect results every time?
Finally, what printer do you have?

As you may understand I'm interested in this technology (I've been doing 3d modelling and printing for about 15 years but have not used resin).

Best wishes
Andi

Ayrton

Discussion Starter · #15 · 9 mo ago

MrFlippant said:
I think that's the way forward for any 3d designer. Printers are only going to move toward ubiquity. Even if the technology itself changes, there will be a lot less money to be made (if that's even a goal) in the selling of prints, but there will always be a need for good models to print.

Hell no, making money is not a goal! I decided to start modeling and printing slot cars because I found that great and I've a lot of fun with that activity. Making them drivable was really a nice moment! I'll see to put some files soon, first of all I have to tidy up my folders.

Atobit said:
Great job Ayrton!
I'm sure with the newest LMDH and Hypercars you will have many fans!

I hope to be able to work on them early 2023! WRC 2022 are the priority at the moment, then I need to buy a new printer to make my own Hypercars cassis and learn the FDM technology to make efficent chassis, and finally I'll be able to modelise these new cars!

conti_rowland said:
Hi Ayrton,
Very impressive work.

I'd like to ask about the resin printing if I may?
Did you start your resin printing journey with these cars or was that something you already understood?
How long did it take to get to grips with the printing and once you've mastered it do you get perfect results every time?
Finally, what printer do you have?

Thanks a lot! I indeed started my printing journey with these cars. To be honest, I didn't struggle that much to make clean prints. Making clean prints was way easier to understand than learning Blender from scratch.
The very first Cupra I printed was a success (I had issue on the 3D model, but nothing linked to the printing aera). I had some diverse issues, but it was part of the learning and I found a very active an helpful community on Reddit for example. I bought an Elegoo Mars 2 which is a very popular brand with an active community so I've succeeded to solve every issues I faced!

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dvd3500

· #16 · 9 mo ago

Très jolis!

GDSLOT

· #17 · 9 mo ago

We neeed more Ayrtons and less “I only sell my prints in Shapegooeys bla bla bla” 😎

Way to go @Ayrton, lots of kudos mate! Slotsport and fun! 👍🏼👍🏼

Reactions: 1

Dazza1976

· #18 · 9 mo ago

Looks really good, it’s great what these 3D printers can do and I like what you’ve you’ve done.
As an alfa fan I’m always pleased to see new Alfas. If you were to make a model of a modern alfa Romeo giulia and it was decent I’d be very keen to buy one!

kmyler

· #19 · 9 mo ago

Great stuff, congratulations.

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