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Bodyshells

Posted: Mon 26. Sep 2016 15:57
by walker
As a newbee who collects lots of information, question #1 :

On the official Magracing HP I see only the usual few bodytypes - open cars like McLaren, Alfa Romeo etc.

To name just one producer - BETTA and CLASSIC.
They produce a huge number of 32nd scale bodyshells. The older ones still really scale - like, good looking, saloons as well as open cars. All are designed for the PARMA international Euro 32 chassis, i.e.64 mm wide. Saloons mostly are a bit flatter than original, but not noticeable ( and - flatter looks better, doesn´t it ? ).
And the shells are available from lexan as well as styrene.

Image

Aren´t they usable for Magracing ?

Roland

Re: Bodyshells

Posted: Mon 26. Sep 2016 18:45
by Ned
Depending on the wheelbase, these could be used with my chassis CK1
https://www.shapeways.com/product/QXW7Q ... d=60568679
or CK2
https://www.shapeways.com/product/LUTD9 ... -from-shop

One of these chassis can be fitted to most 1/32 scale closed-wheel slot car bodies.

CK3 can be used with many LMP bodies.

Re: Bodyshells

Posted: Mon 26. Sep 2016 19:05
by walker
Well, varying the wheelbase or width of a chassis is not a problem.
I have been used buiding all may chassis myself for all my hobby life.

I do not understand why in - let's tell a number - 90 per cent of the photos here I only see the few spyders that seem to be original magrace equipment.
Why no other cars - ecxluding the few FLY slotcar bodies ?

Is it the old attitude " buy - yes, build and scratchbuild - no" ?

IMHO it looks rather boring to see only four or five different body types once and again.

Roland

Re: Bodyshells

Posted: Mon 26. Sep 2016 21:17
by Ned
One reason there are a lot of bodies available for 1/32 slot cars is that the hobby is over 50 years old. Magracing is less than 4 years old. The original developer of magracing offered one chassis with a fixed wheel base and 4 vac formed bodies.

I agree that varying the width or wheelbase of a 1/32 scale slot car chassis is not a problem. That's easy. A magracing chassis is much different. First of all you have to find room for a battery, a steering coil and a printed circuit board. None of those are required for a slot car. Secondly a magracing chassis has steerable front wheels. The frontend parts and magnetic guidance system require much more precision than that for a slot car...on the order of +/- .003".

It's not about attitude. It's about difficulty. I would love to see you scratch build a 1/32 scale magracing chassis that uses the same motor, steering coil, and PCB that can be controlled with a standard magracing handheld controller. Or better yet, build a chassis that uses other (over the counter) radio gear, that will reliably change lanes, run for at least 30 minutes on a fully charged battery, on a standard track with 10" radius corners and 10% grade. Hats off to you if you can do it, by investing less than 500 hours of your time and $500 of your money for all of the components, parts, supplies, and equipment that you don't already have in your shop. Of course anything is possible with an unlimited budget. An unlimited budget provides no challenge.

Re: Bodyshells

Posted: Mon 26. Sep 2016 22:06
by HeliumFrog
Yes Ned is correct. It is not for the want of trying that we would all like to see many car styles in magracing. I have a fondness for 70's saloon cars and these are very small indeed.
If you have a look at standard slot cars, many of them are not to scale. For example a porsche 356a done by carrera is really wide compared to the real thing (maybe 10mm too wide). Magracing cars have a lot more going on inside compared to slot cars. In particular the front steering poses a big problem when reducing the width and as Ned has found the battery when placed across the chassis is a limiting factor. With a steerable front wheel in order to get the front wheel arch to scale you also need to have the pivoting axis within the wheel and this is really...I mean really difficult to achieve. Particularly with small saloon car wheel diameters.

Here at Magracing HQ after we have got the standard chassis back in production (Yes it is coming!), a smaller chassis is our next priority.

Re: Bodyshells

Posted: Tue 27. Sep 2016 08:32
by walker
Someone has built / altered magrace chassis to fit FLY / MRRC and whatsoever bodyshells.
These shells are thicker, i.e the altered chassis have to be narrower at the sidepans than with the vacuformed bodies.
Seems to be possible.

The wheelbase is different.
Seems to be possible.

And now - I go back to the BETTA bodies - I talk about something that is definitely wider across the complete side incl. wheels : the 64 mm wide BETTA bodyshells.
Tell me I´m wrong, but IMHO this means MORE SPACE for everything under the bodyshell, doesn´t it ?

So it is a problem to have more space ? Sorry...

And making a chassis myself is not a matter of budget but patience, enthusiasm, interest, time and of course a bit talent in working with different tools.

Ned wrote:One reason there are a lot of bodies available for 1/32 slot cars is that the hobby is over 50 years old. Magracing is less than 4 years old. The original developer of magracing offered one chassis with a fixed wheel base and 4 vac formed bodies.

This has nothing to do with my question, on the contrary. Since magracing is still young, it should have been much more logical to use existing resources instead of wasting time with inventing the wheel anew ( bodyshells). 50 years of experience and production ought to be enough.


I agree that varying the width or wheelbase of a 1/32 scale slot car chassis is not a problem. That's easy. A magracing chassis is much different. First of all you have to find room for a battery, a steering coil and a printed circuit board.

You have to FIND room ??? Sorry, the basis of every chassis construction are two axles with wheels and gear, a motor with pinion, the motor and axle bearing brackets.
Have a look at the sketch I showed in the "Feasibility of 1/43 scale magracing?" article. It is 43rd scale but shows the space remaining when you have put together the necessary moving parts. I can easily find the remaining space. What I have to find are components which are as small as possible AND work efficiently.


None of those are required for a slot car. Secondly a magracing chassis has steerable front wheels. The frontend parts and magnetic guidance system require much more precision than that for a slot car...on the order of +/- .003".

Sorry, but I do not believe that your magnetic guidance system works in tolerances of 0,076 mm.

It's not about attitude. It's about difficulty. I would love to see you scratch build a 1/32 scale magracing chassis that uses the same motor, steering coil, and PCB that can be controlled with a standard magracing handheld controller. Or better yet, build a chassis that uses other (over the counter) radio gear, that will reliably change lanes, run for at least 30 minutes on a fully charged battery, on a standard track with 10" radius corners and 10% grade. Hats off to you if you can do it, by investing less than 500 hours of your time and $500 of your money for all of the components, parts, supplies, and equipment that you don't already have in your shop. Of course anything is possible with an unlimited budget. An unlimited budget provides no challenge.
Why do you not try yourself to find usable components on the RC market that fulfil your requrements ?
What you do here is to say that magracing has reached its technical limits and stagnates.

I have watched magracing since it appeared for the first time, but one thing is noticeable - not much progress.
Again I see my question regarding the bodies. Not even one positive word. Only problems, ifs and but´s.
When I began to deal a bit more intensively with magracing one of my first ideas was "other bodies, not only these few boring ones".

Last but not least - if there were, as you call it, over the counter radio gear, why then doing mag racing and not normal RC ?

Regards,
Roland

Re: Bodyshells

Posted: Wed 28. Sep 2016 16:50
by walker
I forgot to add :

I am really very interested in this principle and will try it by all means. But in my opinion there is too little thought outside the box.

Regards,

Roland