Yesterday, I started to work on the roll cage. While on the Spirit FF it was symmetrical, it is not the case here...
The approach I took was to set the symmetrical things first, then apply a mirror and finish each side more or less independantly.
For the symmetrical part, I started to set the seats points as bodies.
Then I created a sketch going thru each of them, with the target of setting a pipe between the different bodies. There was a bit of work to make everything right, but at the end I had it.
The I applied the component mirror to get that on the left side.
Once done, I started the right part. One could have thought about a 3D sketch, but it is not the approach I took. I started by creating the seating point on the chassis side, then the pipes parallel to the chassis plane, it was quite easy to define as the lines are either parallel to the ground, either parallel to lines already defined for the bodyshell. Once that part was done, it was definitely easy to set axis from each of the end, and used those to set plans to get the inclined parts.
I proceeded the same way for the left side, at one exception : I did hava already the plans in place for the last steps as I had them set from the right part.
Next I took care of the braces. While doing this I noticed a discrepancy of .40 millimeter on all the braces. The space available in between the two roll cage side is too big of less than half millimeter. I rechecked my chassis measurements, and they are fine: the designer probably relied on the flexibility of the plastic...
Wing support and additional front part were added last night...
This morning, I built a wing... I'm not going to detail the build, but once you understand how to work with multiple bodies, it is fast.
The wing was promptly added to the car...
And I applied a quick paintjob...
I will add a driver figure at some point, just because it needs it to be called finished. I will start to proceed to print dimensional tests within the next few days...
But first, I need to model the Exceed roll cage and wing...