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Nice, I didn't know you were doing builds to order...

Brian knocked that one out of the park!

I have had a lot of stir about people wanting everything in one box ready to bolt up. I stood adamant against that because I felt this needed to be a personal build. I have decided to put together a few sets. There will be a black team style like Brian posted and a gold version. It will have all the crucial parts built like the front gearbox, steering, and front axle parts. You will be able to just transfer the parts, adjust turnbuckles and go. It will even come with wheels like the MIP did.

If you add up everything and sourced the parts yourself it would be $370. The kit I will provide will be $399. I have to make a few bucks to make it worth the outlay (typically my only profit is the towers). Basically you are paying $29 for me to source and build it. I also will be paying to have the black noseplates anodized as Team Associated doesn't make the correct one in black. I hope to build around 6-8 of these.

flipwils11 wrote:Nice, I didn't know you were doing builds to order...

Thanks. I'm not really seeking them out, but this guy approached me and seemed really cool and patient. I've been working on it for about 2 months and he hasn't been in any hurry, which was nice. I enjoyed the build without having someone breathing down my neck wanting to know when it would be done.

What Jeff is doing is really great, offering kits. I've had several people approach me about kits and I've been reluctant too, but there is demand for them for sure. I think Jeff and I have learned that some people want convenience and are willing to pay a little extra for it. When I release my bolt-in mid motor conversion for sure I will offer it in kit form with all the printed parts, GoSpeed shock tower, and AE parts in one package.

Is this the same kit available on ebay?

Yes, except those kits are sourced and built

The Ten4 is a collaboration between Brian and myself. I have updated the manual and the parts list on this link....
http://www.rc10talk.com/viewforum.php?f=101

Current cost of the build is just under $400

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Thanks Dan! The one way was always on my list, but I don't know how Robinson feels about making another product when the first one hasn't really flown off the shelves. He is sitting on a lot of sets of idlers and pulleys. That said, the idlers are hardened steel so I'm confident that the shaft would take the oneway. It's also 3/16, so it should be a common size for the oneway. I had hoped to have some pulleys machined to take a one way at some point but never got there. It's all sitting in my head

As far as Shapeways printing- I've requested Brian try out imaterialize as I have heard good things of their plastics. Pricing should be very similar but the way you have to group things makes it a challenge to tree everything together.

I also had dreamed of injection molding one day but it is so cost prohibitive. I need to figure out how these small companies did it.

the cost is in the molds, so they ended up being machinists or knew a guy who knew a guy and did it for the love of the hobby.

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Dan,

Thanks for your kind words and constructive feedback.
Jeff and I can start thinking about one way options, I'm sure we can come up with something.
As Jeff said, I am also working on making the parts available through imaterilize, the consensus seems to be that they have better quality.

Just a small correction on what you wrote about 3d printing nylon. The process they use is SLS, selective laser sintering, it's not FDM printing with filament, totally different process. SLS uses a bed of powdered material, in this case nylon, and fuses the surface layer by scanning over it with a laser in the shape of the part cross section, thus fusing the material on and near the surface. A new layer of powder is then deposited over the previous layer, and it is subsequently fused in the shape of the next cross section. And so on and so forth.

If I read correctly that's the same process they use on printing metals. Very cool. I didn't know that either

Oh, and I tapped the holes they don't come that nice for sure haha

Yes, metals use a similar process. In metals though it's called DMLS, direct metal laser sintering. Metal parts end up with that same rough surface as the SLS plastic parts. We have DMLS at work and the surface quality can actually be quite good though if you build in high resolution. Once you bead blast the parts they look really nice.

On the topic of DMLS, one option for molding parts is to make the mold cavities using DMLS, rather than machining them. This greatly reduces the cost of the mold cavity, probably looking at more like $1000 per cavity instead of like $20k. Even at 1k per cavity though, you still have to sell a LOT of parts to even break even.
I'm sure 3d printing technology will continue to improve though, and I believe some day it will rival the quality of molded parts. In the mean time, for these low volume, niche products, we need to be somewhat tolerant of the current state of the art. It's a lot better than nothing

this is exactly why I look at a $600.00 mini-mill with a sideways glance at least once every two weeks.

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