Quote:
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Originally Posted by rpmmaxxed
Simply doubling the cars length will
not cause a "total cost" tally to be equal to that of
the volume increase "for this arguments case, $2,000
for 20" car, and $16,000 for a 40" car". Components
that are found on the 20" car can and will be the same
as on the 40" car. Such as cells, receiver, servo,
wheels, suspension, etc.
Blatently saying that a car of 40" in length will be
8X the cost of the 20" car due to the volume
difference in not in any way an accurate
statement.
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You are completely missing the point. My analogy
referenced the material cost as a rough calculation.
If you take a block of material, double one linear
dimension and keep the proportions the same, the cost
of that block of material will increase 8-fold. If you
merely scale an existing 20" car into a 40" car and
maintain ALL proportions, the material cost alone will
be roughly 8 times.
The numbers also serve as an illustration of the
increase in cost not only from materials, but from the
increase in complexity of design and fabrication. A
well
designed 40" car will NOT simply look like a scaled-up
20" car. You can't think of things so simply. Does a
full-scale car look like a big version of a 1/12 scale
pan car? If you double the size, roughly speaking,
there is a increase in complexity/cost to the power of
3. The parts count increases, the parts complexity
increases, and the design work increases. For example,
the machinery necessary to machine the
more intricate parts for a 40" car are larger, more
expensive and more complex than those necessary for a
20" car, subsequently there is a corresponding price
increase
for fabrication.
Components such as "cells, ... servo, wheels,
suspension, etc" will NOT be the same.
You are assuming that a 40" car will run on a tiny
servo, a 6-cell sub-c battery pack, a 540 motor, and a
1/10
scale suspension with 1/10 scale tires. In reality,
the only thing that can actually stay the same is the
receiver/radio.
To give a very crude real-life example, a FG
Modellsport 1/5
scale comp chassis costs about 2100 USD*. As the 1/5
scale is roughly double the length of a 1/10, you can
divide its price by 8 as I've shown already. 2100/8 =
262.5, which is roughly the price of a high end 1/10
scale touring chassis.
In this contest, we will (supposedly) see the "best in
the world," thus I expect true engineering principles
applied to very well thought out, optimized designs.
For a truly "world-class," well engineered 40" custom
chassis, $16,000 is not an outrageous cost. Of course,
it's quite possible we won't see any world-class
competition or world-class engineers participating,
and consequently we won't see anything that is
anywhere near the "Formula 1" of R/C car design. If
that's the case though, why call it "World's Fastest?"
Maybe I am just expecting too much from this contest.
*
found at:
http://www.centrehobbies.co.uk/acata...dellsport.html