Not realizing how long it's been since my last post I think an update is overdue...
With life's joys causing distractions I'm at a stage again where I can continue where I left off. After the last update this took me down a path I quickly realized wasn't the way forward (too complicated to manufacture the parts for my liking)
The majority of the last 3 years has been in RC Car chassis design and manufacturing, I was still skeptical of 3D printing at the time having seen how poor filament printing was but had since discovered SLS printing, a couple of trials and I discovered this to be a very useful manufacturing process (Google "SLS Nylon Printing" to see how useful and cool this technology is) as it allows for complicated shapes that injection molding can't achieve. The extra freedom of this process opened up a whole new design world for me where I've been racing 3D printed components as production parts without any breakages.
I then learnt extensively about planning your design in as much detail as possible as this keeps you on track of your original design intent, I also went back to scribbling down random ideas as several years on you discover a way of making them possible with what you've learnt.
This then took me onto going for a full redesign of my spinning top ideas, the "Neo" magnetically held together system I ended up not liking and saw the idea then was used in the current Beyblades which showed me quite well it wasn't what I wanted to achieve. I found either they fly apart too easily and only provide very short battles, or they hold together making the idea have no purpose, so I went back to a "positive" attachment of all the parts again.
I then came up with the ideas for turning "Silver Tops" into more than just another spinning top, but have worked around most of a game-play format for playing with them.
This then brings me up-to now, below is my CAD preview of STTL001 (Silver Tops Tri Lock 001) , featuring 4 parts it went back to my original methods of wanting something simple but performs well. Due to finding some of my pictures on file sharing sites labelled as their own creations, until it is a physical item I won't be posting the assembly mechanism as it's something quite simple and different that should work well which I'd like to protect for now.
In short, assembly is done by a spring pushing the 2 upper parts into place, to release the parts, pushing the assembly together and a twisting action releases them to allow disassembly.
The launcher is an unfinished design hence I had previously not got the parts made for this design, but this in the longer term will form a nice feature in the game-play. As for a brief description of the game-play, below is also a picture of one of the available badges which can be collected to give a better achievement dimension than just trying to beat everyone.
Some brief dimensions:
Maximum spinning top diameter - 50mm
Badge diameter - 30mm
Badge thickness - 4mm
After getting the final prototype made and final alterations in the next few weeks I intend taking it to the Kickstarter stage as the first opportunity of earning prestigious badges and to get feedback for future improvements and to help with getting a website up and running to save using other photo hosting sites that change their ideas (thanks photobucket!)
Anyway, enjoy some pictures whilst I continue my designs!
STTL001
Badge Example