crackerjazz Posted August 14, 2022 Share Posted August 14, 2022 Hi guys, as you may not be aware (especially those who aren't on Facebook), Space Cadet Models is producing a 1/24 Cassini-Huygens unmanned probe. Scott Brotherton and Karl Doddenhoff spent years developing this kit. It's the product of their blood, sweat and tears. I joined the party late so pretty much all the parts are done. There are just some parts that still need to be printed to make more kits and I wanted to post some printing progress shots and also assemble one in Solidworks to whet your appetites : ) If I can describe the model in one word, it's MAJESTIC! I normally reserve that description for the 5-foot Millennium Falcon but this is really a beautiful model. It's more than a foot long and it's a multi-media kit with resin parts, PE, metal rods, plastic-coated rods, vacuum-formed and 3D printed parts. I wasn't really interested at first because I'm not really a big fan of models with solar panels (because I find them hard to replicate). And because like most everyone else I like building models of powerful jets and other war machines. One day Karl emailed me about the Cassini -- "It's enormous. It's gigantic. It's ginormous! Cassini was the last of what they called the "Flagship" planetary probes. Read: big & expensive. They really pulled out all the stops. They used all the lessons learned from the Mariners and Voyages and really all the previous JPL planetary probes and rolled it all into Cassini. It was the size of a Winnebago camper. Cost billions of bucks. Needed a big Titan rocket to launch it. The mission lasted decades. IMO it was like the last Hurrah for really big expensive outer planetary probes. It was immensely successful." That got me googling up about the Cassini and reading up on it. And there was something about its shape that just captivated me. It looked like some high-tech bug in space. And it didn't have solar panels : ) Here I'll be putting together Scott's step files for the most part but where step files aren't available like for the PE and vacuum-formed parts I'll just try to redraw them for purposes of assembling the kit virtually and we'll see what the kit looks like in Solidworks form. Can't wait to see that myself -- so here goes nothing : ) The Cassini is powered by three of these RTGs or radioisotope thermal generators. I thought these were nuclear reactors like on Dr Brown's Delorean : ) But I read from this article that "RTGs are not nuclear reactors and have no moving parts. They use neither fission nor fusion processes to produce energy. Instead, they provide power through the natural radioactive decay of plutonium (mostly Pu-238, a non-weapons-grade isotope)" I tried experimenting printing out the RTG with fins at 0.2mm thickness and they came out great but the kit will come with photo-etch fins so get ready for some PE fun : ) Bare RTG bodies waiting for some PE love : ) This is what the built-up RTGs will look like. I printed the greeblies together with the bodies but they'll really be separate parts on the model. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Vidar_710 Posted August 15, 2022 Share Posted August 15, 2022 NICE NICE NICE!!!! Tracy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
spaceman Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 Hi Joe, as one can plainly see, you're having a lot of fun with 3D printing. Keep it up! It's getting better and better. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cloud in the Wind Posted August 18, 2022 Share Posted August 18, 2022 This is really exciting to hear. I have hesitated building the available paper model kits because of their lack of scale detail and features. Can’t wait to see more of your work on this project. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
crackerjazz Posted August 21, 2022 Author Share Posted August 21, 2022 Tracy, Manfred, Cloud in the Wind, thanks, guys! : ) Got some more printing to do... And back to the virtual assembly... This is an in-flight model so a lot of the hull will be covered in foil : ) Maybe I shouldn't have shown the RTGs in the assembly because they go on much farther down into the build, but I couldn't wait to see how they look in context to the whole thing. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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