Mini Thunderbolt Parts - Not Getting Built Any Time Soon

[Jim Z]

Can't say I blame ya. There's also the fact you'd be suckered into being tech support on them.

[Ziginox]

I'm in. I want one.

Me too, altough I might not be able to afford it. Might be the only thunderbolt in southeastern Idaho...

[CDV777-1]

I finished the drawings for the main Mini Thunderbolt parts last night and went by work today and dropped them off so they can give me a quote. There are 25 drawings in all that I submitted. Should be interesting to see how much it will be. Not sure how long it will take for them to let me know the price. If I was working instead of stuck at home I could harass them about getting them done. I'll update when I find out.

[Ziginox]

I finished the drawings for the main Mini Thunderbolt parts last night and went by work today and dropped them off so they can give me a quote. There are 25 drawings in all that I submitted. Should be interesting to see how much it will be. Not sure how long it will take for them to let me know the price. If I was working instead of stuck at home I could harass them about getting them done. I'll update when I find out.

If the T-bolt ends up costing too much, perhaps a mini XT22 might cost less? Might be interesting finding a small motor with a shaft on both ends though..

[Charlie Davidson]

I have a small dual-shaft motor.. it used to run a cooktop veneration system. It's the same size motor used on the Model A, D and L.. only problem is, the one I have runs at 1750RPM. It's not too awfully hard to find dual shaft motors like that. A small 3T22 at 1/10 scale would probably be the size of a bare Model L. Just need to make a 10-port rotor and a 12-port rotor, fabricate matching stators and find a dual-shaft 3450RPM 120V AC motor. Then make the horns, instakes and maybe even go as far as adding solenoids. Making the rotors would probably be the hardest part.

[CDV777-1]

A small 3T22 at 1/10 scale would probably be the size of a bare Model L. .

A 1/10 scale 3t22 would only have about a 1.5-1.8 inch diameter rotors. It probably wouldn't make very much noise at all.

Just need to make a 10-port rotor and a 12-port rotor, fabricate matching stators and find a dual-shaft 3450RPM 120V AC motor. Then make the horns, instakes and maybe even go as far as adding solenoids. Making the rotors would probably be the hardest part

Yeah. That's all you would have to do. Not much at all.
The problem is finding a motor that you can attach the stators to well enough to use as a siren.

[Charlie Davidson]

Correction.. the dual shaft motor I have actually is a 3450RPM motor. I just tried it with the guts of one of my Model L's.. it sounded just like a 8-port Model 5.

I don't know where I got 1/10 scale from the side of an L compared to a 3T22. An L would probably be 1/3 or 1/2 scale..

[MysteryMachine]

Interested to see what ya find out on this. Get to work on the 1003 model LOL

[Jim Z]

Making the rotors would probably be the hardest part.

yep. there's a reason they're all cast pieces on full-size sirens; trying to machine one would be a female dog. You can do a simpler one like in Eric's mini thunderbolt but without an impeller you'll need a supply of forced air in order to get any sound out of it.

[CDV777-1]

Went by work today after seeing the Dr. about my ankle and they had the quote done on the parts. The quote from the shop where I work for making parts for 20 Mini-Thunderbolt chopper/rotator assemblies was $11,000 before material cost was added in. That's $550 per assembly. That might be a little high because I think they might have quoted me on making 60 choppers instead of 20. On my parts list I have three different part numbers for choppers. They probably quoted a price for 20 for each part number but I'm not sure. The part numbers were for Single tone 5/5, 6/5 dual tone and 5/4 dual tone. If they refigured for 20 choppers the price would come down some per assembly. Maybe to $500 each? I don't know. With material figured in plus the cost of the motors, gear drives, hardware etc. it would probably cost me over $600 a piece just to assemble one having the parts made where I work.

When I get back to work I'll ask around and see if anyone knows of a small shop that does good work. Even with a small shop making the parts it'll probably still be over $300 per siren/rotator. The problem is finding a shop that can do a good job on the stuff.

So needless to say no Mini Thunderbolt parts are getting made any time in the near future.
When it comes right down to it. I always new it would be too expensive to do.
I think I'll disable all the comments on my miniThunderbolt youtube videos because more that half of the comments are from people mouthing off how they will pay any price for one. Yeah right!