Sep 10, 2014 | By Alec
Dedicated readers might remember some of our earlier reports on the 3D printable radio-controlled Truggy Car from early 2013. We were then already impressed by this open source R/C Car developed by Swedish designer and 3D enthusiast Daniel Norée. Since sharing that report one and a half years ago, he has only been improving his design through constant experimentation. Anyone looking for a cool printing project should definitely check it out!
Check out the Truggy Car's exploits on the road.
Since starting this open source project in 2012, Daniel has let it totally get out of hand. He started working on it to test and showcase the capabilities of RepRap 3D printers, but has since put hundreds of hours on development. And of course, many more on racing. He has broken more parts than he can remember, but his enthusiasm for tinkering with 3D printing hasn't diminished. He also a leading member of a Google+ community dedicated to his open R/C project. It has steadily grown in size and anyone thinking about printing his own racing car is advised to take a look.
While improving on his design, the basic principles remain the same. Daniel wants his design to be basic, accessible and customizable. And as many parts should be printed! The tires, rims, diffs, gears, driveshafts and other parts have all come forth from his MakerBot Replicator printer, and have been made from various materials. The car featured in his latest video was made from parts printed in ABS, Nylon, TPE (NinjaFlex), Polycarbonate, tritan and PCTPE. The only parts not printed are the screws that hold it together, along with the bearings, pins, CVD's and electronics.
And it has been improving steadily. As he told 3ders.org, 'this project has evolved to a pretty cool R/C car. I´m trying hard to push the limits of what you can do with parts 3d printed on "RepRap-style" 3dprinters. I get told a lot that "you can´t do this" or "you can´t do that", so I just like to prove them wrong and I think I just did.'
The biggest enhancements have been in the field of durability, where small changes in the basic design have strengthened the frame of his car. As can be seen in the video, his Truggy Car has become a fast driving, steady and durable road monster. If anything, the Truggy Car is a clear testimony to the possibilities that 3D printing technology offers to creative and tireless (no pun intended) enthusiasts.
Anyone tempted to build their own? Check out Daniel's community and freely available designs on Thingiverse. It comes with easy a very accessible DIY guide and an enthusiastic community ready to help.
See more of the Truggy Car in action:
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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This is cool. Love it when naysayers are proven wrong :) Can you print a car out of the box with no issues? Likely not, it will take countless hours of tweaking, refining, learning, improving. But it seems to be it's definitely possible, and this is proof. In some ways, it seems that working with 3D printed parts has similar considerations to working with wood. 3D parts have a grain, since they are laminated together from layers. So paying attention to the way the grain goes I imagine would have a huge effect on the strength of the part. I also imagine the design and how it's braced plays a big role. The idea comes from looking at the rock crawler body frames. They're plastic, albeit granted - high density SOLID plastic. But ultimately stomping on most plastics that thin and spread apart would break them. The key is how the structure is braced and assembled. Take the design of a crane arm, for example. They're built of a lattice of thinner tubes / pieces of metal. Each piece is not really that strong (when you consider the immense force placed on the arm lifting heavy loads high up in the air.) But arranged correctly, the final part is much stronger than the sum of its parts. So for 3D printing an RC vehicle, it just means tweaking & adjusting the design to work with the materials, and more importantly, make the materials work for you. Are they going to necessarily be as thin or streamlined as the aluminum piece on a typical vehicle? Maybe not. But the design above certainly says that it can still look and work well. And hey... if you break a part, you can always print another one for pretty cheap, instead of paying somebody to buy it, or waiting weeks for shipping. Sounds pretty cool to me.
xavier wrote at 5/5/2016 9:47:33 PM:
this is awesome how much would you charge to get one? you can reach me at xavierchavez876@gmail.com
Chris Hercules wrote at 5/4/2015 12:43:25 AM:
Im dedperste to have someone make some revo 3.3 parts for me, If anyone is interested in discussing the project contact me at cjhercules40@gmail.com. Im having no luck finding someone connected to the industry to make what I need. Im sure my comment will probably be deleted as spam for including an email address. But wodth a shot.
james wrote at 5/2/2015 2:13:40 AM:
what reprap do you use
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