You know what the 3D printing community REALLY needs, is totally feasible, doesn’t exist yet, would be really stinking cool, and an awesome use of our machines?
An open source RC-car platform. If we could just get some sort of basis that is similar to existing “standardized” cars, I think that a lot of people would start modifying suspensions, drivetrains, geometry, etc.
There is a guy currently working on this, but he’s such a tease, only having released a differential and a wheel. He’s also got a community https://plus.google.com/communities/112745535856143176146 which is dedicated to this project.
@foo_bar good god quadcopters do not need love in this area. There are a TON of quadcopter frames on thingiverse. Search result for “quadcopter” returns 99 items. There are RC cars, but none of them are suitable for much other than show. I think there might be…1 that’s driveable. edit: found one - http://www.thingiverse.com/image:183919 but it’s straight-axle, no suspension in the back.
But yes, planes definitely do. A fully printable body would be awesome.
Check this thing out: http://www.thingiverse.com/image:196596 – Look at how much of it is printed… “barspin” (the guy who designed it all) has this really awesome design, but is such a tease releasing it…=D
I think a good approach would be to start with an existing car (i have an Asso B4.1, for example) and start replacing one part after another with a printed one. That way we’d gradually create a printed platform that is compatible with ready-made parts, which we could use whenever we find that a part simply cannot be printed (like the rear drive shafts).
@ThantiK I imagined a more structured approach than just uploading parts, more like “this part goes well with this chassis for this purpose” (“use this wing for dogfights and this for long-endurance runs”…), more of a forum for research and ideas. The parts could then be upped to thingiverse anyway.
And btw, quadcopters can never get enough love
@Thomas_Sanladerer That’s not good idea - first, its not clean from the law perspective and second, this way you make car that is in most respect inferior, as you can’t engineer the parts to be well-working when 3d printed
@Vaclav_Hula i agree quite a bit with both arguments.
E.g. the B4.1 uses mostly carbon fiber / glass fiber reinforced plastics, which would need to be a fair bit bulkier when 3D printed. But there’s most often enough space to mount those oversized versions.
Cloning and selling a RC car is most likely illegal, but as long as we’re doing it purely on a hobbyist basis and not making any money off it, i don’t think e.g. Team Associated will give us issues. There are loads of replacement or tuning parts on the market, some even made by well-known manufacturers that are the exact opposite of the typical shady chinese cloner.
If anything, we’re drawing more attention to that maker’s models and not taking away any of his business.
The main reason why i suggested this approach is that it is an absolutely monstrous task to design a complete RC car that works and lasts, handles well, has a proper geometry (hard part), is serviceable, and so on. There are just so many details that need to be designed for the car to even work and then there are all the bits that make it an attractive model.
I’d say that we need some kind of basis to work off - either some crazy dude (or gal) designs the equivalent of the RepRap Darwin and we start improving from there or we take a commercial model and convert it.
I think a nearly clean-slate design may be necessary, at least where gears are concerned. I don’t see 3d printed ABS replacing an injection-molded nylon gear for very long. Even a printed nylon gear will be inferior.
