Remote control cars can be great fun, particularly if you’ve got a spare carpark or dirt lot to hoon them around. Any good hobby store will have shelves stocked with all manner of vehicles – buggies, touring cars, prototypes – but you don’t have to settle for what’s already available. Why not 3D print the car of your dreams instead? (YouTube, embedded below.)
The build comes to us from [Engineering Nonsense], now in its third revision. The design is produced in PLA, to make it accessible as possible to printer owners the world over. Almost the entire car is 3D printable – not just the chassis. The gearbox, differentials and driveshafts, and even suspension arms and tie rods are all printed, rather than bought. This also means the car is easier to build, with everything being printed to the correct size, as opposed to using off-the-shelf adjustable parts.
Performance is impressive, with the car showing good grip thanks to its 4WD drivetrain and double wishbone suspension. Files are available on Thingiverse, so there’s nothing to stop you from printing this out and going for a spin this weekend. We’d love to see it take on the water with some 3D printed tyres, too.
[Thanks to Jotham for the tip!]
huh i had an rc car project that turned out to be not very fun because i needed to gear the motors down…despite using some 3d printed parts, i didn’t try to 3d print a reduction gearbox because i assumed it wouldn’t work very well at that size. but i guess it’s worth a try, if these guys managed to get it to work
The trick is to use sloppy tolerances and grossly oversize the parts. They’re still going to be consumables, but you’ll get a few hours of fun at least.
They can actually last a surprisingly long time. The trick is to keep them cool. Heat absolutely destroys PLA gears. I wonder what if he had a oil sump in his gearbox to keep them cool.
Looks like he at least filled it with some grease.
gobs of ptfe lube
I would be tempted to get Shapeways (or one of them) to print me the gears seeing as they are the part that’s going to get the most abuse.
This is incredibly impressive, continuing with a project and making improvements is a long road and its really nice to see the fruits of that work. Awesome job!
I’m surprised how well it works despite being all PLA.
Hey – has anyone tried added airfoils to help with orientation and turning? Seems like that might be something interesting to pursue and tinker with.
Given the speed the car is running at, and the mass, I’d think that that aerofoils/wings etc would need to be quite large to have any impact on the handling. Also, how would the positive impact on the handling (downforce?) compare to the undesired drag due to the open frame & wheels (fairly low I’ think, given drag is proportional to v^2).
Nothing wrong with a massive wing for purely cosmetic reasons though!
Impressive. What a lot of work, but the results? Well worth it. Now to build a very cool body.
Not really into RC car stuff, but that looks pretty damn cool!
Check out ossum group on Facebook I’m currently making the 1:10 scale Jeep https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2056923
Impressive and awesome. I loved playing with RC cars but alas breaking them was a major issue. I love it that you stayed with PLA, I commend you on that. Looked at thingiverse thanks for the BOM.
I’ve tried v2 of this project with my son; now up for a new summer project with v3!
This looks awesome, and huge thanks for the great work!
I was looking for “3D print RC car parts” to see if it’s a good idea. Parts for my VE8 are getting rare…. and I found this. So THANKS for CLEARLY answering my question!!! Your car is hilarious and super awesome! I’m inspired!!!!