Have you ever looked out the window at traffic and seen a giant crane driving alone the road? Have you ever wanted a little 3D printed version you could drive for yourself without the risk of demolishing your neighbors house? Well, [ProfessorBoots] has just the build for you.
The build, inspired by the Liebherr LTM 1300, isn’t just a little RC car that looks like a crane. It’s a real working crane, too! So you can drive this thing around, and you can park it up. Then you can deploy the fully working stabilizer booms like you’re some big construction site hot shot. From there, you can relish in the subtle joy of extending the massive three-foot boom while the necessary counterweight automatically locks itself in place. You can then use the crane to lift and move small objects to your heart’s content.
The video describes how the build works in intimate detail, from the gears and linkages all the way up to the grander assembly. It’s no simple beast either, with ten gearmotors, four servos, and two ESP32s used for control. If you really need to build one for yourself, [ProfessorBoots] sells his plans on his website.
We’ve seen great stuff from [ProfessorBoots] before—he’s come a long way from his skid steer design last year. Video after the break.
Thanks to [Hudson Bazemore] for the tip!
Impressive. I wonder if there are electronic end stops or if there is current limit to prevent the short circuit in case the motors reach their limits.
If only the deck height motor on my lawn tractor had something like that. [Major lawn tractor manuf owned by B&S] left it out for some reason. Was it to get the $130 for the motor every time it hit the end and you couldn’t tell? (Three times, so far.) Was it to reduce the parts cost by a nickel? I will never know, but I won’t be buying their machines again.
I bought new, and made in the US, to replace the ancient Cub Cadet (bought used) that had only one neck-snapping speed left, precisely so I wouldn’t have to spend a month at the beginning of the season replacing parts while chanting incantations by moonlight. And the executive suite wonders why people aren’t buying their stuff.
FYI if you wait for a little while all his 3D models are uploaded to Printables, no need to pay for those, the website just gives more extensive instructions and sells hardware kits, but if you want you can do it all for free (or at hardware cost any way).
He put a lot of work and effort into this, I’d encourage people that can afford it (and if you have a 3d printer and enough money for pla and tpu you most likely can) to support the creator instead.
There are no guarantees he’ll post the model for free.
Cool, another advertisement of something for sale.
This took a lot of work to make, I think most people can spare $10 for the plans to support the creator. :)
Yeah,
Send to be happening more and more lately.
I’ve seen giant cranes drive along the road. Seeing them drive alone sounds rather scary.