Though [Ivan Miranda] calls the 3D printed vehicle in his recent video a motorbike, what he ultimately pulls out of his suitcase is clearly a scooter. Linguistic confusion aside, the “Mirandetta” looks like an awesome build and pulling a scooter out of your suitcase and whizzing past everyone in the taxi line just sounds amazing, especially knowing you made it yourself.
Aside from a whole lot of filament, he’s got a couple of tool batteries for hot-swappable energy that Airport security shouldn’t mind too much — provided you carry them with you, anyway — plus the usual e-bike motor and electronic speed control you might expect, and lawnmower tires which you might not. The narrow 3D printed rims round over the normally-flat tires to make them usable for this application. He seems particularly taken with the bi-stable mechanism he built for the kickstand, and we can’t blame him as we love seeing that kind of thing ourselves. The TPU seat is also a nice touch to keep with ‘everything printed’ vibe.
Now while the finished product does indeed fit into his suitcase, it needs to be completely disassembled. Well, unless you have an over-sized suitcase, perhaps. So our dreams of zooming away from the luggage line from the first paragraph were perhaps a bit premature. Still, from the footage at Prague Maker Faire at the end of the video, it looks like it was a fun enough ride that we can forgive [Ivan] for our overactive imaginations.
If you want an open-source e-bike, we’ve seen those too — but that won’t fit in any kind of suitcase.
Next step: combining the previous hack for home injection molding aluminum with this…
I mean, technically, it IS a motor-bike. It is a “bike” in that “bike” is short for “bicycle” which itself means a cycle with two wheels. It has a “motor” – actually more so than what is traditionally called a “motorbike” because if the power unit is gas, it’s called an “engine.” “Motors” are typically electric. So… semantics aside, yes… “motorbike” is perfectly apt here.
But it’s a toy bike.
“A vehicle is any machine or conveyance designed to transport people, cargo, or both”
Nice Hardly-Davidson.
Depends on the country, but where I live you can’t use it like an e-scooter and ride it on the sidewalk or on cycling lanes because it has a seat – and by law that makes it a motorcycle/moped regardless of voltage, power, weight, speed limiter blah blah blah.
(Yes, there’s plenty of cases where old people were issued very hefty fines for driving “unregistered motorcycles” that were simply e-scooters with a seat.)
You can’t get this registered as a road-legal electric motorcycle/moped unless you’re:
- willing to start your own company so that you can become a vehicle manufacturer and issue your own VINs
- go with the whole EU safety approval/homologation process for all the components
- pass an initial (pre-registration) extended roadworthiness test and then basic ones on a yearly basis
- find an insurance company willing to insure your vehicle
All that bureaucracy would probably cost as much as a brand new Audi SUV. Sadly all the legal loopholes which people used for garage-built vehicles (especially 4x4s), prototypes, “tractors” and other stuff were closed by the early 2010s. Thanks EU!
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All that means you can only ride it on a private property. Sadly it’s an useless toy made mostly for video clicks.
It could likely be registered as a home built vehicle in most of the USA
You can do it in Australia but it does require a lot of engineering certification and a lot of other hoops to jump through. There are a lot of specialised engineering shops that will do parts or most of the build for you,
Were people riding homemade tractors anywhere other than private property? I think our family tractor has spent 99-100% of it’s existence only on private property and it’s not homemade. That seems like no problem for tractors. But yes, the EU sure seem hellbent on destroying small businesses and startups.
Regarding the bunch of deleted comments:
So pointing out ON HACK A DAY that FDM printing loadbearing structural parts such as A WHOLE SCOOTER is pretty much the worst choice is bad now?
And not just worst in structural stability/strength/flexibility but also energy “wasted” and probably plastic waste.
Wood is better. So are many metals. Probably even some structural plastic parts from a hardware store (maybe not PVC pipe but something else?).
Maybe it’s stronger than it looks thanks to the bunch of long screws inside?
Ohhh great! At least two sponsors and you can buy details of the build for 35€
So yeah, great advertisement HaD! Does HaD get a cut?
Would still go with the Mazda suitcase car tho
https://www.mazda.co.uk/why-mazda/news-and-events/mazda-news/articles/the-mazda-suitcase-car-portable-personal-mobility-with-a-twist/