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One of the projects I found that I could do with my shiny new Trident was 3D printed RC cars. Turns out there's a bunch of them out there. I found the 3D Sets one watching Steve Builds which look really cool,and are on the to-do list.

I threw some Google searches and found several others to try out. First up was the OpenRC F1 since it is the simplest one out there and I was also able to build with my son (yes, we built a pair of them).

So, the OpenRC F1

How it started:

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How it went:

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His first throttle hit was calibrated form the little kid RC cars. It went much faster than anticipated. Hopped off the curb and hit a tire. So the nose snapped and the wheels fell off. Since it is a printed project replacements were easily printed up and we both just laughed.

After the first real run we learned a couple of things. First, I had to glue to tires on the wheels as I suspected and PLA gears don't cut it, so they got replaced with ABS.

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The cars have been running well since the initial problems.

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The new project is a Tarmo4. This is more complex with 4WD, a gearbox and two differentials along with a full suspension.

First day's build:

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Second day's build:

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This also made me (well, gave me an excuse for) learning to print TPU.

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The part aren't pretty, so I have more slicer tuning to do. But they will do the job. The use of TPU here is kind of genius. The driveshafts will twist on a sudden torque hit from the motor so things don't break. The lower front control arm mount will flex on an impact, also preventing things from breaking.

I'm just waiting on some electronics I forgot to order, then I can get it running.

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I go a couple of LiPo batteries for the new one, Then doing more actual research after seeing how massive they were I need to order another. I got 3S 5200Mah which are massive and should make this thing fly. For starters I need a 2S and much smaller capacity to get a small size.

A friend of mine and I were given a used Panda buggy to mess around with. We soon after went down to the local hobby shop where he bought an Associated RC-10 and I bought a Team Losi buggy. We ran the heck out of those things.

I'm currently on a week pause waiting on some parts. I forgot to order another receiver, and that should arrive later today. I also found the build kit vendor (rcprinter) included the wrong ESC. After contacting him, the correct one is with UPS and will get here next week.

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We fell well down the rabbit hole. We spent a lot of time at the local hobby shop/track tinkering and racing. I have a penchant for collecting expensive hobbies.

Somewhere I still have that Losi buggy packed away; probably needs a full overhaul now. Rebuilt shocks, new motor and updated electronics probably ought to bring it alive. But, I'm having so much fun printing then building cars now... And broken parts from crashes are no big deal, not to mention the possibility of tweaking designs should the urge hit.

12 hours ago, Simon2.4 said:

whoa those are really high end cars. Nicest car I had was Traxxas rally VXL and biggest was Redcat Monsoon 1/8 huge stinky nitro truggy.

Umm...those look to be about equivalent-ish to what I played with. I looked at nitro but realized I wasn't ready for all the associated complexities over electric. We were into it back when the RC10 was still a folded aluminum plate chassis and Losi was a plastic plate if I recall. We saw later generations go to the carbon fiber plate.

Here we go, this brought back memories: https://site.petitrc.com/setup/associated/setuprc10/RC10Classic_RCCA_Review/

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