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Hi
I am not too familiar with 3d printing but I had an idea for a birthday gift for someone. He is very into rc cars so I thought a rc car with the body being a replica(or pretty close) of his car would be really cool, if it could be done of course which is why I am asking at this moment. I have seen models of cars being done its just this would have to be able to fit at rc car, the body would have to be a 1/24 scale body as well. Anyway I am not going to go into more detail then that because I have no idea if you can even do this with 3d printers or not I would like to be able to find out and I am hoping someone has the answer, I haven’t gotten into 3d printing much so if this is a dumb idea please be kind haha :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks

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Hi @CHUGCOFFEE,

Off course it can be done, There a plenty of examples that proved 3d printing is perfect for these kind of models.

However, the designer of these RC car bodies are very skilled in designing. It cost a lot of effort to create descent printable models to fit and suitable for printing.

awesome example:

Max Greener RC Car

max-greenberg-sameer-yeleswarapu-ian-cullimore-cirin-rubber-band-powered-rc-car-art-center-college-of-design-designboom-01.jpg
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I don’t know, how much you’d like to spend on that 3d print, but I guess a realistic price would exceed your budget by quite a bit. This has multiple reasons: 1) the body would have to be custom 3d modeled to fit the electronics and mechanics etc. To have a high quality model you’d need to get to someone that’s experienced in technical 3d modeling, a small business would be the best option. 2) the 3d print is quite large and you might need to print it in several pieces, meaning additional joints etc have to be modeled. 3) such 3d print has to be strong and shouldn’t be made with the cheapest printer / cheapest material, this raises the price of course. 4) the tolerances have to be fairly small to make every component (motors, gearbox,…) fit nicely. If the selected 3d printer doesn’t manage to get the tolerances right the hub has to adjust the printer settings / 3d model. Possible “adjustment-prints” can increase the price too. I think you should expect to pay 100-200€ (likely more) to get a car body that looks like one of those, that you can buy. If you’d just want a multicolored car print, maybe his favourite BMW or ferrari etc. That could be quite a bit cheaper and most of all much easier to realize. Cheers, Marius Breuer

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That is a very optimistic price :smiley:

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I know, I just didn’t want to shut down all hopes to get this done for a cheap price, which would then suffer in printquality, complexity etc. I guess if the points I made a respected to a reasonable amount, then the cost could raise to 500€ or similar. What’s your guess on the costs?

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Like you already said, it depends on the complexity of the model and the resources. I everything as needed to be modelled (what I think it is the biggest cost) and someone from western Europe of USA is doing this it will go easily over the 1000 in total. (I calculate a 30-40 euro for a working hour) That why I admire the patience and skills from other makers so much. I have seen so many awesome things on the internet where people put so much effort in their idea/design. People from outside the community don’t realize that enough

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Just wanted to mention that the rc car body would basically be the same as a model car body. I’m not sure if that would help. It doesn’t really have to fit the components etc just because I would be basically drilling holes in the hood and back end to fit the rc car parts. I am using a really small and cheapo rc car called a losi micro 4x4 trail trekker. So basically I am just looking for a model body if that makes a difference. It’s just a lot of people can get models and replace the body of the rc car easily but there is no model car for the car this guy drives so here I am haha. For an example this guy on youtube did a mod of his with a model truck body(if you don’t like country music I would recommend not using sound for this) losi trail trekker 79 chevy - YouTube

Hopefully this may be a little less expensive then what’s being talked about and gives a better understanding as to what I am talking about(unless I read the comments wrong which is entirely possible) Oh and the car model body would be an izusu rodeo.

Thanks!

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Actually found this video and it describes a bit better what I mean. Basically this except a truck/suv instead.

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Hey there, Leanne,

There are several downloadable models of different Rodeos here…

http://www.3dcadbrowser.com/download.aspx?3dmodel=2170

Once a 3D designer has one of these models in their preferred format, they should be able to design a 3D printable body for you. I can give it a go, if you’d like.

Cheers,

AndyL

Pot8oSH3D

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Actually, the Losi Micro series are really great for learning to drive RC. They’re a good deal better than most Chinese RC toys. Well-built, well-designed and easy to mod. That’s a great video! And I’m with ya on the choice of music! :smiley:

I downloaded one of the Isuzu models and managed to come up with this. It’s not very high-resolution but at least it shows what can be done if you start with a model you’ve found online

Cheers!

AndyL

Pot8oSH3D

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Hi Leanne-

not to contradict those who’ve already replied, but my guess is you’re looking for something cosmetically ok, not 100% technically correct.

If that’s the case, and you’re willing to do some rework, then I think it can be a lot cheaper.

e.g. if this is the truck: The leaders in RC car and truck innovation and design | Losi then it looks to me that the rough body dimensions are 180x100x60mm. That will fit on the printbed of e.g. a Lulzbot Taz printer in one go. The cost then becomes the thickness of the body print/materials chosen. Thin-walled PLA is probably the cheapest, but also the weakest. ABS is more durable, but harder to print fine details (IMHO). Then there are things like Nylon, PET, etc. I suspect thinner walled prints with some of those materials could be stronger and lighter than equivalent strength PLA- and as less is used, it may end up being about the same price.

I think you could get it printed locally for between $50-100CA.

The really difficult part is getting a 3D model of the truck.

If you have access to the truck, you could try scanning it yourself with something like 123D Catch (free: Versa Connector (TNDCI DEV) 0.0.1 - Sign On)- you slowly walk around the truck capturing pictures from all angles, feed them all into the software, and it generates a 3D model. The accuracy may not be great, but it might be good enough for your needs. (I played with it quite a while ago and found out that because it also captures a photo-texture and sticks it over the generated model, it looked more accurate than it was.)

There’s also skanect - but I don’t know if it can handle something of that size. And there are other photogrammetry apps that can do really amazing jobs (given enough input images) but the ones I’ve seen are either very developer focused or quite costly.

If the resulting model is close enough you may be able to tweak it yourself using something like Blender or Meshmixer.

You could also contact one of the local art/design schools and see if there are any students looking for a real-world modelling project for an assignment (win-win - you get a cool model, they get a real-world project they can write up.)

Or you can take the model you get to a Hub and discuss with them what it’d cost to have them clean it up and modify it as a service.

But if you do want it to be technically correct, then it is going to cost a lot more. There are 3D scanning companies in the Lower Mainland, but I suspect they’re in the $1000’s to get a scan done.

Good luck!

Julian

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there are a lot of r/c 3d printed designs out there. you can search for openrc… better yet i’ll post a link to some stuff there from thingiverse Search Thingiverse - Thingiverse