3D-printable spares for Kraton 8S

[Tremonti]

I’m engineering 3D-printable Kraton 8S parts, mainly to overcome the shipping time from official spare parts. Some parts have plenty of stock, but there are a couple of parts which have a restock date of mid-March or even April. This might postpone further due to the coronavirus epidemic. I’m not looking forward to not being able to drive a $1000 RC-car for several weeks because I have to wait for restocks, hence my effort to make some of the most commonly breaking parts available for his community.

Additionally it will be a lot cheaper to print some of the parts rather than having to buy new ones every time they’re broken. The toughness of the parts depends on the material and print settings, but they should be strong enough to survive normal driving and light bashing. Can’t guarentee heavy bashing, since even the molded parts break at some point. ABS, Nylon or PETG are recommended materials. PLA should do the job too, but it’s more susceptible to deformation at points where there is a continous force on the material (e.g. threads etc.).

Some parts are very hard to reverse engineer without scanning them, so I won’t be doing them all.

What parts would you like to see made available for 3D-printing? The most obvious ones are the arms and servo/ESC holders. I’m also looking into 3D-printable skid plates to protect the chassis from scratches etc.

The top ones will be made available within 1-2 weeks.


Greetings

 

[Alex.M]

That sounds really cool, my last few brain cells have trouble understanding this fancy 3D printing stuff. I like the idea of having a substitute part while you wait for the real thing, that way you can still drive the car!
Keep at it dude. Good work!????

 

[Tremonti]

That sounds really cool, my last few brain cells have trouble understanding this fancy 3D printing stuff. I like the idea of having a substitute part while you wait for the real thing, that way you can still drive the car!
Keep at it dude. Good work!????

Thanks for the kind words .
3D printing has made us tinkers independent. You can now design, produce (print) and test your designs anytime you want. The only real downside is print time, a strong/good print can take anything from hours up to days. All depends on scale and design ofcourse.

I’ve got the rear arms done, doing some rigidity testing now. The actual reverse engineering (drawing) of the parts is the majority of the labor.

 

[jondilly1974]

Hard to imagine printed a-arms surviving on a 30lb rig ??‍

 

[Tremonti]

Hard to imagine printed a-arms surviving on a 30lb rig ??‍

It’s obviously not as strong as the original thing, not with PLA atleast. Printing with ABS or Nylon and then doing a controlled melt gives good results. In an ideal world we all had a Markforged printer with their ABSxCarbonFiber filament, that stuff is VERY strong. We have one at my university, it’s crazy what Markforged printers can produce. But there are also other parts like custom servo mounts and extra skid plates that could come in handy for some K8S owners

 

[jondilly1974]

It’s obviously not as strong as the original thing, not with PLA atleast. Printing with ABS or Nylon and then doing a controlled melt gives good results. In an ideal world we all had a Markforged printer with their ABSxCarbonFiber filament, that stuff is VERY strong. We have one at my university, it’s crazy what Markforged printers can produce. But there are also other parts like custom servo mounts and extra skid plates that could come in handy for some K8S owners

Right on. I was just trying to temper the enthusiasm for printed a-arms. I print all kinds of stupid stuff for my RCs and know how fun it can be. I also know how many pieces I’ve tossed in the trash ????✌?

 

[bigrigcustoms]

I would be interested in some of the files if you have any, i have a friend that has a 3d printer and is willing to print me parts, do you have any front bumpers yet to help protect more than stock