Hey folks, We recently took delivery of a Makerbot Z18 here in the office

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Hey folks,

We recently took delivery of a Makerbot Z18 here in the office and I got to wondering whether the PLA it uses would be man enough to build one a Truggy out of - I reckon I can modify the design such that the base/all other plate(s) wouldn’t need to be split in two owing to the huge build envelope of the Z18.

I’m sure I remember reading here though that building the Truggy out of PLA isn’t recommended - can someone confirm this for me before I waste my time?

Thanks,

Alex.

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If you are planning on driving the car, don’t do it in exclusively PLA. PLA will work if you want to make a model to put on the shelf.

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Thanks Eric,

Assuming I can remodel the bulk of the chassis (I’m thinking base/side plates) to be one part, is PLA really that fragile when compared to multiple bolted together pieces of ABS?

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For casual driving on the street, the chassis may hold up OK but not the differentials. The gears will strip out or melt. The gears and diff’s can be replaced with metal with some modifications to the design as others have done, although I think the rest of the car was still ABS. I would still be concerned about the hubs and driveshafts in PLA. I have a 100% PLA car for show right now. I am building an enclosure for my printer and then I will replace parts with ABS/nylon/polycarb.

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Thanks for the feedback Eric; is there a UK/EU source for metal gears?

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I have built one in PLA and it’s just not up to the task, IMHO. I have been wanting to try nylon, which prints done on Printrbots- not sure about MBs. I just ordered the whole BOM of metal parts to start experimenting with a super strong version in better materials. With our very large “Go” printer, I plan to scale up the design and build a big version for fun. I want to combine several split parts to take advantage of the 1’x2’x1’ platform. Why not use it? I want to do all the gears and everything as printed parts. The larger size should render more durable parts, but not sure what the increased size of the tires will do to speed and torque with the same motor. It’s an experiment. Several things may end up needing redesign, but I’m up for the challenge!
Brook