Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car  

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

I would like to help in any way I can.  I am no engineer but catch on quickly, so I can help research or help design the best way I can.

I love your consept.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

Posted by: @mr-b

I would like to help in any way I can.  I am no engineer but catch on quickly, so I can help research or help design the best way I can.

I love your consept.

Thank you mr-b very much for your offer. Yes I will need help.
I am trying to put together all documentation in an understandable way, and then publish it. It will be ready in few days (maybe weeks...)
Then publish it.
I am missing information on the Open Source licenses to include in the documentation, so if you can help me in putting a short text explaining the ones the project will use and what can be done and not will be great:

The license I will use will be Creative Commons CC-by-nc-sa (more info here: https://creativecommons.org )
and the project will an Opensource Hardware project (More info here: https://www.oshwa.org ) I will try to register the project before the release.

Thank you again for your help.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

Very cool concept: but I am afraid Izetta has already designed the frame and body (a long time ago), and is now out-fitting it with an EV propulsion system: 

https://www.autonews.com/article/20180403/BLOG06/304039997/the-isetta-is-coming-back-as-an-ev

ps: despite the "competition" from Izetta, your concept looks fun. Keep us posted on your progress.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

ps: the Izetta was originally an almost 3 wheeled car - the design was very problematic when driving on real world roads ... my family owned one, and they tipped over very easily. Probably why the new EV versions looks to have four wheels in a more traditional layout.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

Thank you for your input @tim-m30, but I don't know what relation do you find from the old or new Isetta to this project. I didn't even used it on my inspiration panel.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

I just created a PrusaPrinters project because I will be releasing the Open Source in a few days (maybe weeks…) and needed the link for the documentation.
And because in some forums people wanted to see more and see how the parts are, and if they can print them.
So I just uploaded a couple samples pieces of the body, anyone can print them with the printing suggestions and profiles and check if they like the idea.
Please post your prints and please give some feedback.

Link: https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/46729-3d-printed-diy-electric-car-the-jellybean3d  
Any suggestion and help is welcome. Feel free to comment.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

I made a printable 1/10 scale model of the Jellybean3D.
You can download the file parts for printing from: https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/47678
Check this short video for printing, assembly instructions and other details:

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

@-2

My BMW Isetta was right hand drive, the engine was on the right, the pilot was on the right and there was a huge chunk of metal in the glove pocket on the left to keep that wheel down on left hand corners...  Mine was the three wheel version, there was also a four wheel version at that time, (Late 60's / Early 70's)

regards Joan

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

@gonper

I have not forgotten about offering to help.  You said you need help with the cc-nc-sa license.  Are you wanting a summation of it to add to documentation.  If so the license is summarized on the cc website but I can summarize it more so that you can use in your documentation.

Please let me know.

Also;  is this documentation just for your 3d printable car or your full human size concept car?

Thank you,

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

@gonper

I love the 3d scale print.  But may I ask a few questions.  My mindset is to try to make all parts of anything I design for 3d printing to be completely 3d printable.  That is what makes 3d printing so enjoyable an satisfying. 

Why not design 3d printable screws to attach the wheels?

Why not design the wheels, axle and front end to be a single print?

Why not design the lights and seats and doors to have pop-in fasteners so you do not have to glue?

Just some suggestion.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

Posted by: @joantabb

My BMW Isetta was right hand drive, the engine was on the right, the pilot was on the right and there was a huge chunk of metal in the glove pocket on the left to keep that wheel down on left hand corners...  Mine was the three wheel version, there was also a four wheel version at that time, (Late 60's / Early 70's)

Ooooh, very few RHD of them where made and only in UK.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

Posted by: @drunb

I have not forgotten about offering to help.  You said you need help with the cc-nc-sa license.  Are you wanting a summation of it to add to documentation.  If so the license is summarized on the cc website but I can summarize it more so that you can use in your documentation.

Please let me know.

Also;  is this documentation just for your 3d printable car or your full human size concept car?

I just need a short text that explains what it means, what can be done, what can not be done, and if done how. With the design and documentation and so on...
Provably you just can copy, paste and adjust from the CC and OSHWA web sites.
With 2 or 3 paragraphs or a short of a list provably is enough.
As well if you can come up with a disclaimer note will be very helpful.

It will be for the whole project, the printable human size, the printable scale model, and provably some latter adds.
The documentation will be only English.

Thank you very much for your help, really appreciated.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

@drunb

Yes you are right, the 1/10 scale model is not an optimised design to be 3D printed. 

The full scale one it is. All parts are designed in order to be 3D printed, taking in account many considerations like; printing orientation for strength, minimise use of supports, printer size, avoiding or enforcing the cuts in determinate areas in order to strengthen or not weaken them, make as most parts printable as possible (up to a certain point), etc.

But the approach to the scale model have been different, I am just using 3D printing technique in order to quickly get a scale model (another reasonable way to use a 3d printer).
I just scaled down the full size model parts and cut it them in order to be printable. Not any good if I will be needing many units, but good enough to print few units. 😉 

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

@gonper

Understood,  I will begin to work on this when I am completed with my employment work.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

Back to the topic:

I always promise myself that when designing a vehicle the first area is going to be the front steering/suspension geometry, but always I break my promise ....
So the front end knuckles have been ones of the lasts parts I have designed.
It was not in my mind to 3D print them and provably use CNC aluminium parts or similar.
But I was given the opportunity to test the nTopology platform for 7 days. Although it is a quite complex software due to its enormous capabilities, I was able to perform topology optimisation to the knuckles.
The people of nTopology liked the project and gave me some extra time to further work in them.

And here is what come out. It still may need some refinement but they will be something like this:

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

Can you post a 3D part here - I would like to rotate it and to see it from all sides. I am not able to do this "Bionic" designing - no knowledge and no tooling set for doing this, but I love it to see parts designed in that matter - as a technical engineer you often would expect completely different designs.

Nice project you are working on.

Best regards, Clemens

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

@clemens-m

Yes, parts that come out from Topology optimisation are sometimes kind of strange, like this time.

I tried but the forum does not let me upload STEP or STL files. I suppose it only lets media files...
Do not worry in a few days I will post link to all parts and assemblies and so on.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

More info about the DIY 3D PRINTED CAR. Today components, components and more components.

RE: Fully 3D Printed DIY electric car

I knew that this project was going to take me to unexplored places... 🤣 
In order to join the different parts I need a good "glue" that is able to create bondings that are strong, reliable and durable on PLA or PETG.
The best result I have got are with Cyanoacrylate (CA) or Gloop but both have some issues:

1. CA while the bondings are very strong they are not durable under moisture and UV light, and it is a quite expensive glue.
2. Gloop it is even stronger than CA as it is a chemical welding, but it cures/dries too fast. What I mean is that the parts are big and it dries up before I am barely able to apply it to both parts surfaces to be bond. Also it happens that as soon as the surfaces get in contact they weld so strong that is imposible to reposition them in the case of misalignment. (Similar to contact glue)

So after testing the Gloop I decided that that was the path to follow; to use a similar chemical welding as it is used for ABS or PVC.
And I have good news, after dusting off my organic chemical knowledge, I think have found the right mix of solvents and fillers to create a similar product to be used in PLA (It looks like it can work as well on PETG).
It still needs some refinement in order to get the right proportions of solvents/fillers, and the right fillers in order to get the right joint elasticity. But it actually works, and the first tests looks very promising.

More info in following days.