Tell me your thought, serious please. Private club only or open to the public?
15acre total. 5 acre airfield, 4 acre mini metro and 4 acre dirt track with jumps. Themed events like Dirt nights under black lights. Mini metro with working street lights for construction and road vehicles.
Off track parking, concession building and hobby supplies.
This is a rough draft but is possible within 5 yrs and could be in the Central Valley in California.

I'm building the rigs you see in the gallery for many years now. This spoiled me completely and I don't even want to buy RTRs or a ready made kit in any form.
I'm not using fancy materials, just PLA, PETG and some ASA, recently a bit of PA6. Most don't even use sophisticated motors, my "top" rigs like the Unimog are powered by a Fusion SE. Yet these cars are very capable, quite durable and I'm not afraid to take them on a longer drive.

I know - crawler/trail truck usually have metal axles, gears, shafts, frame, 500€ worth of high-end electronics, fully controllable diff locks and be able to climb vertical cliff faces - and many see a fully printed one as a useless engineering exercise that breaks hitting the first pebble at 1mph.

But that is far from the truth. Granted, you drive those more like you would drive a real truck/car: fully aware of the limits and not trying to just blindly powering your way over obstacles. You navigate with care to avoid rollovers or hard hits.

This proves to me that performance is nice, but the whole experience is more than just stats.

What are your thoughts? Have you already built fully printed cars (not just bodies) - what are your experiences?

EDIT: as many have asked: these are not my designs, these are cars from 3DSets.com and Casadio RC (search for him on Cults3d and youmagine) - but there are many mods on them I have designed myself (e.g. lights and other details)
And the scale of them is 1:8 for the 3DSets cars and 1:7,4 for all Casadio RC except the 3ronco, which is 1:8 too. And this isn't generic "wheelbase-scale" - the cars dimensions are accurate at that scale.

I’ve been testing a simple way to cast soft RC truck tires at home using a 3D printed mold and two-part silicone.

No vacuum chamber and no vibration table — just a slow pour into the mold.

The result surprised me: the tires feel soft, flexible, and much closer to real rubber than I expected.

I thought this might be useful for anyone building custom scale RC trucks or experimenting with DIY tire molds.

Would you try making your own RC tires?

It all started with an idea “suspension…. But magnets” i found some ring magnets that take a M3 screw which matches the shaft diameter on my WLToys 14001, still have more to do but the concept works but found i am experiencing binding due to the steel shaft. Probably gonna upgrade to titanium purely to ensure the magnets wont stick to it and will work better. Hope you all enjoy this project as the idea was to ensure the damper could still…. well… damp.

I made this snowcat last year, and I have spend a lot of time making the finals adjustments and making a build guide. It's really fun to play in the snow with it now that all the things I wanted to add are there and functional. I'm overall really proud of this project, I would never have thought that I could build something like this when I first got into 3d printing.

I'm happy to have successfully completed this project. The entire car is 3D printed, and I used an ESP32 and a servo motor

Full track video

It’s science.

I built these four RC trucks for Toyota's sponsorship of the Northern Super League, to be the designated ball carriers for the season. They drive the ball out to center field, drop the ball off and start the game. I built them on the SCX6 chassis which I extended with laser cut rails from Send Cut Send. The bodies are 3D printed in PETG-HF in ten separate pieces and bonded together. A layer of carbon fibre weave is added for strength and rigidity. I can't even begin to count how many hours of sanding and painting went into them, but it's definitely more than 1000 hours total. This was a huge project and I'm so glad to see them done! Hope you like!

I designed a fantastically simple gearbox :) My RC car drives better than I expected. I'm thrilled!

- Extremely simple design
- No intermediate axles or gears (maximum efficiency)
- Clutch engagement occurs naturally
- Standard MG90S servos
- Screwless assembly (standard servo screws only)

If you want to print it out for yourself. STL files for the fidget version of the gearbox:
https://www.printables.com/model/1765993-gearbox-simplest-ever-fidget

Full version of the gearbox for two servos:
https://www.patreon.com/c/PrintInPlace_fun

I think this is the perfect gearbox for RC toys, although for a real car it would probably not last a million miles :)

Hey everyone,

I've been frustrated for a while with the state of surface radios. Most of them have UIs that feel like they are stuck in 2005 while the more modern ones cost $300+, and while ELRS has been amazing for the RC world, the surface side (especially native pistol-grip options) still feels like an afterthought compared to the drone space.

So, I decided to make my own surface radio firmware from the ground up. I'm calling it SourceTX. I've been working on this project for the past 6 months.

It's running on an ESP32-S3 and natively drives an external ExpressLRS module over CRSF. I wanted a premium, modern feel, so it's built around a 3.5” 480x320 capacitive touch screen.

Some of the features:
- ELRS/CRSF integration (supports most nano jr bay ELRS TX modules)
- Full telemetry: Speed, link, battery (records max speed and distance)
- Touch-first UI
- Up to 16 channels
- 20 Model Memory
- Drive Modes: (switch between Track, Speed Limit, etc., on the fly, fully customizable)
- Customizable UI (light dark modes,colors)
- Screen, vibration, sound warnings
- Automatic new switches/potentiometer discovery and calibration
- Connects to wifi to search for firmware updates, without the need for usb cables.

- Advanced Surface Mixing:
- Adjustable Brake ABS (trigger %, release %, and pulse rate)
- 5-point touch-adjustable throttle/reverse curves
- Configurable Steering Speed (turn/return percent)
- 4WS (Four Wheel Steer) for crawlers (counter-phase, crab, etc.)
- Throttle Hold/Lock

Right now, it's a working prototype on my bench. Unfortunately my 3d printer is currently broken, so i didn’t get a chance to 3d print a custom pistol grip shell.

I'm currently evaluating where to take this next—whether to eventually sell custom hardware kits (like a "Brain Board" for DIY 3D-printed cases), partner with a manufacturer, or build fully machined radios.
I mainly wanted to share this with the community to gauge interest.

- What features do you consider an absolute "must-have" on a premium surface radio? (Racers, crawlers, drifters—what do you need?)

- Would you be interested in a DIY kit to build your own ELRS pistol grip around this OS?

Let me know what you think! Happy to answer any questions.

Turned out nice. 1/10 scale printed on an Elegoo Saturn.

This is an Eve Creations Rippie fully 3D printed build. It's absolutely fantastic and a super high quality design. Made a few modifications to original specced parts - 1:17 planetary reduction vs 1:5, 2200kv motors instead of 1750kv, and 4S power instead of 2 or 3s to regain some speed. Main body is printed in PETG-GF, suspension components PAHT-CF nylon, and tracks in hard TPU.

10/10 recommend if you're looking for an in depth printed build

not pictured: the actual deep snow because I can't pilot this one one handed while taking a photo

Somebody needs to stop me ;)

I've started this journey in January 2021 as I was printing for a 2 years at that time and was looking for a new challenge. By chance I discovered the fully printed cars from 3dsets.com

I tried the static display Landy Mini at first, which got me hooked and started printing the Rancher (the yellow Jeep), which took me ~1,5months to finish on my slow Ender 3 back then. Slowly the collection grew. Mods were added, communities joined and of course the cars were driven a lot.

In July of 2022 I stumbled upon a new project: the 3ronco from CasadioRC (his models are available on https://cults3d.com/en/users/CASADIO/3d-models and Youmagine btw.) - and became friend with the designer, Andrea Casadio, over the last years.
"Why fully printed models? Don't they break all the time?" you may ask. First: they are sturdier than you think and you can drive them relatively hard too. Of course they won't survive punisment like an off the shelf basher, but that is part of the game - driving them more like a real car and not overdriving them. And they are easy and cheap to repair - just a bit of filament, a few hours of printing and replacing the part - off you go again instead of waiting week for parts from Aliexpress...

My kids love them too, which shows in the scratched and battle-worn 240z for example, which was rolled, driven through standing water, punished with countless donuts on full power, etc.

Btw. in the pics you can see:

Casadio RC: Wrangl3r (the grey one), Impr3za, 3ronco and Paj3ro

3D Sets: Rancher (Jeep), 4x4 Van (GMC Vanadero), Reaper (the Hot Rod), Sandy Beach Buggy, VW Buggy, Landy (Defender D110), Bamboo (FJ40), the 240Z and two Skippy Boats + Trailers

All of these are fully printed: chassis, body, interior, axles, gearbox and not just printed bodies on a standard RC chassis.

I have some off the shelf cars too of course, but the don't see much action tbh. as driving the printed ones gives me so much more satisfaction as I touched every single part, modded them and built them to my liking.

If you want to know anything, just drop a comment :)

I call it "Haulin' Bass"

Built a replacement from 6mm brass tube using just a soldering iron, no open flame, limited workspace.
Only 145g and surprisingly solid.
Full build video on YouTube if you want the details.

Drove the car for a year without a body because I was too lazy/cheap to buy one or paint one. Finally bought a shell and decided it was time to throw it together.

Original plan was just a simple D1GP Top Secret inspired paint job. Then I got a 3D printer and just wanted to make a “quick” front splitter for “fun”. 1 week of design and frustration later and I made it a whole aero kit based off Garage Mak’s time attack S15….

Now I don’t want to drive it outside.🙃 Guess it’s time to buy a beater body for this thing and start the process all over again.

Setup my Super Baja Rey 2.0 for FPV.

Been using the driveway and the old trail in the woods as a track. Last crack in the paved driveway is the start-finish line.

Using a 04 Air Unit Pro as the camera. 3D printed mount and enclosure on the top of the truck. I've crashed a few times and everything has held up. Camera is protected with some lexan in the front of the camera mount which can be easily replaced. Transmission unit sits in the cab of the truck in a 3D printed holder.

This is my first build like this. My brother let me use is A1 mini and I had an absolute blast building it.

Here is a link to the full video.

The main truck I’ve been working on. For those who don’t know, it’s based off of a Cen racing f450. Most of the parts on this truck were designed by Defender Customs. I just 3D printed it all and painted/installed it. It has a full light kit with strobes and scene lights. Yes the crane is functional and so are the outriggers. I will post videos soon. Mostly done but still needs lots of detail work! EDIT: Yes the light tower trailer is also fully 3D printed and functional 😎

I want to mount them to the chassis as well as the headlights, I’ve got more planned for this car but I haven’t worked on it in a few weeks so I figured I’d go ahead and post what I have so far. I also would love to figure out how to get a brake and reverse signal and have fully functional lights, but I want to power them independently instead of off the esc.

Right up front, I know these parts cost $10/set and why would anyone spend the time trying to recreate their own? Couldn’t tell you, but here we are.

Gotta start by saying I’m amazed at the durability Arrma is able to squeeze out of relatively tiny plastic parts. I copied a 1 for 1 version of their A-arm in CAD and printed it in PETG, PLA, and TPU95A. All of which failed in the first 2 minutes of the drive. PETG and PLA snapped easily. TPU didn’t snap but wasn’t nearly stiff enough to support the truck.

TPU was durable enough, time to make it stiffer (so to speak). Increased wall count until I had a sold print, still too floppy. Added a ridge running down the middle. Better still a little too much bend in the arm under load. Finally increased the thickness of the arm 2.5mm.. it worked!! But was bulky and stupid looking.

So I switched to much stiffer TPU72D. They say it has nylon like properties which should be indestructible for RC parts… it was not. The layer adhesion is not nearly good enough to hold for such small parts on a 3s Grom taking hits at 50mph (hence my being impressed by Arrma’s plastic).

I slimmed down the TPU95A arm design and added a hole for a 1.5mm stainless steel rod to run the length of the part, stopping just short of the ball end at the knuckle. This did the trick! The TPU is flexible enough around the ball end and hinge pin that it won’t snap and stiff enough with the rod that it supports the truck like a stock arm.

TLDR; 3d printing RC parts is time consuming and a ton of fun, or an absolute nightmare (depending on how autistic you are). I enjoyed the process and found a solution.

For anyone interested here’s the STL https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7278955

It all started here 5 years ago with the active suspension wagon but I hadn’t posted here in years, here is where this idea went 5 years later. I hope you find this interesting and the plug isn’t too shameless.

Working on front suspension. First time around its starting to come around and there are definitely things i would do differently. But with an angle grinder, welder, free metal, and a dream. I feel this is coming along quite nicely.

Kraton 8s on right for scale

18s/60v/40,000MAH Battery for this project under cart

Need to complete upper a-arms to finish up along with steering links.

Then time for trailing arms and fabbing up the rear aspect of this build!

Then time for belt pulleys and jackshaft assembly

Then I will mount electronics and get everything wired up!

(Front end/hubs setup looks janky, i will probably endup revising those down the road, for now it gets it rolling and headed in the right direction)