Two 3D Printing and RC Enthusiasts Release Exclusive Model Designs on Pinshape

From design contests to helpful guides, there’s always something new and interesting to be found on 3D printable model marketplace Pinshape, which was acquired by Formlabs about a year ago.  There are all sorts of models on the site, including this cool quadcopter by engineer and designer Daniel Norée, of OpenRC Project fame. The project, which started in 2012 when RC fanatic Norée started designing and building RC cars with 3D printing technology, has grown into a large community, filled with thousands of members, like Thomas Palm, who share their ideas about 3D printed RC vehicles.

In addition to founding the OpenRC Project, Norée, born and raised in Sweden, runs a CAD/CAM blog called TopSolid’Blog, and is also a member of the Pinshape community. Earlier this month, he released an exclusive design on the Pinshape site: the Open RC F1 Dual Color McLaren Edition. The RC car is bright orange, inspired by the 2017 McLaren Racing livery. Each part has two separate STL files, for Color1 and Color2, as the model is meant to be printed using dual extrusion.

Norée teamed up with BCN3D Technologies and used the company’s dual extrusion Sigma 3D printer to print his model, with the help of his many sponsors. The gears for the F1 were printed in Alloy 910 by taulman 3D, while the tires were printed with colorFabb’s nGenFlex material. The body of the car was printed using ECO PLA material by Creative Tools. The Spanish Grand Prix was held this past weekend, and one of McLaren’s drivers is two-time world champion Fernando Alonso. As both Sigma and Alonso are Spanish, Norée cut his original F1 body so it would match the McLaren F1 car.

Norée’s Open RC F1 Dual Color McLaren Edition isn’t the only new RC design exclusively released on Pinshape this month: Brett Turnage, the founder of BTI3Dlabs who memorably created and 3D printed a replica of the 1993 McLaren MP4/8 in remembrance of Formula One racer Ayrton Senna, released his new 2016 Suzuki GSX-RR 1:8 Racing RC MotoGP on the site.

In January, Turnage released two other RC motorcycle model designs on Pinshape, complete with moving riders. His newest model is a bigger and better re-design of previous versions, and also comes with a rider.

“This 1/8 size Racing Motorcycle is far more advanced and has been completely redesigned with knowledge gained from actual RC motorcycle designers and racing enthusiasts whose invaluable input was incorporated into the design,” Turnage explained on Pinshape. “This is not meant to be a good 3d printed RC motorcycle, but a serious new RC Motorcycle variant that people can build, design and race at the track.”

You can 3D print Turnage’s model with different color combinations that mimic the livery of the real Suzuki race bike, and there are two plate numbers available: #25, for Maverick Viñales, and #41, for Alex Villà. The body of the bike was redesigned so the weight is tucked in the center for better balance, and the bottom of the bike is narrower for maximum lean. It has an innovative new chassis, and was built for epic crashes: the rider’s body is just one piece, and parts of the bike are bigger, so it can survive crashing and rolling.

Turnage stuck with Fusion360 for the bike’s development, but for the first time, he used bolts instead of glue to build the bike, which makes it stronger and easier to build and maintain. The RC motorcycle model features adjustable geometry, and can be used with a much wider selection of rubber tires and wheels than his previous 3D printable RC motorcycles. Discuss in the Pinshape forum at 3DPB.com.