OpenRC F1 Car Project

Having printed the bog-standard prints, you know the ones when you first get a 3D printer…Benchy, Leveling wheels, temp towers etc.  I wanted something more challenging to print. Something that gives you the wow factor. I decided to print the OpenRC F1 car project!

Being part of Inov3D, I wanted to print the Open RC F1 car using the theme colours of Black & Orange and also apply some decals.  Already having some orange PLA, I needed to find some black filament.  Thankfully, Eryone came to the rescue and sent me some of theirs!  I do recommend this filament, and at less than £15 for 1KG, it’s totally worth it!  Being lucky enough I was sent some Carbon Fiber filament from the guys over at Emvio Engineering. A great filament, of the higher price bracket though and for only 500g, but I found it a fantastic looking filament to use once printed. You can check out my review of the Carbon Fiber filament here.

The Printing

After deciding which parts to print in what colour for the OpenRC F1 car project, I used my CR10S for the black parts and my CR10 Mini for the orange parts. It saves me having to swap filament around! I used the recommended settings stated on the site and used them the whole way through the printing process. My first part to print was the chassis of the OpenRC F1 car project. This took me a couple of attempts to do as it had warped from the bed due to it being a flat part. Adding some brim to the print seemed to hold it well even though a little warping in places but still functional.

I was very pleased with these results once printed! I think the pictures speak for themselves. Whilst the chassis was printing, I decided to print the rims for the wheels. These printed extremely well, although I didn’t realize the front was slightly different to the back ones, so I had to print another set!

You may have seen my previous review on Sunlu Black TPU, I used this to print the tires! I was thinking this could be a hard task, but it went extremely well using the stock extruder on my CR10S with no modifications! I think next time, I will increase the heat for better layer adhesion as some had come apart slightly. Nothing a bit of glue can’t fix.

Below are all the parts printed for the OpenRC F1 car project. I had some scraps of a natural colour PLA, so used that for some of the steering parts as these wouldn’t be seen. Some of the bigger parts such as the engine cover, main body, front wing, spoiler etc are below.

Let’s Put It Together!

All of the parts for the OpenRC F1 car project are printed and it is now ready for assembly. I purchased all the nuts, bolts and bearings via eBay, along with some clear and white-backed decal paper.

The Chequered Flag

Now that all is printed and put together, this is when I used my decal paper to print the logos to apply to the OpenRC F1 project. Logos were sought from the corresponding sites/sent to me and I just printed on a normal inkjet printer. Once printed, I then sprayed the decal paper with some clear lacquer varnish, about 3 coats will suffice.

Once the clear varnish has dried, I cut around the decals (to be honest, I could have been more accurate with that!) and then just soaked in water. Using some tweezers, once the deal comes away from the paper, just stick in the place where you want it! As I was using black PLA for some prints, the clear backed paper would not work as it wouldn’t show the logos properly, so I had to use white backed paper. Looks OK for the tires, but I do prefer the clear backed stuff. So, if you do decide to use decals, bear in mind the colour of the material you are printing with!

We’re done!

The OpenRC F1 car project is now complete! (Minus the electronics) I was very pleased as to how this came out, and I would definitely print this again using different colours. The car was kindly sent over to the guys at Emvio Engineering.  They were attending the TCT Show 2018 in Birmingham and wanted to showcase their Carbon Fiber filament. Here’s a picture below of the OpenRC F1 car with Emvio Engineering! (They had printed a pink nose cone to showcase one of their other filaments)

I will be getting around to doing some electronics for it, but at the moment I am in no rush to do this. I do hope you have enjoyed my article on the OpenRC F1 car project.  If there is something you’d like to see as part of another project, just get in touch with the Inov3D team!

Thank you for reading!

**Update**

We have been featured on Daniel Noreé’s Open RC page!

This is a collection of others within the 3D Printing community who have printed the Open RC car. If you are thinking of doing it yourself, lots of information there too!

I have also 3D printed a rain light diffuser for the OpenRC car. You can find out how I did it here!

Since printing the OpenRC F1 car, over time, parts have been upgraded so I printed these in a blue PLA and also printed some new rain tyres for it too using Eryone TPU. Here it is in action!