CO2 Pickup Truck

thingiverse

This is a fully 3D-printable "body-on-frame" pickup truck that rolls like any other toy car. No metal helpers are needed; it prints entirely without supports, and assembles by friction fit. You can glue it together if you like, but it is not required. It's intended to be a CO2-powered rocket car, but I haven't figured out how to open a 12-gram CO2 canister while it sits in the bed of the truck. Electrical tape holds the tailgate on and keeps the cartridge from "going rogue" during tests; this is what you see in the pictures. If anyone prints this and figures out a better way to launch it than free-handing it with a Dremel cut-off wheel, let me know. Nonetheless, it's a pretty nice toy car, even if I can't blast it down the street with compressed air just yet. It rolls down inclines fairly straight when assembled properly, and it crashes nicely with pieces flying everywhere, provided it hasn't been glued together. This will take you anywhere from 12 to 32 hours to print, depending on print speed, layer height, and how many body panels fail unexpectedly on you. I don't imagine this will be easy to print for a lot of printers, so be patient and take it one piece at a time. Here is the bill of materials with part summaries: 1 x Pickup Frame This can be one of the four permutations. There are varieties with and without supports, and UNTESTED hollow versions as well. I haven't printed and tested the fit of the hollow frame to the matching roof, so should you try this, it may require sanding or packing of some sort. 1 x Roof OR Press Fit Roof The normal roof has holes for the pins that mount it to the frame. The press-fit roof has a rectangular piece that is meant to press-fit in the hollow frame; again, I haven't tested it. 1 x Hood and Grille This piece has my signature headlight and grille pattern that I doubt you've seen before. Seriously, tell me where you've seen it before. Nowhere. That's right. 1 x Doors The doors wrap around the back of the cab and are pinned on either side. 1 x Pickup Bed The bed has a round holder for the closed end of a 12g CO2 cartridge. With the tailgate piece and some tape, this should hold it fairly safely and securely. 1 x Tailgate This has a hole for the open end of a 12g CO2 cartridge. Don't trust the taper pins; use tape. 1 x Right Fender 1 x Left Fender 1 x Right Quarterpanel 1 x Left Quarterpanel These pieces go over the wheels to protect the undercarriage, but really they just help to make the truck look like a truck. 18 OR 20 x Bushing Nut. These are used to keep the axle centered on the axle support. If you plan on gluing, you only need 4 (or 0, perhaps). If you want the friction fit to work, I recommend printing 8. 4 x Pickup Wheel These are my custom 6-spoke wheels. They are lipped on either end to retain tires. 4 x Pickup Tire THESE MUST BE PRINTED IN TPU. I used SainSmart TPU. Comment if you need the settings for this filament. If you don't have TPU or a printer that can print with it, I would suggest importing the wheel and tire into your slicer directly on top of each other and printing as one piece. I can't be sure how this will affect the truck's performance, however. I believe that's it. Good luck with the project, now you have an excuse to try out TPU. Leave a comment with any questions or requests. This is a work in progress, so I have all the files ready for modification and re-posting. Thanks for checking out my Magnum Opus to date!