Trunki_pack

thingiverse

Trunki's are great! Seriously, they're worth every penny and definitely worth it if you ever travel through airports with small kids. The official site is https://www.trunki.co.uk. They were developed here in the South West, and famously were rejected on Dragons Den for really childish and ignorant reasons. Definitely buy one, they'll appreciate the business. They're pretty robust, yet I managed to break one last year. It was stored with the rest of our luggage in our loft, and got a bit manky. So I washed both trunkis in a bath of hot water and a few drops of Milton. Sadly, Trunki's are designed with plastic planar bearings. These work great with small children (under the age of 7) and when the grease has not been washed out of the planar bearings. So after I'd given it a good clean my 9-year-old rode it through Dublin airport, and it developed a gradual problem. The bearing had increased PV load, and the increase in friction caused both faces of the bearing to melt. This made both parts unusable. The other problem with Trunki design is that the wheels are held on by snap fits down blind holes. So to remove the wheel, you have to cut at least one part off. Bottom line, as great as they are, if they go wrong, they're basically toast. Until now. My 10-year-old daughter is too big to ride on hers, but she still loves it. And I don't have to carry her carry-on luggage, so I decided to give the broken Trunki the BathRobotics treatment. As the bearings with an ID big enough to fit on the centre hub were bloody massive, and intended for motorcycles, I shied away from that solution. Instead, the wheel is replaced with a bogey that's shaped like a wheel. This bogey has axles for two 608 bearings. Here's where it gets interesting. Print with support. Print standing up so the layers of ABS are taking the cantilevered load well. Print at about 0.3mm layer height. Acetone vapour bath. This works well. I've asked Emma not to sit on it, or ride on it, but it works as a pull-along cabin luggage. It's in use now. Needed: two clips, one wheelbogey, two wheels, four 608 bearings. I've included my version of the original wheel, this isn't "true" to the original and it can be told apart by a casual inspection. Enjoy.