Work In Progress - N Scale Trucks with Knuckle Coupler

thingiverse

This isn't complete yet! After printing this, you'll likely discover that it doesn't work seamlessly with your current wheels and cars. You'll need to manually edit the model until I can redo the design to make it compatible with Thingiverse's customizer. These N scale trucks are fully functional, equipped with knuckle couplers. I used them to transform some sub-$5 Rapido cars I acquired on eBay. They're capable of coupling with both themselves and commercial knuckle couplers, although they do pose a slight challenge when decoupling due to their single-piece design. Printing these models takes approximately 30 minutes and costs around $0.01 worth of plastic. However, a new printer could potentially produce them faster and with better quality if equipped with a lighter extrusion head. Some post-print work is required using flush cutters and small files. Virtually any subpar $150 to $300 printer can successfully print these models. I'm still working on perfecting these designs. I aim to improve the coupler's ability to navigate tight curves. Currently, the couplers also don't rotate relative to the trucks, resulting in awkwardly spaced cars that don't look realistic. To make matters worse, not all car bodies have an acceptable distance between the coupler and truck mount point. These models lack aesthetic features on their sides, which could be a significant improvement area.