I Built a GIANT 1/4 SCALE 3D Printed RC Go Kart!

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Now, you may remember this from a few weeks ago. This is my fully 3D printed Open RC go-kart. This thing is fully usable, and I demonstrated that when I took it out for its first run. I'm on a mission to try and bridge the gap between the 3D printing hobby and the RC hobby. And I want to show people out there that you can make usable RC cars using nothing more than the 3D printer, some hardware, electronics, and a little bit of time. Well, today we're going to take it up a notch, and we're going to do something a little bit crazy. I want to take this 1/8 scale go-kart and I want to make it double the size, which is effectively going to make it quarter scale. So, yes, it's time to take things up a notch. I want to try and create the world's first quarter scale fully 3D printed RC go-kart. And to do this, I'm going to be presented with certain challenges. The first one, of course, is going to be the hardware choice that I go for. Now, on the original version of this go-kart that I made, all the hardware was M3. Because this new go-kart is double the size, it should be a simple case of actually using M6 hardware. M6 hardware is of course a lot bigger and a lot heavier. And that may actually present a set of challenges later on in the build because all of the other parts are going to be enlarged as well. It may also mean that I have some trouble mounting a motor and a servo.

[00:01:15]And I think I'm also going to have to produce some kind of custom motor mount to actually get the motor fitted as well. Like I said, there's going to be a few challenges in this project. Looking at the Open RC go-kart project, it isn't the most complicated, but when you double everything, there is a set of challenges to overcome. Now, I got into 3D printing just before Christmas, and it's all thanks to Bamboo Lab. They actually offered to send me one of their printers to actually get me up and running and to get me started with some of these projects. Ever since then, I've had their full support when it comes to making these projects. What started as one printer has now turned into three.

[00:01:49]And a couple of days ago, I took delivery of another really cool printer from the guys at Bamboo Labs. It's their H2C, which is a multifilament, multi-noszle beast. The H2C with its really cool nozzle changing vortex system, allows you to do multiolor prints, but it also allows you to do multiaterial prints as well. It's all very, very cool and high-tech. Of course, Bamboo sent me their A1 as well because I want to show you guys that sometimes you don't have to have a flagship level printer. You can actually achieve some pretty cool results on a smaller, less expensive printer as well.

[00:02:24]I've got some really cool projects coming up using nothing more than the A1 and a little bit of filament. I think you're really going to enjoy those slightly cheaper projects because I know some people are on a very tight budget.

[00:02:35]You don't have to spend a huge amount of money to get into 3D printing these days. And I also want to try and show people how you can bridge the two hobbies together. There's so many different uses when it comes to 3D printing and the RC hobby. and I want to try and show you what you can achieve.

[00:02:48]So, all of this sounds fantastic. Where do you even start with something like this? Now, of course, we need to print all of the components out, but we need to double everything in size. So, of course, every single component on this go-kart project needs to be doubled in size. Now, thankfully, the H2S does have a pretty large build plate, and I'm hoping most of the components in this project can be printed on the H2S without having to cut anything. To do something like this, you are probably going to need a fairly large build area.

[00:03:17]You could attempt it on an A1, for example, but I think you may have to make lots of different cuts and then glue everything back together. Ideally, you want a fairly large build plate for a large scale project like this. Now, we're going to start with the first component, which is the rear chassis section. We're going to hit that. We're going to go to 200%.

[00:03:35]And that pretty much takes up the entire build plate. We may have to rotate this slightly.

[00:03:42]That's the wrong way.

[00:03:44]So, I think that should fit on the whole build plate. Yes, it does. And again, all I'm going to do is go through each and every component, go to 200%, get everything printed off, and then of course, we'll start constructed it. Now, this is probably going to take days and days and days to actually print all of these components off at double the size.

[00:04:06]Everything is so much bigger once you go to 200%.

[00:04:10]Yeah, this is going to be a lengthy project. I just want to show you one more example so you can just try to understand just how much bigger everything is. Now, here you see the normal standard motor mount. If we copy this first of all and then hit 200%.

[00:04:29]You can see everything is so much bigger and I've got to go through and do all of the components, right? I'm going to start printing everything off. No doubt.

[00:04:37]I'll see you in a week or two and then we'll start constructing this thing. So, here's a little look at some of the time-lapse footage. The first thing I did was print off the chassis. And I did have to actually do this in three parts.

[00:04:48]The front section was just a little bit too big. And then I went ahead and printed some of the components for the rear axle.

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[00:05:47]So, I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the time-lapse footage there of all these components being printed. There's one final thing to print off, and that's the wheels. And then we'll start constructing this thing. So, everything's printed off. It's now time to start constructing this thing. I've got my hardware. I've got my electronics. It's time to get it done.

[00:06:04]So, here comes the first custom part of this project. Now, I knew I was going to have some difficulty actually fitting a motor to this. And I knew the screw holes wouldn't line up. So, I just went on to CAD and I threw together a very basic motor mount and that attaches nicely to the giant Ralo motor that I'm using on this project. Yes, I know it's a slightly odd choice to go for a giant brushed motor, but I think it's going to actually work pretty well on this. I mean, those giant 17th scale relos weigh quite a lot. I'm pretty sure this motor is going to get the job done fine. I know I could have gone down the brushless route, but look, I'm not looking for insane speed with this. I'm just looking for something that works.

[00:06:40]And I still think geared appropriately, it's still going to be pretty quick. I have just remembered though because this is a crawler ESC and motor, I think there may be an annoying drag brake that can't be turned off because you can't actually go into the ESC settings and make any changes. At least not with a mobile app. But anyway, we'll go with it and we'll see how we get on. If I have to change the motor later in the project, then of course I can. It just makes sense to use it because I've got it lying around and the original project actually uses a brushed motor as well.

[00:07:07]So, the next thing I had to overcome was how I was going to actually fit a standard size servo to this. Now, I could have used a large scale servo and I could have probably made up some very small adapters to actually make that work, but I do think a large scale servo would be a little bit overkill for this project. So, I wanted to try and use a brushless standard servo from the guys at KST. And of course, if this was going to happen, I had to go back on Fusion once again to try to come up with some kind of adapter which would allow a standard size servo to work. That's exactly what I did, and thankfully, it worked perfectly. The final thing was going to be how I was going to get the steering linkages to work. Now, there was two different options I had here. To 3D print some linkages or to get some M5 or M6 ball ends and some threaded rod and try to come up with some metal linkages. I went down the printed route because again, this isn't going to be a crazy powerful setup and I think the 3D printed linkages are going to be fine.

[00:08:01]So, here is the current progress of this quarter scale RC go-kart. I've now got the rims printed off. This thing is pretty much ready for its first test run. But before that, we need to get the tires printed off. And I'm going to be using a very special type of filament.

[00:08:15]Now, this stuff is known as Varoshore TPU and it's from the guys at ColorFab.

[00:08:20]They've been kind enough to sponsor this video and they've sent me some of their Vario TPU to test on this project. Now, the very cool thing about this filament, depending on printing settings, you can actually make some very soft and foamy tires, which are pretty much perfect for RC projects. Now, if you want to check this stuff out in a little bit more detail, I will leave a link down below so you can head over to Color Fab, check out their fantastic range of filaments.

[00:08:44]This stuff should be perfect for the tires for this project. Let's get it loaded up in the A1 and let's have a go at printing out the tires.

[00:09:11]So, it's taken a good few weeks to actually get this project done. A lot longer than I thought it was going to take, but there was quite a lot more to do than I originally thought. So, let's just take a look. This is my one quarter scale open RC go-kart.

[00:09:41]And here it is. It's taken me around a month to actually get this thing finished. Everything on it is just so big. It took so much time to actually get all the bits printed. And driving this project for us today is going to be Tevin. I think he was probably the most appropriate person to actually be the test driver for this. Now, of course, there's quite a lot of custom work that's actually gone into this, obviously, with the motor mount, the servo mount. I also had another problem.

[00:10:05]I couldn't get readymade bearings big enough to actually suit this project.

[00:10:09]So, what I had to do was actually make some polycarbonate bearings for this.

[00:10:13]Now, are these bushings actually going to hold up? Because I can imagine things are going to get quite hot. Now, all I would say is I'm very confident this is going to work because polycarbonate is one of the strongest 3D filaments around. It can also handle some seriously high temperatures. I'll actually put the temperature on the screen now that polycarbonate can actually withstand before it starts to melt. So, I'm confident we're going to get a decent run out of this. Now, you may have heard me mention it earlier.

[00:10:37]I've actually gone for a crawler motor in ESC on this. And this is actually from one of those giant rel. And some people have even done videos demonstrating how powerful these motors are. I've even seen those crawlers pulling cars. Now, yes, I could have gone down the brushless route, but I think this was the best way to go because, of course, the original project is also brushed powered as well. Again, I want to say a huge thank you to Color Fab for sending out the Varore. These tires feel really grippy, nice and soft, very foamy, and I'm hoping these grip nicely later on when we test this. Now, the good news is if any of you guys actually want to build one of these yourself, I am going to re-upload all of the files that I've used, everything will be ready to go and ready to send straight to a printer. But again, you're probably going to need a printer with a pretty large build plate like this, only because of the size of everything. I just don't think you'd be able to do it properly on an A1, for example. Now, everything used in today's video, I will leave links to down below. That includes the servo. All the links you need to all the printers and everything else will be down below. But I think Tevan's getting impatient. Let's head out and let's see how this thing performs. So, this is where we find out if it was all worth it. Does this thing actually work? So, I've come to the same location that I tested the Formula 1 car. This gives us loads of space to actually see how the go-kart performs.

[00:11:58]And we're off. And yes, the good news is it does work. Now, remember, this thing has a fully 3D printed drive belt.

[00:12:07]Everything you see is 3D printed, apart from the hardware, of course. The belt is slipping a little bit. So, I think I do need to look at maybe making some kind of tensioner. Now, of course, the drag brake is still enabled. So, as soon as you come off the throttle, it does like to skid around a little bit, but that Ralo ESC doesn't allow you to actually turn the drag brake off. I don't believe there's a program card or anything. It's just kind of built that way, which is annoying. And as you heard there, there is a little bit of slipping with the drive belt, but we're not going to let that stop us today. Let's see if we can hit full throttle with this. Oh, it's slipping a little bit.

[00:12:55]That's full throttle. So, yes, it isn't the fastest thing, but look, I'm way past the speed thing when it comes to these 3D projects. It's just so cool being able to take a bunch of files and especially at this level when you can actually double the size of some of the things you find online and make them fully usable. Remember, this thing has a custom motor mount, a custom servo mount, and it is working perfectly apart from that belt just slipping a little bit. But because you can't buy readymade belts that would fit this, I had no choice.

[00:13:33]Once you hit the throttle, it does get going.

[00:13:39]I had no choice but to print a belt for this. And I'm actually surprised how well that belt is holding up.

[00:13:47]And that is printed out of 95 ATPU. For anyone who may be interested in actually making one of these, use some 95 ATPU and you'll be able to do that easily.

[00:14:00]Full throttle.

[00:14:07]Once you really hit the throttle, it does get going.

[00:14:15]Oh, we've lost something. Something's happened. What's happened?

[00:14:20]>> What happened?

[00:14:20]>> I think the pinion's come off.

[00:14:24]Yeah, it has. It's over there.

[00:14:27]Hopefully, I can just push that back on and we can be back on our way. The pinions back on and we're back up and running.

[00:14:35]I tell you what, the tires grip so well.

[00:14:38]And that is thanks to the Varore TPU.

[00:14:42]Color Fab sent me out a roll of that to actually test. And that is the stuff that's actually recommended for the FV24, but I didn't use that on the FV24.

[00:14:51]And I'm really wishing that I did because it has made a huge difference on this Yeah, definitely got a little bit of slippage on the drive belt.

[00:15:08]So, there's definitely a few adjustments that I need to make with this. Maybe I can print an even thicker belt with bigger teeth.

[00:15:16]Try and hit full throttle. That's full throttle.

[00:15:24]Heat.

[00:15:43]Heat.

[00:16:06]life.

[00:16:17]So, there we go then, guys. That was a world's first, a fully 3D printed quarter scale open RC go-kart. And there's lots of stuff that's now loose and needs adjusting. Now, that's my own fault because I didn't go ahead and thread lock anything on this. I just wanted to get it built. Now, looking back, I probably should have. The belt is also slipping a little bit, so I think I need to make some more adjustments to the rear. But, come on.

[00:16:40]This is a world's first. No one else has done this. I think I'm allowed to make a few mistakes. And of course, I'll make it better. And then I may even do another video. Maybe I'll do a half scale version. Who knows? I'm looking forward to making lots of little adjustments on this, making it better, and making it a proper, fully usable quarter scale go-kart. Cheers for watching. I'll catch you on the next one. Take care. If you want to see more cool 3D projects like this, click one of these videos now.