3D Printing a Wheelchair?

[00:00:00]This is the TMT, the 3D TMT, the Toddler Mobility Trainer, and it's from Make Good. You know those guys. They do really good stuff down in New Orleans, and I recently built one. Where are my manners? Welcome to 3D Printing Nerd Studios, proudly powered by PCBWay, PCB CNC, and 3D printing. It's all at pcbway.com. The rigid pieces are made out of Proto-Pasta's HTPLA, and the flexible parts are made using CookieCad's TPU, which is a 95A, I believe. Everything printed on my Bambu Lab, let's see, H2D, X1C, P2S, they worked overtime to get all these parts done, and then I assembled it right here on the desk. And the reason I'm telling you about it is because you can make one yourself. It doesn't take that much filament, all things considered. There is a kit now where you can get the non-printed parts easily delivered to your door, and at the end of the day, you're doing something amazing for a family in need. And in this case, the family in need, that little boy, his name is Waylon, he wanted blue and green, and he and his family are on their way to the studio right now. So, I got to get cleaned up because some wonderful little child is going to have this chair really soon.

[00:01:26]The handoff of the TMT to Waylon went great. Family showed up at the studio, and it was just You could tell the kids, their their eyes were wide because this is just essentially a few thousand square feet of stimulus. Waylon, you could tell that even at a young age, Waylon was was able to get around and scoot around. And once he saw the TMT, he was a little hesitant, as any young child would be with a bunch of people standing around, but he took to it, and he was able to to get in it and stay in it, and mom pushed him around. The kids also saw, you know, things here in the studio, and I showed them the print farm, which they were just really excited to see. Uh the TMT, star of the show, Waylon, star of the show, and it just it went great.

[00:02:14]I'm so happy they were able to do that, and I'm so happy I was able to put together a TMT for Waylon, and now I have another one to assemble for a young little girl named Shavon, and she likes these colors. And so, I'm going to take you through the process of building it rather than just time-lapsing all of it. Hey, future Joel here. Something happened that was incredible between the time that we finished filming and now, and I wanted to make sure I made you aware of it because at 3d-mobility.org, there is now a color configurator. That was something that I talked to Gnome over at Make Good about very early on, and he was like, "Yo, dude, but I got you. It's in progress." It has dropped. If you go to 3d-mobility.org, you can sign up to be a maker, which is great because then you can make these for someone who's in need, but if you go towards the bottom, try the color configurator. It loads up. It says it's beta. You are presented with a TMT right there, and you can move it around, take a look at it. Now, if you click a part, then you can you can click a color. You hit apply, and that part becomes that color. You can zoom in. You can move it around. Up here, you can make the background dark or light.

[00:03:32]There's also themes right at the bottom.

[00:03:35]This one's called superhero.

[00:03:37]Oh my gosh, I love it.

[00:03:40]And there's ocean, forest, white text on light yellow Gnome feedback. Let's change that. [laughter] Camo. Oh, that's cool. That's pretty dope right there.

[00:03:50]And then, I would imagine that is Princess. That is absolutely Princess.

[00:03:54]So, one of the things that really made me excited about showing you this is that I'm about to show you how to build a custom toddler mobility trainer. And the colors that were chosen were thematic because the kids and the parents were like they like blues and greens or purples and pinks and yellows and whatever. I knew what a TMT looked like, but it was hard for me to visualize it. And I just sort of picked the colors that I thought would work for the wheels, for the sides, and then in the middle, and then the straps. But, with the chair configurator, being able to pick the color per piece, and then export a PDF showing the angles of it, oh, this is perfect because as a maker, this gives you a really idea of what you're making is going to look like. And as a person in need of a chair, it gives you a really good idea of what the maker's chair is going to look like for you. So, I'm really excited about this.

[00:04:53]And so, go to 3d-mobility.org, and you can try it out, give feedback, sign up to be a maker.

[00:05:02]It's all freaking wonderful. All right, let's build a TMT.

[00:05:10]The first thing you want to do, once you have all of your parts, you want to take the supports off. And so, what I would recommend, or at least how I went about things, is getting the supports off of everything. And in doing that, it allows you to get all of your pieces ready.

[00:05:27]I've got a a trash can right here.

[00:05:30]Take off your supports, throw them away.

[00:05:38]I think I got the supports off of everything, and I think [snorts] I bled a minimal amount.

[00:05:44]>> Just It's flesh wound.

[00:05:45]>> You really get a sense of the the joy and the kindness that went into these sorts of designs because this is this is how they work. These pieces go together.

[00:05:57]This is a the foot plate. But they they have these parts that stick out. And so when you slot that together, you then put Where's one? Here we go. This little piece, you can It's not this one. It's a different one, but you you put this in and then you pound it in with a rubber mallet and that locks it in. So you have these two pieces interlocked and then this locks it in place and it is an amazingly strong connection. The next thing you have to do is prepare your flexible parts. So I'm using Cookie Cad TPU here and we've shown you the strength of TPU when being used as a strap. I did get some hairy hairiness.

[00:06:42]I could tell you I could try a lot of wisps on those on those prints.

[00:06:46]I will be able to slot these in.

[00:06:49]And then once they're in place, I will run a torch around them just to get rid of what's visible. The first thing that you want to do is put together the sides of the mobility trainer. And this is the inside of the mobility trainer. This piece where you can see the make good design shares the same face as this because right here is a little assistive piece for one of the axles. And so you want to make sure it's on the outside. So you can put this into here and then And just like that. And see, it's got a little section to put a little a widget in to hold it into place. About that tall. And it's going to go in right there.

[00:07:33]Check that out. That's in. That's flush.

[00:07:35]And now these are held in really securely. It's such a good design.

[00:07:40]>> Genius.

[00:07:40]>> So if we're looking at this side then, this is that front. This is the piece we just attached. This piece is the back end. This is where you can put um bags or oxygen tanks or I don't know, whatever have you on the back of the TMT. That's going to go It's going to go right here. Instructions state you tap lightly. So, grab your mallet and just kind of Dang it.

[00:08:07]Well, I'm tapping lightly.

[00:08:11]Okay. Now, this is one half of your TMT.

[00:08:15]That's it. Just like this. Be careful when you're tapping. And this holds it together. This holds everything together. It's got that dovetail right there. Now, we can do the other side.

[00:08:25]Here we go. Uh next up is the the main caster. And for that, I get to show you something cool. So, Make Good has partnered with Schoolhouse Spools, looks like, and they've got themselves a kit.

[00:08:37]Everything you need that's not 3D printed in order to put a TMT together.

[00:08:42]Then, you don't have to source this caster yourself. The two smaller casters and some bolts, nuts, screws, bearings.

[00:08:52]That's all included. You don't have to source it yourself. So, at this point, now we've got our caster holder. So, this is going to hold this this big big caster. And it's kind of nice because you just slot it in like this.

[00:09:06]And then you slot this in from the other side.

[00:09:10]That's literally it. Look at this. It it holds it. And it's got that very familiar place to put the little nubbin to hold it in. I've got a nubbin right here, and it's the right height. So, I'm going to put it in and give it a few taps.

[00:09:26]This piece is going to going to come in like that.

[00:09:33]There you go. So, you can see with just a few pieces that we put together, we're this far. It does say to insert these like so and tap lightly.

[00:09:44]That's what I didn't want to do. These are going to go in this place right there.

[00:09:53]It's hard to see, but there's these tiny pieces. I think you can see them and they look like that. But it's this really ingenious method for locking the casters in on either side.

[00:10:07]I had put it in the the wrong way. So, I'm taking it out and putting it in the correct way.

[00:10:14]Next step is this piece. Remember this piece, the foot well that I showed you? And you get one of Yeah, these things to hold it in.

[00:10:23]It's such a good design.

[00:10:27]Oh, and now it wants me to put bolts in from either side. So, that kit comes with the bolts that you need for this because it rests in there. It's got a little guide here. So, on the bottom of the foot rest, you can see there are four slits and each of those are so that as this goes in and gets tightened, once you see the bolt in the slit, you know it's been tightened enough.

[00:10:52]I know this is okay because I saw Gnome do it with Coach P on their video. So, what I'm If you bring it up like this.

[00:11:06]Let's see, how did I do this before?

[00:11:08]There we go. You have to remember this is this is plastic. You can bend it a little bit. Next step are these pieces.

[00:11:14]This one just slots in like that. And these are for the back of the TMT.

[00:11:21]And just push it down a little bit and then this piece is going to slot right in through the front.

[00:11:30]So, if we take these four, they'll go together like this.

[00:11:38]Like this. And then you see the holes and everything can lock into place. But first what we want to do is put the tread on.

[00:11:50]So, I can show you how these are built to be disassembled in case you want to change colors or fix something. There's holes on the front of each of the wheels and if you get, in this case, an Allen key an Allen driver in there, you can butt up against that and then give it some taps.

[00:12:11]And that starts to come out.

[00:12:14]And now it's out. I just need to do it to the other three. I can take everything apart and then I can put it back together. And I think something like that speaks volumes because if something like this were to break and it was a medical device provided by a medical provider or an insurance company and cost hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, you wouldn't be able to do this. And the families that benefit from the Toddler Mobility Trainer, they just want to make something go. They just want to get something that works. Being able to not just repair this, but change the colors, change the pieces is wonderful. It goes bearing on the bolt.

[00:12:57]And that goes through. You put a spacer over that.

[00:13:02]And then you put a bearing over that.

[00:13:04]And then that goes in the wheel block.

[00:13:07]Which is here.

[00:13:09]And then that goes [snorts] in here.

[00:13:12]And then we have a washer and we have a nut to go on the other side.

[00:13:19]That's really awesome. Now we've got the headrest mount that's going to go on the back and there's these really cool rails that things fit into.

[00:13:28]Uh so, if I just slot that in right here.

[00:13:33]This is the headrest mount. This is the headrest bolt. It goes in like this.

[00:13:38]Then you put the bolt in.

[00:13:39]And then if you tighten it down, you can adjust the headrest into any position. These little These little bits go in the wheels to cover the bolts. Now we've got the push handle. This prints in two parts. And it's just uh let's see. It just goes together like this.

[00:13:56]Super easy. Uh this has these pieces that go over it.

[00:14:04]So, you can see this split. Um there's a little split in it. It's not bad. It's not going to come apart. It's just a tiny tiny little split. But, these are going to go on the back down into place. So, whoa, that's tall.

[00:14:21]So, now a parent can can push. Now it's time to talk about the straps and the buckles and the things that kind of keep the kid safe. They're all 3D printed, of course. Uh there. Check out. Look at this buckle. Totally just 3D printed.

[00:14:34]Again, this is Proto-pasta HTPLA. And it goes on these. These pieces are kind of what goes on the chest of the kid. And and these are held in place by these TPU little snaps. And then you push it and they snap into place.

[00:14:50]And there we go. Uh for this, this is going to be a strap. And I believe it is So, these straps have a little hole in one side. This goes through. Uh let me Let me show you. So, if I feed it through here and then back up.

[00:15:09]So, this would go like that on the kid to keep them safe. Now we put some straps on the chair.

[00:15:24]And the one that is shorter is going to be the seat belt. That is fed through the same holes in the back and it just it comes out and that's how it's done, which is nice.

[00:15:37]The seat belt is in. There are straps that you can put here for the feet.

[00:15:42]There's a strap and a buckle set that you can put around loop around the back for accessories. When Waylon and his parents came and picked up the chair, I had it fully built and they were like, "Well, can we take this off? Can we take this off? Oh, he won't need this. He just needs a seat belt." And that's part of what's really cool about the Toddler Mobility Trainer is how much customization and configurability it has. So, for this, what I'm going to do for little Shavon's family, we're going to keep these straps and those buckles separate. And last, what I'm going to do before I consider this good, is attach the the pads. That's these things.

[00:16:25]And make it so they can uh they can use them. There are holes in the pad to feed the the buckles through.

[00:16:37]There we go.

[00:16:39]Pads are in.

[00:16:40]Wheels are good. The front tray is good.

[00:16:43]I've got belts, buckles. I've got all sorts of really cool things. It rolls really well. Oh, I can't wait.

[00:16:52]>> Yes.

[00:16:53]>> This is going to go to a little girl named Shavon and I hope she really enjoys it. If this is something that you yourself are looking to do to to help with people in your community, links are down below where you can get the plans, sign up to be a maker, be in touch with Make Good, get the kits.

[00:17:12]They make it really easy. These were printed on Bamboo machines. You don't have to use bamboo machines. The profiles that they give you are all from Maker World, so it makes sense, but you can print it on any machine you want.

[00:17:26]Just use PETG or HTPLA and TPU. Um just make sure you got some good stuff for the tires and for the pads. Uh my builds were sponsored by Proto-Pasta for the rigid stuff and Cookie Cad for the flexible stuff and I'll put the specific colors and materials that I used in the description down below because these colors are beautiful.

[00:17:48]Well, listen, if you made it this far, you're awesome. Don't forget to hug each other more, fight for a cause you believe in, and print all the useful things.

[00:17:55]And as always, high five.