Welcome to my third blog post!
Car Body
For my third project I created a set of wheels and designed their attachments to a toy car I created based off of a Tesla Cybertruck. I made parts such as the wheels, wheel axle, wheel holders, screws, and poles that connect the axle to the car itself.
On the image on top, you can see the model car that is fully solid except for the screw holes for attachments on the bottom where I will show in these images below.
Here is my mechanical drawing for the car body. All drawings in this blog are formatted with ANSI. I have decided to use PLA mainly throughout this project since this is just a model car and is not meant to function other than a normal toy.
Wheels – Front & Rear
The next step in completing this car is to create the wheels. I made them in different sizes based on the varying body shape throughout the vehicles. Grey wheels represent the back wheels, and blue wheels represent the front wheels. I used the clearance fit in the hole menu so the wheels can roll freely.
Here are my mechanical drawings for the front/rear wheels. The front wheel is displayed on the left, whereas the rear is on the right.
Axle & Wheel Holder
There’s no point in making the wheels if you can’t attach them to the car in the first place, so that’s why I decided to create an axle.
I originally planned for the axle to attach directly onto the car, but I didn’t think it would be that secure so I decided to just put holes through the axle and make an extra part that connects it to the main frame.
This wheel holder is placed on the end of each axle, and they pair up to sandwich the wheels together so they don’t slide. I used a interference fit on the hole to make sure the wheel holders are secure and don’t fall out either.
These are my mechanical drawings for the axle and wheel holder:
Axle Connectors – Front & Rear
I eventually landed onto an idea wherein a pole sticks through the axle and has platforms on both ends of the pole with holes on each of the platforms, letting screws do the work of attaching it to the car body. That addition would need screw holes that fit perfectly on the car body for the screws that attach the axle connectors too.
On the left, you can see the front axle connector, and on the right the rear axle connector. Not much of a difference, right? Wrong. If you look at the car body, the angles for insertion of these axle connectors are precise and need to be followed closely or else the parts won’t fit. On the rear axle connector, you can see that the angle is less steep for the insertion. That goes the same for the length of the poles, where the rear axle connector has a slightly longer pole. These precise measurements are down to fractions of a millimetre.
Here are my precise measurements on my mechanical drawings I made for each axle connector:
Screws
The last (but definitely not least) part is the screws which hold everything together. Without screws, this project would be nowhere near completion even if I worked 5 days and 5 nights in a row. But anyways, here you go:
This (other than the screw holes) was hands down the hardest piece to build in this whole project. Although the axle connectors’ measurements were annoying, it pales in comparison to this singular screw. It looks really easy to build, but I kept screwing up. Get it? Anyways, here’s my mechanical drawing:
Final Product
The moment you have all been waiting for has finally arrived. The final product!
Here is my mechanical drawing of the car assembly:
I decided that since this project is just a toy, a easily-accessible plastic such as PLA could do the job. Even though there is still room for improvement, mainly in the interior, I think that for a toy, I don’t think any baby would be dissatisfied with this product and this car has done it’s job. In the future, I would consider adding a bit more exterior accessories such as headlights or breaklights.
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