3D print your own landspeeder

By Ben Everard. Posted

Most of the time, we want our 3D prints to come off the print bed as near complete as possible. With some clever design, you can even print multi-part mechanical designs in one go. However, there’s a whole school of design of flat-packed 3D printables. The main use of these is to make them fit in cards. The designs are made up of several little bits that ‘pop’ out of a frame and then connect together. They make great gifts, and thanks to their low Z-height, they print quickly.

Search for ‘kit card’ on your favourite 3D model repository, and a wide range will pop up. We took a look at one of the newest additions to this selection, the Landspeeder Kit Card by fixumdude on Thingiverse.

On our Prusa i3 MK3S, this prints in about 90 mins. We printed it in Fillamentum CPE Morning Sun (because we’re testing out some polycarbonate for a feature next month), but it prints equally well in PLA, and should work in most plastics.

Once printed, the parts snap out of place. You can put this together with no tools, but flush cutters, or a sharp knife, let you trim off any residual plastic from the break. There’s a PDF of instructions for assembly as there are quite a few steps – it’s not particularly complicated, but if you tried to do it without these, you’d probably struggle.

We’ve had great fun with this and other 3D-printable kit cards over the years. As winter approaches with all its various festivals, it’s a great time to share your maker skills with those you love, especially as we may not be able to spend as much time with people as we’d like this year.

VERDICT

A fun way of sharing your 3D printing with friends.

9/10

It only takes a few minutes to assemble with the clear instructions


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