Feb.6, 2015 | By Alec

Winter weather can be dangerous, but is mostly just annoying. And I’m not just talking about the cold, the slippery roads, the traffic jams, the endless weather reports and the public transport delays. Perhaps most annoying is the seemingly countless times you have to shovel snow from your driveway. Fortunately, Ryan, a tinkerer from Minnesota, has come up with the perfect solution: a 3D printed snow blower.

The RC original its based on.

The idea is that this cool looking RC snow blower will make clearing your driveway easier and more fun than ever before, and to be honest this looks like a lot of fun to play with as well. What it is, in a nutshell, is a modified Kyosho Blizzard SR, a relatively small snow plow that is designed to do the exact same thing and can be purchased from many RC hobby stores and websites. Ryan recently got his hands on one, but found that its plowing performance in actual snow was hardly worth the investment.

The 3D Printed RC Snow Blower in action.

He therefore started an extensive remodelling project to turn it into a snow blower, and it turned into a giant RC creation. The snow cutting section is a massive 14 by 6 inches, while the blow hole is approximately 2 inches wide.

More importantly, the results have proved so satisfactory that he is planning on selling them – either as a set of STL files and extensive guide (for $60) or as a completed 3D printed kit (price not yet known). Either way, you’ll need to get your hands on your own Kyosho Blizzard SR, which isn’t cheap as it is, but the entire project certainly looks like a very fun way to clean your drive way; your kids will be begging you to let them do it! And it works great too! Just check out the clip below to see it in action.

As Ryan explained, turning this RC snow plow into a successful snow blower is quite a complex project. For starters, you’ll need to modify its servos to enable it to drive backwards as well, as the snow blower attachment is placed on the backside of the RC plow. Then it’s a matter of attaching the complex blower construction, which Ryan completely designed in CAD software – even the bevel gears and timing belt pulleys are 3D printed. All of the components were 3D printed in ABS filament, at a layer resolution of 0.4 mm (the gears and shafts at 0.2 mm) on his XYZ Da Vinci 1.0 3D printer in approximately 40 hours.

As you can see in the YouTube footage, it looks like a pretty solid and effective device, which Ryan confirms: "It’s pretty sturdy. People think 3D printed parts are weak, and they can be, but it all depends on how you print it." And to ensure that the snow cutter and blower are up to the task, both are powered by a 540 motor. As part of his design, the snow blower section even moves in 360 degrees, to ensure you can blow the snow right where it needs to go.

Its components.

All in all, it looks like a very fun and useful RC machine to own, though it probably won’t be available this winter. As Ryan explains in a blog post, he still needs to redesign and improve on a few parts to make it a properly marketable product. "I need to re-design several parts cause they had issues printing. It does feel pretty strong though. 3D printing is weak across the layers but I designed around that and had them orientated to get the most strength. Like those bevel gears feel as strong as any normal ABS gears," he says. "I might need to design it to use some kind of metal shaft across the augers in front because there is a lot of vibration." He is also looking at options to print the gears that cut up snow in nylon, to ensure they will hold up in any weather and any type of frozen snow.

And believe it or not, some of the process is being held up by a lack of testing options. "We don't have much snow here though it’s very hard packed snow that's been sitting forever, no snow in the forecast, I'm in Minnesota and normally we have WAY more snow this time of year..." Ryan complains. Perhaps this cool 3D printed innovation will be ready to go next winter?

Watch Ryan talk about his cool invention here:





Posted in 3D Printing Applications

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James wrote at 10/20/2016 8:00:02 AM:Please text me on how I can buy this model because I would love it for my house my number is 954-880-5524 thank you so muchJan Reck wrote at 9/28/2015 5:04:49 PM:hey, cool Idea, where can Buy Thies or Download the STL model's to print? jan.p.reck@gmail.com Great JobRussell Hipplewitz wrote at 3/8/2015 7:28:56 PM:This is great I was looking to make this for a project for school. Didn't know that there was some thing out there. I am doing a project for Central Connecticut State University and I was using Leggos to make the snow blower and a modified rover as the track drive. Please email me at hipplewitz@my.ccsu.edu I would like to talk to you about the prototype and get get your input. GREAT JOB!!



