The Lunar Rover 3D Printed 1/35

[hansolo]

Hi guys,

My entry is The Lunar Rover 3D Printed 1/35.
I could not find a plastic kit in 1/35 and I didn't want to build the resin kit shown below,



because I don't like resin and it costs 84 dollars. My 3D printed version is free!
We have a 3D printer at work that I can use as often as I like.

But first some history:

The development of the lunar vehicles:

Past missions

Lunokhod 1
Lunokhod 1 (Луноход) was the first polycrystalline-panel-powered of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program after a previous unsuccessful attempt of a launch probe with Lunokhod 0 (No.201) in 1969. The panels were designed by Electronic and Communication Engineer Bryan Mapúa. The spacecraft which carried Lunokhod 1 was named Luna 17. The spacecraft soft-landed on the Moon in the Sea of Rains on November 1970. Lunokhod was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another celestial body. Having worked for 11 months, Lunokhod 1 held the durability record for space rovers for more than 30 years, until a new record was set by the Mars Exploration Rovers.



The Apollo 15 Lunar Roving Vehicle on the Moon in 1971

Lunar Roving Vehicle
The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) was a battery-powered four-wheeled rover used on the Moon during the last three missions of the American Apollo program(15, 16, and 17) during 1971 and 1972. The LRV could carry one or two astronauts, their equipment, and lunar samples. Georg von Tiesenhausen is credited with submitting the original design, before it was sent to Boeing for implementation.



Lunokhod 2
Lunokhod 2 was the second and a monocrystalline-panel-powered of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of the Lunokhod program. The Luna 21 spacecraft landed on the Moon and deployed the second Soviet lunar rover Lunokhod 2 in January 1973. The objectives of the mission were to collect images of the lunar surface, examine ambient light levels to determine the feasibility of astronomical observations from the Moon, perform laser ranging experiments, observe solar X-rays, measure local magnetic fields, and study the soil mechanics of the lunar surface material. Lunokhod 2 was intended to be followed by Lunokhod 3 (No.205) in 1977 but the mission was cancelled.
Yutu

Yutu (rover)
Yutu is a Chinese lunar rover which launched on 1 December 2013 and landed on 14 December 2013 as part of the Chang'e 3 mission. It is China's first lunar rover, part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program undertaken by China National Space Administration (CNSA). The lunar rover is called Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, a name selected in an online poll.
The rover encountered operational difficulties after the first 14-day lunar night, and was unable to move after the end of the second lunar night, yet it is still gathering some useful data.
The Yutu rover might be the world's first true hibernating robot on the moon.

--------------------

Apollo Astronauts Tested Lunar Rover Deployment System At The Marshall Center
Seven astronauts inspected the Lunar Roving Vehicle at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Ala., where the rover was designed and tested. All were members of Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 prime, backup or support crews (from left to right): John Young, Apollo 16 commander; Eugene Cernan, Apollo 17 commander; Charles Duke, Apollo 16 Lunar Module pilot; Fred Haise, Apollo 16 backup commander; Anthony England, Charles Fullerton and Donald Peterson, all support crewmen. The men attended a half-day training session on the lunar rover deployment system. During the flight to the moon, the rover had to be folded. After lunar touchdown, the astronauts deployed the rover with a system of ropes and pulleys. An LRV qualification test model was used in the deployment exercise at the Marshall Center. (Nov. 9, 1971, 0-25449)

apollo17_002 by JP Verhoeven, on Flickr

The Lunar Rover Vehicle (or LRV), commonly called the lunar rover, was a four wheeled vehicle used on the Moon during the later Apollo missions. Several rover designs were considered, with most versions being larger and much heavier than the final design that was eventually flown to the moon.
General Motors’ Defense Research Laboratories in Santa Barbara, California designed and supplied the mobility system, which included the wheels, motors, and suspension, while Boeing in Seattle, Washington was in charge of the electronics and navigation system. Chassis manufacturing and overall assembly took place at the Boeing facility in Huntsville, Alabama and vehicle testing was done at the Boeing facility in Kent, Washington.
Powered by four DC motors capable of 0.25 horsepower at 10,000 RPM (for a total of 1 whole horsepower) with 80:1 harmonic drives and two 121 Ah silver-zinc potassium hydroxide batteries (for a total of 242 Ah), the vehicles had a theoretical range of 57 miles (the furthest one travelled was 22.3 miles during the Apollo 17 mission), and took the astronauts up to 4.7 miles away from the Lunar Module (also during Apollo 17). The rovers were designed with a top speed of around 8 miles per hour, but astronaut Eugene Carmen hit a top speed of 11.2 miles per hour (making him the current lunar land-speed record holder).

The rover’s unique wheels were developed by GM engineer Ferenc Pavlics, who led the mobility system design team. They consisted of an aluminum hub and a 32 inch diameter by 9 inch wide tire made of zinc-coated woven steel strands that were attached to the rim and discs of formed aluminum. Titanium chevrons attached to the strands provided traction. Inside the tires was a 25.5 inch bump stop frame to help protect the hub. Dust guard fenders (which would eventually prove fragile) were mounted above the wheels.
Maneuvering was controlled by the use of front and rear steering motors. Each of the DC motors was capable of 0.1 horsepower (75 watts). The front and rear wheels could be turned together in opposite directions to achieve a tight turning radius of 10 feet, or individually. In case of drive failure, they were designed to free-wheel to allow for steering control to be maintained.
Four flight-ready rovers were built, three of which were transported to the moon on the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions. The fourth rover was used for spare parts when additional Apollo missions were cancelled. All three rovers were left on the moon (and the fourth was dismantled for parts), so any rovers you see on Earth are test vehicles, trainers, mock-ups, or replicas. The rovers weighed in at 463 pounds on Earth, and only 77 pounds under the moon’s gravity, with a payload capacity of 1,080 pounds (179 pounds on the moon).



Some drawings of the rover:





And some nice photo's:















A nice example of some home rigging! The back fender was repared with some board material and ducktape!
Never leave home without ducktape!



And finally some nice moving footage:



Since I couldn't find a 1/35 scale kit to build (other than resin) I looked around for a 3D printable version and found
this one for free on www.thingiverse.com.



And here are the separate parts it is made of:























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And I also found a nice 3D print of an astronaut to accompany the rover:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/21oSTPm]

These are the 3D printed parts of the rover.



This is the rover assembled.







This being a 3D printed version it is not as detailed as a regular plastic kit.
So I will try to give it more detail by scratch building additional parts and
adding more detail in the form of decals and self made prints.

That's it for now folks!
Next up: The printout of the astronaut and detailing of the rover.

[Tomcat64]

Wow

Great introduction and another iconic vehicle from the space race era.

[hansolo]

Wow

Great introduction and another iconic vehicle from the space race era.

Thanks Tom! This is out of my comfort zone. That being WW2 armour.

[Stokesy44]

That is JUST AWESOME

[hansolo]

That is JUST AWESOME

Thanks Stokesy!

[DrSprue]

Wow, I am amazed in what can be done now with 3d printing. Soon Revell or Airfix will be sending us models in our email accounts for 20 bucks using paypal or maybe a monthly charge. Then we we download them, print them out, clean em up a bit and paint. No more sprues.

Count me in to watch this, hand over the popcorn and my Space-age handbook.

[hansolo]

Wow, I am amazed in what can be done now with 3d printing. Soon Revell or Airfix will be sending us models in our email accounts for 20 bucks using paypal or maybe a monthly charge. Then we we download them, print them out, clean em up a bit and paint. No more sprues.

Count me in to watch this, hand over the popcorn and my Space-age handbook.

Well, what you are pondering about may be a while yet.
The quality of affordable 3D printing is no where near the plastic kits of today.
But never say never!

[Twokidsnosleep]

Holy Molars Batman....he's got the computeratin machine out

[hansolo]

Holy Molars Batman....he's got the computeratin machine out

That's right, 2Kids!

[hansolo]

Hi guys,

I've made some progress.

I did some detailing on the rover.
The backs of the seats weren't accurate at all so I replaced them with some soldered wire and some masking tape.





I used stretched sprue for making cables.



I did some more detailing like tin foil for the gold foil and added some parts form left overs to make the whole vehicle more detailed.













I found a 3d model of an astronaut and printed it on our Ultimaker 2+ (We had an upgrade done from the 2 version )







Painting of the rover.
I started of with black primer then a layer of light grey.



I figured to create a metal affect by rubbing on metal pigment over the grey paint, but later on ended up repainting the grey areas with metal coloured enamel paint.

Here you can see the pigment effect.





The rover completely painted.



I used a photo of the dashboard. Printed it out very small and stuck it to the vehicle with double sided tape.



The astronaut painted. I made print outs of the us flag and the nasa logo for the back of the astronaut.





Astronaut and Rover.



I also started on a base.
I found a 3d model of the Apollo 15 landing site on this site: https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/models/printable
And started printing it yesterday. Will check out next week how it turned out.

Here's a screen dump of that site.



And this is the model I downloaded.



An image of the model in the 3d printers' software.



That's it for now folks.
Next up: Weathering of the astronaut and rover and painting of the moon model.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Cool

[hansolo]

Cool

Thanks Scott!

[DrSprue]

Wow, add some scratch build into it and make an astronaut as well, it looks really cool!So loving this post!

[hansolo]

Wow, add some scratch build into it and make an astronaut as well, it looks really cool!So loving this post!

Thanks Doc!

[DrSprue]

Wow, add some scratch build into it and make an astronaut as well, it looks really cool!So loving this post!

Thanks Doc!

No problem sir, and I read your intro when you started this, and then read again today!! Wow well done. So informative.

[hansolo]

Wow, add some scratch build into it and make an astronaut as well, it looks really cool!So loving this post!

Thanks Doc!

No problem sir, and I read your intro when you started this, and then read again today!! Wow well done. So informative.

Thanks again, Doc!

[Tomcat64]

Hmmm... don't know if Flickr is playing up but none of the photos are visible this morning

[hansolo]

Hmmm... don't know if Flickr is playing up but none of the photos are visible this morning

Hi Tom. Thanks for telling me. I fooled around with the privacy settings and screwed it up. Think they should be visible again now.

[Tomcat64]

Hi Tom. Thanks for telling me. I fooled around with the privacy settings and screwed it up. Think they should be visible again now.

Thanks mate - all visible again now and well worth the wait.

That's some amazing work, I'm more and more impressed by these 3D printer thingies each time I see something like this.

[hansolo]

Hi Tom. Thanks for telling me. I fooled around with the privacy settings and screwed it up. Think they should be visible again now.

Thanks mate - all visible again now and well worth the wait.

That's some amazing work, I'm more and more impressed by these 3D printer thingies each time I see something like this.

Thanks Neil! It'll be a while though, before we get to the detail of today's kits.