Padmalaya Rawal's Robots Gotta Go Fast — Thanks to 3D-Printed Wheels and a Modified Drone Motor

Splitting a drone's prop motor in half and mounting it in a 3D-printed wheel should give Rawal's future robots a serious speed boost.

Maker Padmalaya Rawal has designed what he claims is the "world's fastest" 3D-printed robot wheel — driven by a modified drone motor for extreme speed.

"I am making mobile robots for a while now, but the one thing which is still not changed in my journey is the use of those slow yellow-colored BO motors and their boring wheels," Rawal explains. "So, I wanted to change it and this is why I came up with the fastest, compact, inexpensive, and 3D-printed BO motors which I think is an amazing upgrade for my upcoming robots which will make my robots go faster."

Want your wheeled robots to have a real turn of speed? Why not try modifying a drone motor? (📹: Electroboffin)

Designed to stand in for the usual small yellow battery-operated motors frequently found in wheeled-vehicle kits, Rawal's creation is based on a low-cost off-the-shelf brushless DC motor originally designed to drive a drone's propellers. It's not used as-is, though and needs to be split in half.

"We have to adjust the height of the shaft," Rawal explains. "[With the] grub screw […] removed, you can place the upper part of the motor on the suitable surface so that the shaft can go down while pressing. You have to apply a lot of pressure here, I have used a hammer to do the same."

With the shaft suitably adjusted, the lower half of the motor is added to a 3D-printed wheel hub with support pins to hold it in place. A rubber tyre, taking from an existing battery-operated motor kit, is added for grip, then the upper part of the motor connected to a 3D-printed mount before being slid back into the lower half again.

"To test the wheel I have used the ESC [Electronic Speed Control] tester, and the motor is working as I am expecting it to work," Rawal says of his design. "Why I am operating it at 50%? As I am holding the wheel in my hand and I don't want to kill myself because it needs a lot of force to hold it."

The full guide, including STL files to print the wheel hub and the upper motor mount, is available on Rawal's Instructables page.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
Latest articles
Sponsored articles
Related articles
Latest articles
Read more
Related articles