Solar Rover #3 - 3D Printed Brushless Gearbox 

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Rover: *stops to charge* Slugs: it’s free real estate Rover: it’s free lubricant

"many slugs were destroyed in the making of this video"

Rover : "What is my purpose?" rctestflight : "You drive in figure 8"

"The gearbox is making a weird noise" "We're running fine again" It's those damn slugs

The dislikes are the slug’s families

"I'm growing mushrooms in my rover"

imagine living next to that field and a random guy just places an extreme loud rover there which drives day and night

The rover is actually kinda adorable, chugging along with its bright colored wheels. I would be really curious to see what plants you could grow if you towed a little flower bed behind the rover.

That's awesome that you convinced the slugs to provide much needed lubrication.

puts literal wings on the trailer... "looks like the wind is effecting the trailer"

Id recommend going with bicycle wheels and tires, like a 20" or bigger. The significantly larger tire diameter will make it very capable. Going with reliable wheels and getting your drivetrain out of the grass would help with a lot of your issues

"This should be a safe video to watch while I eat dinner" Slugs

There's actually a species of slug that was used to lubricate wagon wheels in Scandinavia in the olden days.

It’s the Slug-O-Matic rover. The slugs love all the premunched plant goo on the gears. Ps simplisafe isn’t paying you enough. Your adds are awesome.

This should be labeled as documentary, what a great job, amazing and very detailed. You're inspiring a lot of engineers out there, thank you

It's so cool to see how the rover almost was its own little ecosystem. Grass seeds growing, little bugs living in the motors, slugs ending their suffering, it's kinda beautiful, isn't it

It's a mobile plant smoothie machine - Slugs love it.

When your rover gets stuck, it reminds me of the NASA approach.. You need a bigger rover. :)

“I’m growing mushrooms in my rover!” That sounds like a quote from The Martian

It's incredible how those 3d printed parts could last months of moving for hours a day.

The determination of this man is rock solid.

Would have been nice to have a odometer on board so we can know the actual mileage. Next version maybe?

Awesome this video series gave me the confidence to create my idea i have had for 10 years. A robot to drive around my fields and scare the deer out. I converted my old fighting robot Bale Spear into the rover. As of yesterday it drove around the field on its own using a PX4 and mission planner. Long way to go but still learning and moving forward.

Me through the whole video: MAKE A DAMN HUBCAP

It would have been amazing to see what the milage covered

i have loved this series, and i hope you do a version 2.0 for 2021. thanks for the years worth of entertainment.

Really liking the long term testing :) Looking forward to a 2021 rover :)

Here’s a suggestion, have a couple cameras at one of the way points and when it reaches them take a pic and continue, that way you get a time lapse of one frame at the end of every lap, and you can see it degrade over time

For such a long video I can’t believe I wanted more when it was done. Thanks for all the hard work and sharing.

i love this guys content he always does an amazing job on everything

"These gearboxes seem to have self-healing capabilities..." More like 'natural lubrication' capabilities... blerghs I'm also impressive with how resilient that little thing is, and also with the fact that it wasn't being kidnapped in all that time.

35:04 "Here's an electrical diagram..." Haha... wait, what? That's spaghetti right there. _next shot_ Oooooh, that's better.

28:05 Now we all know how those Alien Cornfigures are made!!!

you should rename this to "slugger chugger #3 - 3D Printed Brushless Slug murderer" edit: name the trailer "the voice of a thousand sacrifices" cuz it sounds horrible and also so many slugs killed

Yes you watched 30+ mins of a smol toy doing circles

I really hope you revive this when spring comes around. There's something really satisfying in watching the parts you design experience instant real world testing. This should be some sort of engineering competition where everybody gets the electrical components and a few spools of PLA to see how far they can get.

It looks small in the grass but this thing is actually HUGE!

You can hear in his voice that he developed an emotional attachement to his rover. Kinda cute desu.

This is my favorite series ever! Can't wait for the part 4. Yes I see that it takes long time to make, but it makes it even more interesting.

Watching this video makes it actually pretty obvious why opportunity died. It's really hard for a robot to work alone for a long time, and there's nobody coming by every few days to rescue it from catastrophic failure.

Please don't leave this project! keep improving Greetings form the Netherlands 🇳🇱🌷

What an incredible amount of dedication and persistence! So cool seeing the long-term effects of a self-driving robot on 3D-printed parts.

This channel is criminally under subscribed. No matter how much attention and praise you receive as a result of your amazing, well edited, thorough, entertaining, and engineering-heavy videos... It's not enough. I'm endlessly amazed by folks who not only have a mind for engineering... But also the hands on skill and problem solving of fabrication.. But also the ability to conceive, film, and edit entertaining videos of themselves doing the previous two things. Keep up the good work.

solar rover... that DOUBLES AS A COMPOST BIN! By golly, I think you're on to something XD

next project, a camouflaged quiet version with more logging. You set it on one side of a desert, and see if it comes out the other side a year later.

you could use the "gates belt drive system" on your next one. they invented really cool cogs that self extract dirt and mud.

I wonder if much of the wear-and-tear came from the skid steer design; every hard turn putting lateral forces on the 3D printed parts. I wonder if two drive wheels in back, with one or two free-wheeling caster wheels up front might improve longevity? Also I wonder if any improvements could be made to the navigational system to get the rover closer to the designated path, without too much variance and over-correcting. Great video!

Not laughing at you, but the problems that were happening to the rover were hilarious! Awesome project man. I wish I had your fusion skills too!

Wow, I love EVERYTHING about this video! 3D printing, design, solar, failures, fixes, success. KEEP IT UP!!!!!

Oh man this was a fun project, really really hope you will do a new version for 2021.

The amount of noise for such a low speed makes me think that there is some gear grinding going on

I'm sad to see this project come to an end. And yes I know I'm late, I only just found this channel. I want this series to continue. That rover gave me such determination.

I don't know if you think of it as such, but this is one of the coolest art installations ever!

Its awesome that something so crudely thrown together manages to work that well. BUT, its kind of a wasted opportunity to not improve the design slightly more before putting it through months and months of testing.

You should put the gear system somewhere hidden and then put a belt system to the drive shafts,sure it may eliminate tank steering,But it will ultimately use less current,more speed and be protected

Watching your channel has made me really start to consider going back to school for robotics/mech engineering. This is just so damn awesome. Nice work man!

1:36 When I seen the wheel in your hand, holy shit this is bigger than I thought from the thumbnail.

I'm quite surprised at not just how this seems to run perpetually, but also that you've left it outside for days and it hasn't been stolen.

Fun video. I run on the trail by there all the time, and I'm pretty sure I heard that thing a few times late last year. I never thought I'd learn what that noise was from a random youtube video. Cool stuff.

you should try to mount the wings to the side of the rover and have them fold in during the night and open during the day. less weight less friction of that trailer.

Holy crap you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this

Would it be possible to program the rover to, go backwards for a meter when it detects that the rover is stuck

28:23 Random people finding the figure 8 patern in a field : *Aliens!*

Been watching your vids for many years and every video is always a treat! I love how casual your vids are, like documentation for your work, while avoiding begs for subscriptions, likes, etc... Great work! Super cool!

3d printing gears!! next you'll be making air powered planes!!!

Man, this guy must love this project if he did 3 vids on it

It'd be interesting if you ditched the PLA and used ABS, ASA, or PETG for the gears and wheels to see how that affects the mechanism's durability.

That machine is amazing. It just kept going and lasted way beyond my expectations. Congratulations on a great job and a cool video. Can't wait for the new project.

I know you are a huge fan of hyperlapses, but can you imagine setting up some sort of timelapse with this rover? that would be cool!

One of your most entertaining and best story telling videos yet. A+! You need to do a weather balloon launched gps guided glider plane that will return to home projects!

27:40 Glad to know the thing was driving fine on my 15th birthday!

I like his life, people worry that we have to make something new if we say that we're an engineer or self-made engineer but no we like to make stuff that exists and see why it is what it is, we don't take someone's word for it, we find it out ourselves. And sometimes we do hit a eureka moment and make something beautiful that usually no one finds interesting, not friends, not family, not no-one. But ourselves and that's enough.

Wow, that was beautiful! 24:04

I have never clicked a video faster!!!

An absolutely incredible addition to this excellent series. Can't wait for more vids on future iterations of this. Hoping for fully enclosed gearboxes, an odometer, and perhaps a more official trailer, I thought it was a nice addition. Also, I will once again advocate for motorboat/sailboat/submarine content, because I loved the autonomous boat vids and I think you could really have fun with that stuff. Love all your content, and can't wait for more!

just a peaceful little solar rover that screams

Pleas do a second try in the summer! Would be awesome 😍

The drift is in line with the motion of the earth drift! 👀 You need to have an adaptation position fix! 😁

26:09 I wonder if the ground slugs fertilised the much greener looking track :D

Thanks. Your content is extremely inspiring. Maybe put a track like a tank between the side wheels and only use two of the drive wheels to run the tracks. I think you could in improve the grip and efficiency. Possibly less amp day draw and able to run off solar more. Thanks again

**As you can see, heres the wild Solar rover in its natural habitat doing its routine figure 8's**

I think it would be wiser to simply separate the gearbox from the wheel, to basically only have one point of entrance for debris to get into the gearbox, to increase it's maximum expected lifetime, and having that single point of entrance be as high above the ground as possible. For example, you could have the connection point connect to the wheel on the top of the wheel, on the highest point it can connect to the wheel in the current configuration, which would allow it to get even more ground clearance. Also, you might want to use custom-made wheels and gears inside which to be able to pack and glass-fiber cement or electrical-wire cement, or use the existing wheels and gears to make molds with which to make glass-fiber-reinforced or electrical-wire-reinforced plastic parts (using those very fine electrical wires, without the plastic parts). More weight, but also a lot more strength. And adding transparent covers for the sides of the wheels might also help combat the slug infestation. Also, it would be interesting to see you make a airship (airplane-blimp) hybrid , and use that. It would be really interesting if you had one propeller in the front, and when there is strong tail wind, use the propeller as a power generator. It would also be interesting if you added a few flaps to the side of the airship, to use them as sails when there is more tailwind than the planned speed, but not enough to use for power generation. You could also have the airship be translucent with some home-made black-painted tinfoil heatsinks on the inside of the airship, to use sunlight to keep itself floating. And with some elastic straps, you could even have the airship turn into a lower-profile airplane/glider, to reduce the drag for lower-powered flying. And it would also be interesting to do the math to show how much power would be needed to get a fleet of similar blimps to do the last-mile delivery for home-delivery services like Amazon, from something like a truck (not a pickup, a truck with 6+ wheels) parked on the side of a road, using only air-saturated hot air, or maybe even steam. Hot air has a lift coefficient per volume of 30% of that of hydrogen and/or helium (which are very similar), water-saturated hot-air has 40% (so increased by a third), and steam has 60% (but needs materials which can survive over 120 C or 250 F, including for thermally insulating the blimp from the outside air). Do note that you can make a steam airship from metal, and you can even make a telescopic/inflatable one (although with a higher cost), to be able to need more or less volume depending on the conditions nearby. And you can even make slide-out solar panels for bigger blimps, if you need more energy (which you can use to move faster, or to heat the balloon even more).

This is an amazing project. Thank you for sharing it with us.

I wish my work had crazy cool carbon parts in the dumpster.

Great (mutual) stamina! Thanks for the vid, very interesting project.

You could say it's useless, but it kills all the slugs! Glorious creation.

When you said that you didn't care to much for the design I thought "Dude, do it right!". Well after all that time and only a few tweaks, it clearly exceeded all of our expectations. There's something about your janky models that gets under my skin a bit but ultimately you achieve what you set out to accomplish a learn so much along the way. Loved this project, nice infinity sign.

I love this series so much! Please design an improved version next year!

The rover and tank videos are just the best :)

Damn this thing is just cute not a care in it’s life just driving it’s mission love it

Daniel, you are amazing. I have been following your exploits for many years and I have just been so impressed with your engineering skills and scientific curiosity. I know that some day you will be part of a team flying a spacecraft to Mars and I’ll be able to say I knew you when. Keep working hard and keep these really cool videos coming. Thanks and have a great Christmas.

I love how materials deformed in time heavily used its awkward but i love

Good work. This video was awesome, loving this series. What about magnetic drive like in a sealed water pump for a fountain, that might make it easier to keep the gearboxes sealed

I respect the time and dedication you had to this project. Great work, very enjoyable video to watch! 👍🏻

I think the slugs liked what was essentially prechewed grass inside the gears, the smell would attract them and the food would keep them

Yaaasssss, waiting for thissssss!!!❤️❤️

I've been waiting for this one

Very cool! I like the idea of it running non stop. Sounds like a challenge. Like the movie “Speed” where if the rover gose below .0060mph the Rovers!

It's been great to see the progression of your rover. I remember watching the first video you did out of curiosity, and I can't wait to see where you'll take it next.