3D printed my own nano frame

[JustinRoberts]

Hi,

I just had a frame 3D printed that I designed and was wanting to show it off / get some thoughts / feedback

Its modelled in Cinema4D as a replacement frame for the Hubsan X4 as thats the quad I';ve had most success flying (my 250 seems to spend most of the time either on fire or in bits). Obviously being an aftermarket part for the Hubsan its not a dead serious racer, it is a bit chunky and on the toy end of the spectrum.

Its only the second thing Ive had 3D printed, I am really tempted to get a printer ... but so far am just using print services. I';d be interested in anyones experiences of doing either. I';m thinking of getting this frame or maybe another if I make another printed in titanium the polyamide seems quite rough and not all that strong, again if anyone has experience and knows of a better material to print in then this would be cool.

Cheers in advance for any comments (positive or negative).











PS this is my first post so I fully expect that I';ve done something wrong etc ... I hope this doesnt fall under the posting spam to sell your stuff but I havent mentioned where I got it printed etc! Please be kind if this is the case, but feel free to be as brutally honest about the frame as you like I';ve made it just for me really.

Cheers

J

[Yellow]

Welcome to the forum, I';m sure you';ll find all your answers and more from here.

I think it looks like a really cool little frame, how does it compare to the hubsan in terms of weight and how does it fly?

Quite a lot of people on here print their own parts and offer services too, so plenty of advice to be gained around and about

[DarkButterfly]

Looking good

Does the bulkiness affect flight time in any way?


I printed a tricopter frame in ABS, its very tough and ABS has some flex to it, so there';s a little give, if it crashes.

Have heard that nylon is a fairly sturdy material to use for 3D printing, however I';ve never tried it, so I can';t confirm.

[JustinRoberts]

cheers for the positive & quick replies. I';ll see if I can get nylon printed at the same place, I saw others that do it. Thats the same as the M3 plasticy screws isnt it?

As for differences in the frame, i';ve only got luggage scales so I doubt their accuracy is all that great but I just tested the ones I have (H107C, H107D & H107L) it says they';re all 30g, same as my frame.

I use a bigger 500mAh battery than the standard ones that come with them (2-300mah?) and I get maybe 8-9 mins on all the frames tearing around on near full throttle but landing as soon as the lights start warning the battery is getting low. If I fly the bigger battery until it forces it to land it seems like a really long time maybe 10mins+.

I dont think my frame has had much of a change to the flight characteristics much as their frames and mine are square, mines 5mm shorter and narrower, I';m not good enough pilot to know if thats made much difference  ::)

I am working on a frame that will take 2 batteries so I can run it on 2S voltage ... that should fly faster I guess, but I already burnt out one board trying to figure out if it really will give more thust on something this small / basic so I will probably only get one flight if it doesnt burn out before taking off.

cheers again

[JT]

 I like it, it looks really cool  

Getting your own 3d printer is definitely the way forward, I love mine, if you have ideas and a need to make/modify stuff then it';s a must lol.

[davethepitch]

Hello JustinRoberts

Welcome to the forum mate and that project you have done looks very good. 

Dave

[PropsToYou]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your creation. Nice little design, and it seems to have gone together really well.
How does it fly in comparrison to the original frame?

Out of curiosity, what printing service did you use for it?

[JustinRoberts]

Cheers PropsToYou,

Completely unbiassed I';d say it flies infinitely better  Seriously though, the ';wheel base'; is the same aspect ratio as the original so no difference there. Its practically symmetrical over all axes so it should be near perfectly balanced, it is slightly shorter and narrower so there may be slight improvements as the weight distribution is going to be more centralised, in theory the shorter arms might give fractionally less torque to the pitch/roll maybe even yaw too but really it doesn';t behave drastically differently as far as I can tell. The biggest difference I';ve seen out of it was using some different 3 blade props which had less pitch and slightly less thrust overall but were much quieter.

The camera however is now much better aligned, the standard frames tilt the lens down by a couple of degrees so if you are flying less than a couple of metres high it will only give you motion blurred footage of the ground. The big ring around the camera lens also allows you to fix a wide / fish eye lens you see for mobile phones to the front ... that does mess with the weight balance though I';ll post some video if it ever stops raining

I did a test print via 3D hubs as the the company that makes the printer I was / am considering (CEL Robox) is listed on there as a print service.

I went with i.materialise to print the frame though as they have a wider range of materials and also the ability to post your designs for sale.

The 3D Hubs was a quicker and probably better service as they gave some feedback / tips before printing and only took about a week to deliver. They';re just down the road from me too.

I.materialise took a few weeks and their system just said ';in production'; the whole time. I wouldnt have minded seeing ';in queue'; for the majority of that time before ';printing'; and ';smoothing';.

Anyway, i';d recommend getting something 3D printed to anyone who hasnt done it before. My first 3D print was a weird alien / squid sculpture thing for an art exhibition for a place I worked at the time. I have to admit that being handed a physical object that only existed in my head blew my mind 

[PropsToYou]

Wow, sounds like a great little quad. Been meaning to design my own X4 frame for a while but just not gotten around to it.

I';ve actually already got 3 3D printers in my household (all three belonging to two of my housemates) which I can use but planning on investing in my own in the next couple of months.

Definitely wanting a Delta but not entirely sure which model I';m going for yet. Two of my housemates ones are Delta. One is a RepRap Pro but has a dodgy control board so is waiting for a replacement, and the other is a cheap ebay one from china which my housemate bought with the goal of getting one with lots of issues that he can have fun fixing and making it better than an expensive one himself. He has not been disappointed.

With a budget of a maximum of £350 (Though I';d like to spend less if possible) I know I';m fairly limited on worthwhile models so just keeping an eye out. Want to ideally buy by December at the latest. (Thinking about it, may start a thread for discussing options over in the 3D printer area  ;D )

[JustinRoberts]

Thats quite cool, are they kit build? I';d been tempted to do that which is one reason I had been looking into building drones etc so my soldering would get better but from the number of motors, ESCs and stuff i';ve shorted and blown up I wouldn';t trust myself 

all your friends / family going to be getting 3D printed stuff for xmas then if you get it in Dec

If you start a thread about 3D printers ask about scanners too ... there was one I saw but can';t remember that was a printer / scanner which seemed good to me- I spend ages measuring stuff only to find I missed some tiny bit thats slightly different.

Remember to post your frame when you do one, I';d definitely recommend it!

[JustinRoberts]

Drone vs goalposts at full speed ...

[davethepitch]

Hi Justin

I like your honesty mate showing those pictures and I guess there is many a quad that would end up broken just like yours in the same situation.

Dave

[quadfather]

Drone vs goalposts at full speed ...

That';ll buff out. 

[guest325]

Few spots of cyano here and there and ready go again!!!

[JustinRoberts]

yeah its all part of the fun aint it? build it, fly it, crash it in the most noob like embarassing way, laugh about it and try again i';m thinking if i printing it in titanium next time then (at least in my mind) it will slice through anything like a ninja sword ... trouble is i also regularly seem to mange to fly it at / into my own face ... i';m sure that wont be a problem

you should see what ive done to my 250 sized quad! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kC3R6TRzTY

make sure you enable the annotations for my commentary about what was going on

[guest325]

My only advice would be to learn to fly in a more structured way.
The best advice I would give you is to keep you model in front of you so that you can see who is about and might interfere with your flying, it also will force you to learn orientation properly. Flying FPV can make things much easier as regards orientation but if anything goes t1ts up and you';ve not learned to fly safely LOS where are you then?
Learn at your own rate, it';s OK watching what other people are doing and trying to emulate them but by doing this you';re just going to make it expensive for yourself.
Good luck, and flying the little ';un will stand you in good stead for the bigger ';uns ::) ::) ::)

[PropsToYou]

all your friends / family going to be getting 3D printed stuff for xmas then if you get it in Dec

Hehe, a triple helix for each of them :)

If you start a thread about 3D printers ask about scanners too ... there was one I saw but can';t remember that was a printer / scanner which seemed good to me- I spend ages measuring stuff only to find I missed some tiny bit thats slightly different.

Ooh this sounds amazing. Any idea what it';s called?

Drone vs goalposts at full speed ...

Ah man, that sucks! Though I guess that';s the beauty of owning a 3D printer. Get home, click a button and a few hours later you';re back in the air. Time to hit the buy button me thinks

[JustinRoberts]

Hehe, a triple helix for each of them :)
Ooh this sounds amazing. Any idea what it';s called?

Ah man, that sucks! Though I guess that';s the beauty of owning a 3D printer. Get home, click a button and a few hours later you';re back in the air. Time to hit the buy button me thinks

I think I was looking at the XYZprinting Da Vinci 1.0 AiO and a few others that were ridiculously expensive, I';m sure there was another around the same price as this one but I didn';t recognise it from a quick bit of googling. That ones almost near what you were looking to spend, the cheapest scanners on that site are a few hundred. I think I just talked myself into it ... time to get myself a very early xmas present 

[PropsToYou]

I think I was looking at the XYZprinting Da Vinci 1.0 AiO and a few others that were ridiculously expensive, I';m sure there was another around the same price as this one but I didn';t recognise it from a quick bit of googling. That ones almost near what you were looking to spend, the cheapest scanners on that site are a few hundred. I think I just talked myself into it ... time to get myself a very early xmas present 

That looks really cool, especially with the built in scanner which is extremely tempting.
However, there are two issues with it that make it not a viable option for me (other than the price )
Firstly, it only prints ABS, PLA isn';t even an option and I quite like printing PLA where possible.
The other issue is that it uses cartrages of filament rather than open spools which are almost twice the price, plus it means you can only buy your filament from them which does mean, appart from not being able to find competative prices, if anything ever happens to them as a company, supply of filament may become difficult to come by.