I’ve started the project of 3D Printing a quadcopter. The quad is called the Hammer Mini H Quad V3 and has been converted from DXF for 3D use.
I’m not sure how a 3D printed frame will fare, since I’m used to carbon fiber with all my airframes. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out. If it works well, it will be nice to be able to easily modify the frame to suit my needs, and to print replacement parts!
So far I’ve printed the plates and arms. I plan to do one set for a friend and one set for myself. I’m going to ‘transplant’ the electronics (like the motors and flight controller) from my Scarab Knife to get it going. I’d like to run APM on it, but I don’t know if the frame will be big enough to handle it.
Eventually I’d like to build a 300-350 size frame, but this is a good start into 3D printing a quadcopter.
This project also taught me about customizing my 3d printing settings. I found that the first print layer was a bit sketchy around the drill holes. The circles wouldn’t stick properly. I found that I could set the ‘internal edge’ print speed to a different amount to the rest of the print. This meant that the printer would slow down when printing any internal edges like the drill holes. This resulted in nice smooth edges!
I’ll post some more pics once I complete the build.