36" Northern Pike - 3D Printed Cuda Clone (It Flies & STL's are Posted!)

FAI-F1D

Free Flight Indoorist
That depends, you willing to get your hands dirty? :D
If the spar arrangement has to be changed, that's where you might have to get your hands dirty. I'll draw up the spars, and get the rest of the plane figured out if you'd be willing to do some CAD grunt work and punch lightening holes in all the spars. It's not a difficult or complex process, and I can walk you through it. It's just tedious. Expect about 6-7 hours of drawing circles and ellipses.

Unfortunately my 3-D cad skills have rusted completely through. I opened up Fusion 360 recently and literally couldn't even successfully import a 2D dxf file. So yeah, I'd be working on that thing for the next 6 months just trying to figure out the basic features. :'(
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
Unfortunately my 3-D cad skills have rusted completely through. I opened up Fusion 360 recently and literally couldn't even successfully import a 2D dxf file. So yeah, I'd be working on that thing for the next 6 months just trying to figure out the basic features. :'(

Hah. I wouldn't make you figure it out on your own. Could make a short video showing what has to happen. It's basically only 4 steps. Make a sketch plane along a spar, add a sketch to that plane, draw circles on said sketch, then extrude the circles through the spar. You just have to do it over, and over, and over again.

However, that may not even be needed. We'll see after I get the plane done and can figure out what the weights should be. What would probably be needed are motor and servo specs and sizes. The firewall arrangement would have to be adjusted, as well as resizing the servo cutouts. Did you have electronics in mind when you picked 24 inches?

Printers finished up the stuff I had drawn this morning.

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You can see the tongue and groove assembly I settled on. This lets you easily just slot the wing together without having to mess with alignment tabs for gluing. This will make getting perfect CA joints very easy, and the tongue and groove material doubles as an additional heavy duty spar right where it's needed. Should be easier to assemble than most of the 3D lab prints stuff.

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lrussi750

Rogue Pilot
Mentor
To see you go from the rough idea, to the print in such a short time is mind blowing Dale! I want to return my Lawn Dart and just print this instead ;)(y)
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
To see you go from the rough idea, to the print in such a short time is mind blowing Dale! I want to return my Lawn Dart and just print this instead ;)(y)

I have lots of practice getting to 95% done on these things lol. This one is the easiest yet. No tail, no landing gear, only one wing, only 2 control surfaces etc...

Don't throw your dart out yet. I'm reasonably confident this won't fly apart midair, but you never know. :D
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
It's really an elegant build.
Is that hole an accidental "heavy thumb" or is that for a servo?

Servo slot. I thought about making the servos hidden up in the fuse with a curved push rod, but decided this would be nicer. Not for the CAD work so much as ease of setup once the plane is together. I like servos to be easy to work on. There's an internal tube for routing wires that's in the last wing section I haven't printed yet.

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JimCR120

Got Lobstah?
Site Moderator
Wow, such elegant precision. I hope you don't mind all the questions. I've got more (they just keep coming to me)... Glue, double sided tape, or a single screw for the servo? Are you printing PLA?
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
Wow, such elegant precision. I hope you don't mind all the questions. I've got more (they just keep coming to me)... Glue, double sided tape, or a single screw for the servo? Are you printing PLA?

Questions are all good, I don't mind answering.

Planned on a couple drops of glue for the servo. Double sided tape would work as well. I could add a provision and some spar support bits to make a single screw work.

The stuff I have printed so far is Solutec Clear PLA. It's cheap, like 17.99 a kg on amazon, and seems to be quite strong so far.

Once the prototype bugs have been solved, I'll use some translucent red petg for the main body and wings, then black petg for the highlights. Hopefully it'l look similar to the render.

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kilroy07

Legendary member
Wow.... Just wow... Can NOT wait to see this in the air!
What an amazing bit of design, Fantastic job man!

Thanks for the CAD tips too, I might* need them for my own project here in a bit...
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
We'll see if I the rocket thing can happen after I get this thing flying. Might be worth it just to see the explosion.

I've gotten all the internal bits for the wings, v stabs, and rear fuselage done. So that's all printable now. Just gotta finish the forward section.

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3D Printed Northern Pike Skeletal2.png
 

tyoho

Member
Yeah, I'll release the STL files when it's done. I may eventually end up charging for some of my other designs, but this one will be free.

If you don't mind including the Fusion files, that would be super helpful for learning or modifying or both.
Thanks in advance, beautiful work!
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
If you don't mind including the Fusion files, that would be super helpful for learning or modifying or both.
Thanks in advance, beautiful work!

Since this one is being given out for free, I may just do that. Not sure it'l be the best tutorial, since I ended up sloppily changing spar arrangments halfway through the timeline rather than starting sections over. Maybe with a bit of cleanup on my end.
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
Got all the lightening holes cut into the spars for the entire back half of the plane last night. Decided to check out some other colors rather than keep staring at circles.

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I think any translucent filament will look pretty awesome, but green with a red painted mouth is my favorite so far.