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

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
I didn't take the 3D printed aspect into consideration when launching. I've printed about 6 planes so far but all of them have landing gear so launching them isn't really needed. Curious to see what type of grip you come up with because I would like to print one and try it out!

On a side note, what are the chances of adding some type of landing gear either designed into the fuselage or adding afterwards? I'm asking because I don't have any grassy fields to land on, only dirt, rocks and asphalt LOL.

I don't think tricycle landing gear mounts would be too hard to add. Even if it was just a slot for some wire. No retracts for anything at this size though. This is quite a bit smaller than most 3D printed planes.

Settled on a fuse length 90mm (~3.5") longer than the last one.

Also got all the new spars integrated into the new fuselage shape, and got all the lightening holes done.

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Gonna start printing the last wing sections, and start work on the spars, structure,battery/ camera mounts etc needed for the forward fuselage.
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
So, I ran out of CA yesterday, but have more coming. Should be able to finish the build this evening.


Still looks cool though. I don't think the long fuse hurts the looks a bit.

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Since I had nothing to build, I ran some quick calculations on what the weights would be for a smaller version.

Slicer says 334.25 grams for all the parts when size is decreased by 25% and with the use of a .3mm nozzle. That size reduction ends with a 27" wingspan plane with fractionally under 200 square inches of wing area. Oh, and the airframe cost is only 6$ lol.

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Here's the total weight with some electronics estimates. I think a 1407/1408 sized mini quad motor should have enough oomph on 3 or 4 cell. Two 1.7 g servos might be too weak though, so maybe add a few grams. I've got some 3.3g servos that might work, but sizing the holes for standard 5g servos might not be a terrible idea. It will be a quick plane after all.

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That wing loading is not nearly as bad as I expected. Reducing wall thickness to .3mm with the smaller nozzle really drops the weight.
@FAI-F1D , I think a mini version might actually be a possibility.
 

Piva

New member
Instead of going through and "thumbs upping" every post and update in this thread, I figured I'd just comment here and say how awesome this all is!!! Beautiful work! I can't wait to print this masterpiece!

I've been working towards a wing design that is 3d printed for all the complex bits, fuselage, servo mounting, fins, etc, but with foam wings. I think there's a sweet spot somewhere in the combination of these two techniques that will make very strong, light, cheap planes if the large flat surfaces use foam board. It would also take a very short amount of time to swap out a damaged wing for a new premade foam wing in case of damage.

Any thought towards a design like that?

Great work!!!
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
Instead of going through and "thumbs upping" every post and update in this thread, I figured I'd just comment here and say how awesome this all is!!! Beautiful work! I can't wait to print this masterpiece!

I've been working towards a wing design that is 3d printed for all the complex bits, fuselage, servo mounting, fins, etc, but with foam wings. I think there's a sweet spot somewhere in the combination of these two techniques that will make very strong, light, cheap planes if the large flat surfaces use foam board. It would also take a very short amount of time to swap out a damaged wing for a new premade foam wing in case of damage.

Any thought towards a design like that?

Great work!!!

I think there can be a lot of value in combining the two build techniques, especially if you really leverage the thin wall aspect of this style of 3D printing for curves and things that are hard to get foam to do.

I don't plan on making a hybrid wing any time soon, but I am making more and more 3D printed parts for my other foamboard designs.
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
Mentor
And here we go. Included the bad toss this morning as well cause it's hilarious. I tried to throw it really hard, and collapsed the fuse a bit where I gripped it and it sorta did a knuckle ball.


Glides really well, as you can tell from the landing. I tried to miss the dirt and turn back into the field, and shoulda just kept going straight. All good though.

Flies really smooth and stable, and tracking is perfect. Stalls just make the plane sink, no dropping wingtips. It does what a forward swept wing should. Quite fast as well with the little 2306. A bigger motor could get silly really quick. Gonna get started fixing the last few little details and begin printing a PETG version.