The side brace is the only new part at the moment and will probably be the last piece unless there is a durability problem somewhere on the quad.That thing looks great in the air, especially the yellow. I see you added some side supports in the middle of the frame. Do you have closeup pictures of the new parts?
Thanks! I use a Ultimaker 2. Due to the size of the upper and lower chassis plates, an 8x8" build surface is the minimum for this build and you would need to print both PLA and ABS. I designed the chassis plates so that they could be laser cut though which means a PrintrBot Metal with heated build plate or something similar could build this frame if you have the chassis laser cut. I would really like to build one of these with a carbon fiber laser cut chassis at some point when the design is finished but I can't find a place that could do that for me at a reasonable price.You did an amazing job, what kind of printer do you have?
Update 8:
Flew FPV today and it went great. I did find a weak point in the frame which is the pivot locks. They haven't broken but they are showing stress from all the pivoting and crashing. I can recondition them with heat but eventually they will have to be replaced. I'm going to attempt at bulking that part up a bit but I don't really thin that will help all that much. I've also determined Gemfan 6x3 props are the least durable props I've ever flown with. I've only crashed this quad twice and both time all 4 props broke, some of them broke both sides. I even tried boiling them to soften up the plastic but that was no help. I'll be switching to 6x3 and 6x4.5 HQ props from now on.
Have you considered doing some acetone vapor smoothing on the ABS pivot locks? That may provide a stonger more durable part.
PLA will fatigue too. I've haven't flown my tricopter yet, but I have actuated the arms quite a bit and I can already see signs of where the PLA is starting to fatigue. I'm guessing on yours, yours is showing similar fatigue, especially since you have all corners of the snap bolted in:
Once I get mine up and flying I am going to work on re-designing the locks slightly. I am going to try to improve how the bending load is distributed in order to reduce the stress concentration. I don't have access to simulation software though, so I am just going to take a couple stabs in the dark and hope it works.
Update 8:
Flew FPV today and it went great. I did find a weak point in the frame which is the pivot locks. They haven't broken but they are showing stress from all the pivoting and crashing. I can recondition them with heat but eventually they will have to be replaced. I'm going to attempt at bulking that part up a bit but I don't really thin that will help all that much. I've also determined Gemfan 6x3 props are the least durable props I've ever flown with. I've only crashed this quad twice and both time all 4 props broke, some of them broke both sides. I even tried boiling them to soften up the plastic but that was no help. I'll be switching to 6x3 and 6x4.5 HQ props from now on.
The direction of the fatigue is perpendicular to the layers so I don't think acetone smoothing would help too much but it's worth a shot.
I originally printed them in PLA and they snapped in half the first time I attempted to snap the carbon tube in haha.
short of beefing up the area around fatigue, I'm not sure there's much we can do because the part has to flex in order for the mechanism to work.
PET+ is supposed to be a lot ore durable than ABS though. more able to flex as well which should help with this particular application.
ben heck from the nerd youtube show "the ben heck show" , has a video on 3d printing tips. he shows how to make some parts stronger by adding a round over. could this method, or the super glue method make the part stronger?
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