3D Printed 50mm EDF Trainer Jet

[telnar1236]

In contrast to my last few projects, I've decided on trying to build an easy to fly jet trainer (first jet, not first plane) as my next plane. These last few years I've noticed that jets have tended towards getting bigger, more expensive, and more complex, pricing people who might want to fly jets out of even the smallest UMX ones. To that end, the idea with this project is to build a small, easy to print 4-5 channel jet as cheaply as possible that can be made entirely out of PLA if desired so that any printer can manage it.

It's designed to fly on a 50mm EDF. I'd like it to be 3s or 4s, but we'll see if I can get a 3s 3D printed jet to work out. The straight through duct with a large inlet should give a good combination of air to the fan and low drag. While this makes the plane look a bit chubby, I'm increasingly sold on the look and it's fairly ideal from a low speed aerodynamics standpoint.

The straight wings use a Clark Y airfoil which should give it very good handling and have 3 degrees washout from root to tip to prevent tip stalls (this is where 3D printing shines with more rigid filaments, because it's more rigid than foam and more precise than balsa, you can get very fine control over the geometry which can result in a locked in feeling plane). The tail is fairly conventional, and the plane is designed for 4-5 channel control with the full span ailerons being designed to be able to be used as flaperons.

 

[Houndpup Rc]

In contrast to my last few projects, I've decided on trying to build an easy to fly jet trainer (first jet, not first plane) as my next plane. These last few years I've noticed that jets have tended towards getting bigger, more expensive, and more complex, pricing people who might want to fly jets out of even the smallest UMX ones. To that end, the idea with this project is to build a small, easy to print 4-5 channel jet as cheaply as possible that can be made entirely out of PLA if desired so that any printer can manage it.
View attachment 250519
It's designed to fly on a 50mm EDF. I'd like it to be 3s or 4s, but we'll see if I can get a 3s 3D printed jet to work out. The straight through duct with a large inlet should give a good combination of air to the fan and low drag. While this makes the plane look a bit chubby, I'm increasingly sold on the look and it's fairly ideal from a low speed aerodynamics standpoint.
View attachment 250520 The straight wings use a Clark Y airfoil which should give it very good handling and have 3 degrees washout from root to tip to prevent tip stalls (this is where 3D printing shines with more rigid filaments, because it's more rigid than foam and more precise than balsa, you can get very fine control over the geometry which can result in a locked in feeling plane). The tail is fairly conventional, and the plane is designed for 4-5 channel control with the full span ailerons being designed to be able to be used as flaperons.

Cool!

 

[Houndpup Rc]

How is it coming?

 

[tomlogan1]

In contrast to my last few projects, I've decided on trying to build an easy to fly jet trainer (first jet, not first plane) as my next plane. These last few years I've noticed that jets have tended towards getting bigger, more expensive, and more complex, pricing people who might want to fly jets out of even the smallest UMX ones. To that end, the idea with this project is to build a small, easy to print 4-5 channel jet as cheaply as possible that can be made entirely out of PLA if desired so that any printer can manage it.
View attachment 250519
It's designed to fly on a 50mm EDF. I'd like it to be 3s or 4s, but we'll see if I can get a 3s 3D printed jet to work out. The straight through duct with a large inlet should give a good combination of air to the fan and low drag. While this makes the plane look a bit chubby, I'm increasingly sold on the look and it's fairly ideal from a low speed aerodynamics standpoint.
View attachment 250520 The straight wings use a Clark Y airfoil which should give it very good handling and have 3 degrees washout from root to tip to prevent tip stalls (this is where 3D printing shines with more rigid filaments, because it's more rigid than foam and more precise than balsa, you can get very fine control over the geometry which can result in a locked in feeling plane). The tail is fairly conventional, and the plane is designed for 4-5 channel control with the full span ailerons being designed to be able to be used as flaperons.

Very simple (effective) design. If you post the plans for sale or free I am definitely in. I have a 3s and a 4s 50mm edf on the shelf. Thanks for posting this.

 

[telnar1236]

How is it coming?

Currently, I've got the wings, horizontal stabilizers and canopy printed. The plan is to print most of the plane in this dark metallic gray and then have lime green control surfaces for contrast.

All that remains to design is one piece of the fuselage, the landing gear, and a couple other peripheral bits and pieces which shouldn't take more than a few days, so I'm guessing I'll have the v1 airframe put together inside a week. Depending on how well it works and if I need to build a 4s version to get the needed power, it could be anywhere from less than a week after that to more than a month till the files are ready to go.

Very simple (effective) design. If you post the plans for sale or free I am definitely in. I have a 3s and a 4s 50mm edf on the shelf. Thanks for posting this.

That's the hope! I plan to release the plans and instructions free on these forums once I'm confident everything works the way it should so long as the plane flies well.

 

[Houndpup Rc]

Currently, I've got the wings, horizontal stabilizers and canopy printed. The plan is to print most of the plane in this dark metallic gray and then have lime green control surfaces for contrast. View attachment 250549 All that remains to design is one piece of the fuselage, the landing gear, and a couple other peripheral bits and pieces which shouldn't take more than a few days, so I'm guessing I'll have the v1 airframe put together inside a week. Depending on how well it works and if I need to build a 4s version to get the needed power, it could be anywhere from less than a week after that to more than a month till the files are ready to go.

That's the hope! I plan to release the plans and instructions free on these forums once I'm confident everything works the way it should so long as the plane flies well.

Looking nice!
Man! I need to get a 3D printer sometime!

 

[tomlogan1]

Currently, I've got the wings, horizontal stabilizers and canopy printed. The plan is to print most of the plane in this dark metallic gray and then have lime green control surfaces for contrast. View attachment 250549 All that remains to design is one piece of the fuselage, the landing gear, and a couple other peripheral bits and pieces which shouldn't take more than a few days, so I'm guessing I'll have the v1 airframe put together inside a week. Depending on how well it works and if I need to build a 4s version to get the needed power, it could be anywhere from less than a week after that to more than a month till the files are ready to go.

That's the hope! I plan to release the plans and instructions free on these forums once I'm confident everything works the way it should so long as the plane flies well.

I agree on contrast but instead of paint, I use different colors of filament to save weight. It is a bit of extra planning to print all of color X and then color Y but in the end it achieves the same effect minus the weight. Following this closely.

 

[telnar1236]

I agree on contrast but instead of paint, I use different colors of filament to save weight. It is a bit of extra planning to print all of color X and then color Y but in the end it achieves the same effect minus the weight. Following this closely.

I definitely agree on using different filament colors instead of paint wherever possible - I have a spool of neon green silk PLA that I pretty much just use for the occasional contrasting part on a plane.

 

[telnar1236]

The build continues to progress. Had to deal with some non-airplane stuff last week so I'm a bit behind where I thought where I'd be but it's still coming together pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I think it will need to be a 4S design. While I suspect it would fly on 3S, based on my projected final weight, it would probably be somewhat underpowered.

The CAD is also pretty much done. I ended up splitting the fuselage into a few more sections make it printable on smaller machines. I also redesigned the geometry around the EDF a bit to make sure it could fit a wider variety of units and to improve the efficiency of the duct. The current design should be able to fit most 50mm units. There isn't anything too fancy or different about this design, but that's sort of the point. Probably the biggest improvement over my previous designs is the wheels which means they can be printed in 2 parts instead of 4.

The design is also somewhat modular to facilitate repairs. All the servos use screws to hold them in place to make it easier to replace them or to move them to a piece of replacement hardware. The wings and horizontal stabilizers can be removed, and the fuselage can be separated into two halves. The landing gear can also be removed for hand launching. Unfortunately, the EDF unit needs to be glued into the tail fuselage, but that's since most 50mm EDFs don't have mounting points, but it glues in with one ring of glue around the front of the unit which can easily be cut/scraped away to allow the EDF to be removed.

 

[tomlogan1]

Really looking forward to this one.. Filament and electronics on hand.

 

[swampxxl]

This is one is going on my build list

 

[TheDaringPilot]

So cool looking! I wanted to ask what spacing you used for the ribbing of the wings? I’m designing a 3D printed Versa wing that can easily be fixed during combat.
Are you using vase mode for printing? I heard it’s much more efficient! Any other details like printer model, nozzle size?

Also did you know that Grok AI can help you find the sweet spot for washout? It plugs in all the information to the full size; super fancy official equation that aerospace engineers use! I used it to find the correct washout for my 3D printed Versa wing. Because the Versa wing originally came with no washout in the original plans I had a long conversation with Grok to make sure that I tuned the washout correctly. I added 1.7 deg washout to the wingtips. Too much washout may result in sluggish performance. In my case it’s for combat, which means it needs less washout to keep the airspeed and agility up. Airspeed is important especially for an EDF.

 

[TheDaringPilot]

Looking nice!
Man! I need to get a 3D printer sometime!

I highly recommend Lulzbot if you’re looking for an investment. Those printers are built like tanks! I love my Taz Workhorse with the Meteor toolhead! I’ve had it for 6 years and printed 200+ things. Once you’re familiar with the machine it is relatively simple to fix.

One important thing that I didn’t know when I first got it: 2.85mm filament tends to be difficult to print some airplanes with because it requires less movement into the extruder which can lead to a clog from overcooked filament or stripping the filament. 1.75mm filament feeds much faster into the extruder and is becoming a more popular diameter.

Hope it helps if you’re still looking.

 

[telnar1236]

So cool looking! I wanted to ask what spacing you used for the ribbing of the wings? I’m designing a 3D printed Versa wing that can easily be fixed during combat.
Are you using vase mode for printing? I heard it’s much more efficient! Any other details like printer model, nozzle size?

Also did you know that Grok AI can help you find the sweet spot for washout? It plugs in all the information to the full size; super fancy official equation that aerospace engineers use! I used it to find the correct washout for my 3D printed Versa wing. Because the Versa wing originally came with no washout in the original plans I had a long conversation with Grok to make sure that I tuned the washout correctly. I added 1.7 deg washout to the wingtips. Too much washout may result in sluggish performance. In my case it’s for combat, which means it needs less washout to keep the airspeed and agility up. Airspeed is important especially for an EDF.

On this wing I'm not using a fixed spacing for the ribs. Generally, 35mm to 45mm gives a good amount of rigidity though.

Most 3D printers should be able to handle PLA planes - it's mostly a matter of tuning to be able to the walls the right thickness. The printer I'm using is a Sovol SV06 which is pretty good, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it over some of the other printers available. It's a bit loud and the print head is poorly designed. You definitely want a 0.4mm nozzle since anything bigger adds too much weight.

In terms of using Grok to design anything, I'd take its recommendations with a grain of salt. Pretty much any equation for washout will be a rule of thumb instead of some kind of analytical solution. As a whole, it's not really possible to give an "optimal" amount of washout for a given application without basically inputting detailed information (in the form of a lot of numbers) about the dimensions and flight conditions of the design as a whole. 1.7 degrees doesn't seem unreasonable, but you probably won't notice much difference as a pilot between that, 2 degrees, and 3 degrees. In terms of the accuracy of reducing washout resulting in an improvement in speed and agility, it's somewhat right, but not really. For some designs no washout is the lowest drag option but for many some amount of washout actually reduces drag by improving the lift distribution on the wing. And for most designs, washout reduces the amount of speed bled during hard maneuvers. In terms of agility, washout helps keep the wing flying with the flow attached. This means that for most of the plane's flight envelope washout increases the effectiveness of the ailerons (it doesn't have much effect at low angles of attack). However, washout hurts or even prevents some stall maneuvers like snap rolls and also makes a plane fly worse inverted, so it is a tradeoff. AI will absolutely be capable of designing planes in the near future, but I don't think it's quite there yet.

 

[telnar1236]

The plane is really starting to come together now. The fuselage is fully printed and the wings and horizontal stabilizers fit in place nicely.

I'm bit worried about it being a bit tail-heavy, but worst-case I can just add a bit of nose weight for the maiden flight and then stretch the nose a bit in the final version to shift the CG forwards.

 

[tomlogan1]

just gifted my Ender 3 Pro and replaced it with an Anycubic Kobra 3. Not the multi-color, just the standard. Wow how things have changed. Prints that too 4+ hours on the Ender 3 Pro are taking 45 minutes on this new one. Not trying to bash Creality or start a war with (your favorite 3D printer) but just how quickly the technology and the slicers have changed.

 

[Mr NCT]

just gifted my Ender 3 Pro and replaced it with an Anycubic Kobra 3. Not the multi-color, just the standard. Wow how things have changed. Prints that too 4+ hours on the Ender 3 Pro are taking 45 minutes on this new one. Not trying to bash Creality or start a war with (your favorite 3D printer) but just how quickly the technology and the slicers have changed.

I agree! I started with the Ender 3v2 and liked it but when I upgraded to a Prusa Mk4 - Wow!

 

[telnar1236]

Abs

just gifted my Ender 3 Pro and replaced it with an Anycubic Kobra 3. Not the multi-color, just the standard. Wow how things have changed. Prints that too 4+ hours on the Ender 3 Pro are taking 45 minutes on this new one. Not trying to bash Creality or start a war with (your favorite 3D printer) but just how quickly the technology and the slicers have changed.

Absolutely. I think the biggest improvement in my opinion is the change to direct drive extruders from all metal hot ends. It makes printing with TPU so much easier and even with plain old PLA it makes it so much more precise. And it basically never jams either. The speed isn't such a big deal for me since I mostly start a print going in the morning and come back from work to it finished, but being able to hit 300 mm/s vs. the roughly 80mm/s of my first printer (a Voxelab Ender 3 clone) still feels pretty ridiculous.

 

[Captain J]

Looking nice!
Man! I need to get a 3D printer sometime!

hear! hear!…we all agree…this man needs a 3D printer 🖨️

 

[Captain J]

The plane is really starting to come together now. The fuselage is fully printed and the wings and horizontal stabilizers fit in place nicely.
View attachment 250810
I'm bit worried about it being a bit tail-heavy, but worst-case I can just add a bit of nose weight for the maiden flight and then stretch the nose a bit in the final version to shift the CG forwards.

this is so cool.

you may have said this and I missed it… what filament are you using?

do you have a projected weight?

I love the design it’s like the old saber 86 or mig without the wing sweep. super cool.