My 2 newest 3D Printed Planes

[qwijibo]

I thought I'd share my two recently completed 3D printed planes. Both are printed from LW-PLA, specifically Polylight LW-PLA - https://us.polymaker.com/products/polylite-lw-pla?variant=39574342860857

I've had great luck printing with this material. It's a LW-PLA, but comes "pre-foamed" on the roll, so you can pretty much use your standard PLA print settings with very little of the stringing typical with LW-PLA. It’s so convenient I rarely use the ColorFabb LW-PLA anymore.

The 1st plane (white one) is the Eclipson Model B. Had its maiden flight earlier in the week, and it couldn't have gone better. Just a few clicks of elevator trim and it flew great. Tends to dip a wing in a stall, but nothing bad. I fly from a rough grass field, so it bounced around a lot on rollout/landing, but it did just fine.

The 2nd plane (orange one) is the 3DLabPrint J-3 Cub (free to download). I'm having some trouble getting the CG right, it’s very tail heavy for me. Not sure why I’m so off, but it looks so nice I can’t give up on it yet! It barely survived it’s maiden, so we’ll see what I can figure out.

Although both printed fine, I prefer the look as well as the build process of the Eclipson version. Maybe I’m biased since I’ve built several other Eclipson planes (Model T, A, A XL, V & C), but they have all built and flown great.

In any event, just thought I'd share.

 

[Aslansmonkey]

The polylight PLA is about 75% the weight of regular PLA, give or take. I think it's closer to 80% in actual practice. It's lighter, but not by a ton.

Colorfabb LW-PLA (the foaming type) is 50% the weight of regular PLA (when printed at 50% flow rate). It takes more fiddling to get it to print, but it's significantly lighter. It's also not as strong.

While either of these are fine for printing planes, most planes are designed for the latter material, which is probably why your Cub is tail heavy. It's simply balanced for different material. That's just a guess, but it makes sense in this muddled fog I call a brain anyway. You should be able to balance it with weight in the nose, or a bigger battery.

I never got my cub to fly...well...it flew...into the ground. It's more accurate that I never got it to altitude where I could get it trimmed to see how well it flew. That was printed with Colorfabb PLA too, btw.

My model B is in the polylight and flies fine.

 

[qwijibo]

Wow...I knew Polylight was a bit heavier than Colorfabb LW-PLA, but didn't realize it was that much. I need to get an appropriate scale to do some comparisons for future builds.

Maybe it's my imagination, but the Polylight feels a bit stronger to me...but that would make sense if it's a denser/heavier than Colorfabb.

Sorry to hear your Cub gave you problems as well, but since the STL's were free, it's hard to complain.

 

[Inq]

I sure do like the looks of your planes, but the cost, and mess of the LW-PLA has always hindered me. Also... perfect color scheme!

I went way off the reservation by using ABS instead of the PLA-LW on the 3DLapPrint J-3 Cub. My total print weight was 380.2 grams versus their projected 308 grams for a LW-PLA version. It too was very tail heavy and even with a 2200 mAhr battery full forward, couldn't make it balance as desired. Ended up adding weights, but didn't use enough which lead to a very difficult flight by our club's instructor and a bad landing. I wanted no part of it in the air.

I've kept it, but I prefer the FT Storch to learn on. I'm more interested in the designing, and building a new plane (shiny object syndrome). But... I thought if I ever brush it off, I'd stretched the F1, cover 1 & 2 part in the longitudinal direction in Cura. 15% will give you an extra inch. Unfortunately, it'd probably spoil the Scale aspects.

 

[qwijibo]

The polylight PLA is about 75% the weight of regular PLA, give or take. I think it's closer to 80% in actual practice. It's lighter, but not by a ton.

Colorfabb LW-PLA (the foaming type) is 50% the weight of regular PLA (when printed at 50% flow rate). It takes more fiddling to get it to print, but it's significantly lighter. It's also not as strong.

While either of these are fine for printing planes, most planes are designed for the latter material, which is probably why your Cub is tail heavy. It's simply balanced for different material. That's just a guess, but it makes sense in this muddled fog I call a brain anyway. You should be able to balance it with weight in the nose, or a bigger battery.

I never got my cub to fly...well...it flew...into the ground. It's more accurate that I never got it to altitude where I could get it trimmed to see how well it flew. That was printed with Colorfabb PLA too, btw.

My model B is in the polylight and flies fine.

I finally got around to doing a number of tests with the pre-foamed Polymaker LW-PLA weight, and mine comes in right at 72% the weight of my normal PLA prints. Although Colorfabb does indeed save more weight, the ease of printing with the pre-foamed Polymaker makes up for it in my book.

I just had a maiden of my newest print this morning, the free Gö 1 Wolf plane from Eclipson. I highly recommend it. Very easy to print & assemble, and flew great on the suggested power/prop. Considering it's free, and a great flying plane, it would be a perfect 1st try for someone new to 3D printed planes.