Som glider thingy..

Fallegon

Active member
Heres the glider that Im working on. been super busy and all my hobby time has been spent on this thing for now.

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It has split flaps, a fully gimballed camera for head tracking fpv, a variometer, a V tail, on board dvr,on board instruments and, I have no idea if itl fly.
 

Tonero311

Well-known member
Would really love to see how it flies too. Think you may need a cameraman for your maiden😉. Looks great, very tidy.
 

Fallegon

Active member
I have no idea.. Theres still a bit to be added as well as the tail needing to be cut. I just dont have a solid build yet to start fine tuning. The plan was to finish the main body up front and then cut the tail to adjust cg.
 

bracesport

Legendary member
@Fallegon - I am just about to embark on a 3D printed wing with shrinkwrap for my 'ridge rat' build - your build looks great - I was thinking you might be adjusting the tail length with CG tuning - I am also building a DLG and the first one was tail heavy sadly (so building another)!
 

Fallegon

Active member
So I used pla for that original wing but it didnt work at all.. also printing wings is super heavy compared to foam board or carbon fiber. In my experience I wouldnt recommend a printed glider. The only prints in the wing now are for the carbon fiber rods to stay secure.
 

Fallegon

Active member
yeah thats about what I did.. Im still using the carbon strips as sparing but the strength comes from the folded foam. If you're wanting to do shrink wrap I would suggest a carbon tube spar, and dont get picky with the weight cause the pla will always be heavier. Also pla is real bendy and pliable with heat. So here's the other two problems. I had major warping after heat shrinking and the wrap doest stick too good to prints. Since problem one was already a bummer I didnt think it a good use of my time to properly sand the pla perfectly flat. I thought about filler such as bondo instead of sanding but the overall result for me was longer and more tedious to build, heavier, and less stable than just folding a piece of foam. I full heartedly believe that if shrink wrap and weight is a priority for you than balsa excels at both much better than printing.
I do have a roll of carbon fiber htpla, but from what I hear, even after annealing, it isnt too much stronger than a regular print. I couldnt get the roll to print consistently but I did buy it for this kind of design concept thinking the fiber would line up and Id have a ridged piece along the x,y axis. Not going back to it tho. The trouble of design and printing doesnt out perform foamboard unfortunately.
 

bracesport

Legendary member
I do have a concern in the back of my mind about the PLA softening with a shrinkwrap application - my 1m PLA (1.0mm wall section) sailplane fuse with two carbon inserts is 600g which is destined to have a 1.5m Bixler 3 wing on it (and a V tail) - I will ponder the wing some more and maybe do the LE and TE with balsa on the PLA wing formers! :eek:
 

Fallegon

Active member
Yeah I dont mean to be a downer about it. Iv done these types of projects a few times with poor results. I think the best aplication for 3d printing in rc airplanes is for aesthetic purposes or bridging structures between two materials such as carbon fiber to foam. Other things Iv done, since I dont have a laser cutter, is print out a wing strut as a re usable template. Iv done servo holders, holes savers (bbq skewers thru foam to keep it from wearing out the foam), control horns, and motor mounts. Alot of this stuff can be done with a cut up gift card though.
 

bracesport

Legendary member
I am in no rush with the wing build, so I can do some experiments - I kinda already suspect there are limits to this, but yinno, it's tempting! :LOL:
 

Tomsun-UK

New member
Awesome design and build! Good job! Love it... you have inspired me, I might make something similar at some point.
 

Fallegon

Active member
Its been a while but progress is being made. The onboard vario and voltage sensor is attached and the camera gimbal is about to be put back in. Theres two arduinos onboard now. one for working the flaps through the throttle channel and the other for the vario and display.
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