I think the 3D printing problem can be solved.
What's your biggest frustration when designing an RC airplane?
- Thread starter Realmdyz
- Start date
telnar1236
Master member
What would your suggestions be for reducing the weight of 3D printed designs?
Ignore all sensible options and suggest using a foamed filament filled with helium.
My understanding is that we're pretty much pushing up against the limits of what is possible in terms of weight with a 0.4mm nozzle and the materials available.
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Houndpup Rc
Legendary member
The only thing I can think of, is if they make a lighter, but stronger materiel for us to print....
Flying Monkey fab
Elite member
I feel this so much.My issues are Lack of creative ideas, and lack of skills. Not much software can do to fix that.I have Techno skillz instead of artistry and creativity.
Flying Monkey fab
Elite member
I never say never, but I don't see it tomorrow. I do think 3d printing and other materials can complement each other very well and look fwd to exploring that deeper.
Houndpup Rc
Legendary member
My problem is I either design it and never build it, or can't get enough ideas!😂😂My issues are Lack of creative ideas, and lack of skills. Not much software can do to fix that.
I'm not saying that we should necessarily reduce the weight of the materials, but whether the design we produce is optimal has an impact on the output, so we focus on whether the design we produce is optimal in the output, and that solves the problem to some extent.
Isn't that right?
Yeah, I have been wanting to build a U2 based on old balsa plans and have never implemented it. Already cut the balsa plans out but haven't taken the time to do them with foamboard mods.
HappyRCFlyer
Active member
I have two frustrations with this. First, spending many, many hours on a design that receives only a very small handful of kit orders from. The second, the lazy idiots that ask me for the files....
telnar1236
Master member
My rule for myself is that whenever I see something I want to buy I need to figure out if I can build it myself first - keeps me from building up too many airframes
telnar1236
Master member
I think many 3D printed designs are pretty near optimized already. Eclipson designs are about as good as you can get with LW-PLA and 3DLabPrint designs are about as good as is possible with normal PLA. Even a number of my ABS designs are basically optimized - I've tried to go through and reduce weight on things like my 50mm trainer and F-106. In the case of the F-106 I could only shed maybe 20-30g off a 4kg airframe in the current configuration.
The big issue is that the majority of the structural strength and weight comes from the outer skin with the rest of the structure just being there to support it so you could remove all the internal structure a lot of the time and only have small weight savings.
telnar1236
Master member
That's the nature of RC in this day and age - there are so many great free plans available over the internet so it's hard to sell kits when for only slightly more effort but a good deal less money you can scratch build something else. Unless you have a big platform like Flite Test, it's hard to make a dent. I've looked into selling some of my 3D printed designs a couple times and it's always worked out that I'll make more money ($0) releasing them for free than I would make paying for even the cheapest license of Fusion360 so I could sell them.
I definitely understand the frustration of people asking you to do things with your design you don't intend to, but that's the risk of posting them on the internet - I remember with one of the earlier designs I posted here (an 80mm F-104) someone asked for the files and then complained that the servos had to be glued in and couldn't be removed which I found fairly annoying at the time. However, the majority of people posting on this site give away their plans for free if they make them public at all, so I don't think it is necessarily dumb or unreasonable to ask for plans, even if no one is under any obligation to give them away.
HappyRCFlyer
Active member
The abundance of fee plans are largely untouched and not used for the average builder. The files are sold though, even the free ones and I have yet to have a single person ask me for files with a file of their own they created to trade.
The nature of kit sales is a volume thing. The more selection the more options the more people it will appeal to. I see almost all of the kit manufacturers just stop after a handful of kits, and back in the earlier days, they had more of an exclusive since it was expensive along the gear.
With your 3d files, I use Blender for the design element, surely there is a format that can be imported into it from something fusion created, that would be the work around with them. I have Fusion on my laptop, it's my only Windows based machine and is largely only for very limited use, it wouldn't run on my Linux box and I loath their rates, subscriptions, restrictions and are damn nosy making you upload your files onto their server's.
The nature of kit sales is a volume thing. The more selection the more options the more people it will appeal to. I see almost all of the kit manufacturers just stop after a handful of kits, and back in the earlier days, they had more of an exclusive since it was expensive along the gear.
With your 3d files, I use Blender for the design element, surely there is a format that can be imported into it from something fusion created, that would be the work around with them. I have Fusion on my laptop, it's my only Windows based machine and is largely only for very limited use, it wouldn't run on my Linux box and I loath their rates, subscriptions, restrictions and are damn nosy making you upload your files onto their server's.
Houndpup Rc
Legendary member
I have actually gotten it to run on Linux using ChatGPT, but it took me quite a while to get it to work😂😂 (Though I feel like ChatGPT is better than it used to be, so it might be easier now)
Didn't CheatGPT tell you my Walksnail Pro Dual was dual cameras not dual antennas? LOL.
HappyRCFlyer
Active member
As far as I know, I'm the only person using Linux Mint running Lightburn, and it was not easy to do originally. I've progressed far enough along Blender to not want to bother using Fusion any more and Blender can do a great deal more then what Fusion could remotely ever do.
I have it running on Ubuntu, but they used to support running on linux natively. I just wish they didn't drop linux support. I have an older release and have not tried using mono or other tools to run the windows version. I need to get a newer licence and have been trying to get work to get it for their fiber lazer. The software it came with is junk.
HappyRCFlyer
Active member
Mint is Ubuntu based, it's just a flavor that is not natively compatible so I was playing in the terminal to get it to function, not a task I enjoy.
There are glitches, oddness and plain frustrating errors Lightburn has which the developers prefer to gaslight you when bringing them up. Those never get fixed with their updates and there are things that could use some improvement such as where they place some menu options they have not addressed, those would be things worth upgrading for.
You should not need a new license if you are just adding an additional machine, you can add up to four different machines under the same license.
There are glitches, oddness and plain frustrating errors Lightburn has which the developers prefer to gaslight you when bringing them up. Those never get fixed with their updates and there are things that could use some improvement such as where they place some menu options they have not addressed, those would be things worth upgrading for.
You should not need a new license if you are just adding an additional machine, you can add up to four different machines under the same license.
telnar1236
Master member
I know Linux is objectively better, but I'm just not savvy enough to deal with it. And since I'm using Windows anyways, I might as well use all the nice tools that are available for it. I used to find Fusion uploading everything to the cloud a needless annoyance, but then I had my hard drive on my computer die a few years back and having online backups saved everything I was working on at the time from getting completely lost so now I'm all for it
I have an older key so it works with the older version 17.?? but none of the updates from the last two years. Don't really need the new features, so I haven't gotten a new key.
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