Last year I guess I lucked out and bought a 6' piece of 3/4" square tubing from Lowes that was a bit thicker walled than the 3DR arms, but now when I have been to several Lowes stores the same SKU# is 1/16" (.062") thick walled and feels so much heavier. I measured the wall thickness of the 3DR arms and it's ~.037 (1mm), the stick I bought from Lowes last year is .050, and all I can find now locally is .062 or thicker. I found two places that advertise .050 walled 3/4" tubing (Wicks and Spruce aircraft) but wondering if anyone can help me find something as thin and light as what the 3DR arms are made out of?
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Some local aluminium/glass fabricators uses it here....as its thin and cheap for these poor countries.
With out the glass I could pick up a standard aluminium window frame with my pinkie and toss it.
This 18x18mm seams light at about 81 grams per meter length or about 0.055lb/ft long...I think??
Its quite thin about 0.6 - 0.7mm wall thicknes (1" is 25.4mm/36= 0.7mm) ..I assembled 6 pieces and it measured under 4mm thick so about 36 pieces is 1" thick so 1000/36 = 0.028" or 28 thou thick ....I think???? Im all metric.
Anyway its really thin yet very rigid...I tested a piece 600mm (2ft)long and hung it over my bench top 500mm and it easily supported 6kg without it snapping and it only flexed about 10-12mm with a 1.5kg weight and it flexes about 5-6mm over 500mm....good enough for me.
I believe its a standard soft aluminium from past experience cutting it yet its very rigid due to the box shape and it doesnt twist.
Hard to know where it comes from....maybe china I would guess because its cheap here...so maybe alibaba.com is a place to start.
If you guys fail finding some I could get a big box full cut up to your specific lengths and posted and paid by paypal or whatever to help you out.....international postage $ OUCH....but spread over say 10 multirotors using it wont matter I guess.
Rather odd country here...I mail order everything as I can not get the simplest of things here..and carbon fiber is just a pipe dream.....but I can get this light aluminium :)
Cheers
Kingsley
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