Just an update on my 3D printed quad project.  I have just published my quadcopter v2 to Thingiverse.com.  I've flown my first 3D printed quad for over a 100 hours and although it worked really well there were nagging issues with the design that needed to be addressed.  

The biggest issues were with the arms.  The legs, although lightweight, proved to be very brittle.  I must have superglued the legs back on 10-15 times.  So I went ahead and beefed them up a bit.  The are now wider and have extra support added in weaker areas.  They are still very light and although they could still break off they are MUCH more forgiving of a brisk landing or lateral loading.  I also got tired of taking the whole quad apart if I wanted to get between the top and bottom plate to work on something so I designed the new arms to have M3 lock nuts press fit into them.  This makes it similar to a dji arm where you can remove just the top or bottom plate without having the arms fall off.  Lastly I have added mounting patterns for motors with a triangular pattern as well as the more standard 16x19mm.

Because I have been flying with the APM now for a while and thoroughly enjoy it I thought I had better design v2 around it.  The new top plate has 50mm mounting holes for standard flight controllers like the kk2.1 and kk blackboard.  They can be mounted orthogonally (kk2.1) or at a 45 deg angle (blackboard).  The APM however mounts with vibration dampening bushings from hobby king.  I stuffed earplugs inside to make them a little more rigid and the results were good.  When vibrations were measured, without any prop balancing, the vibrations were half of the limits that 3DR prescribes.  Extra holes have been added to help with weight and make it easier to route wires and the top plate has an added area for the APM's GPS/Compass module.

I slightly retouched the gimbal as well.  I added a GoPro 3 case on top of making the gimbal arms easier to assemble, again using M3 locknuts.  

All in all it is very similar to my original design but I feel that that one was the test bed and this one has a much more professional feel to it.  I hope to see more of them printed and flying.  I can't say how much I have enjoyed designing this and bouncing ideas off other people who have printed and are flying it.

My 3D Printed Quad

Multi-Rotor BASE from Mikey B on Vimeo.

We shot this over a few days using my 3D printed quad and a brushless gimbal I designed to go along with it. I printed out everything on a Replicator Dual. Total print time was around 20 hours. The arms take the longest. Roughly 4-5 hours (2 at a time) with the settings required for strength and rigidity. The gimbal parts can all be printed in on go and takes about 4 hours when you include the battery tray.

The gimbal controller is a Martinez 3.0, which I must say was a real pain to get setup.  I don't think I have everything dialed in perfectly because if you pitch too quickly the gimbal will freak out.  But I am very happy with the results.  For my flight controller I am using a KK blackboard.  I'm not unhappy with it as I have used these for nearly every Multi Copter I've made, but the quad would definitely benefit from a APM.

I will be headed out to Moab this weekend for the "Turkey Boogie" a BASE jumper gathering over Thanksgiving, hopefully I will come back with some more footage.  Moab is incredible and is just as much a playground for FPV pilots as it is for BASE jumpers, climbers, hikers, bikers, etc.

Hope you guys enjoy!

I have had my 3D printed quad finished for a while now.  I have been working on a 3D printed tricopter, anti-vibration mounts, gimbals and some other fun stuff.  I finally buckled down and put a short video together of some print time-lapses and some videos of the quad in the air.  She flies very well with an old kk Blackboard but I would like to add an APM or a Naza onto it.  

Hey everybody.  I've finally finished the airframe portion of my 3D printed FPV Quad.  I'm working now to finnish up the GoPro mount.  The whole thing took a lot a lot longer than I would have liked, but a month long trip back home left me without my printer.  And the arms proved particularly difficult.  There was a lot of flex in my V1 arms that made the quad un-flyable, the V2 arms were better but made for a very unstable, but flyable quad.  The V3 arms are beefed up with both lateral and vertical support.  I'm glad to say it flies perfectly now.  I will also be working to reduce the weight of the frame.  It is still very light, though I don't have a scale to make an exact weight.  I think though there is some fat to be trimmed.   Anyway here it is.  You can check it out and print it if you would like here: My Quad

I finally had a bit of time to work on my quad project.  I think Im nearly finished with the top and bottom plate and I'm printing out the GoPro tilt mount as I type this.  The project is coming along and I'm excited to put it in the air soon.  Here are some Sketchup pics of my mockup file and the test fit model coming together.  Any suggestions on the components?  I am a little split on using a spare KK board, a DJI or a APM.  

I finally received my Makerbot Replicator (makerbot.com) and I am VERY impressed. After printing a handful of objects off of Thingiverse and dialing in my printer I promptly began work on my version of 3D printed quadcopter. I had a fair bit of practice using Google Sketchup from time is spent designing a handful of tricopters so naturally I started there. Sketchup is a very powerful program for being free and is very easy to learn, however there are some shortcomings to the program when it comes to 3D printing. I'll cover this in later posts but for now I would just like to show you my progress up until now. The incredible thing about 3D printing is how quickly you can prototype a concept. Sketchup is great for visualizing and object but it can never beat actually being able to hold it in your hand and inspect it. You get the feel of it. The weight of it. You can flex it and bend it. To flimsy? Add more material there. Overbuilt? Remove material here. It is simply incredible, a couple of late nights after work and I pretty much have the arms the way I want them.