I am new to the DIY Drones community and UAVs in general but have a lot of experience producing durable parts made directly from CAD data. When considering the DIY Drones site I noticed there is some great resources for electronic components but what if someone wants to design and produce a stellar airframe or other custom parts? Has anyone dabbled in CAD and considered producing their own parts in nylon without a mold???My company NWUAV (www.nwuav.com) has produced custom airframes as well as shrouds, intakes, brackets, etc for industry and I thought, why not for hobbyists too? If you can design it in CAD, we can build it! Any complexity with walls 0.020" and up (note: best to design 0.040" and up for any load bearing feature). Our parts are flying on thousands of planes. If anyone has some interest, let me know! You can send your CAD files to alex.dick@nwuav.com.
My opinion is not representative. I live in a country where traditional methods are still the cheapest ones. For instance - you can get the cast (I dont know if this is the right word) for making fiberglass 110 cm long / 16 cm tall / 8 cm wide fuselage for approx. 330 USD. Average hobbysts here cannot afford for more than 1 EasyGlider frame per 1/2 year. But I think and hope your method will win at not far end here too. I would definately give this a try when I will have to do something precise.
To answer your questiion about fibreglass fuselages... they are pretty standard in medium to large scale R/C aircraft.
Stress points are augmented with carbon fibre and other composites.
We are talking a couple hunderd to a couple thousand dollars depending on size of the unit and how much work is involved. Yes, it is more expensive per unit because it is custom work and not mass produced, but its cheaper than cutting a tool or something similar. For the hobbyist market where most of the CAD work and finishing can be done by the hobbyist, I am sure we can offer a reduced rate. In a square of about 13.5" x 27.5", we could produce a thin walled part for around $300 per inch of height. Therefore, a hobbyist who can provide a CAD file could have a thin-walled, lightweight plane with a 2" tall by 13.5" long fuseage and a wingspan of 27.5" for around 600 bucks. For material data on our nylon check out the link: http://nwuav.com/materialPDFs/PA_2201.pdf
Alexander - I believe there is relatively high number of users here that would need to "produce their ideas". Despite of this will there is one factor that could ruin the whole workflow. This is the price for one "piece". Without even very rough cost estimation you will not get big response IMHO.
Looks like most folks are interested in a low-cost, mass produced airframe geometry or design and build services. Is anyone focusing specifically in design and need some way to produce their ideas? We have produced many parts from other folks designs and are just getting into creating our own designs. We could easily produce a custom design if someone has a CAD drawing.
@ Hooks, wouldn't a fiberglass frame be heavy? How are you producing this???
what is CAD?..... im looking on making some what of a carrier but i want it to be fast and can go for long flights any suggetions on how to make that kind of uav....im sort of new in rc's and uav's so sorry if i sound like a blank sheet of paper
The CG issue is mostly a concern regarding payload flexibility. One of the great things about high wing trainers and EasyStars is that you can just toss a lot of gear in there or strap in under the wing and don't have to worry too much about CG. When the payload has to fly in the nose of a delicately balanced plane and you have to add ballast to the tail to keep the CG right, you end up having to be a lot more discriminating about the payloads you carry.
That just means more planning and more careful systems integration, but it definitely means that these sort of platforms are not good for development and experimentation, but rather from single-purpose missions.
Chris, You are totaly right about the CG.. It will take some measurement to find the right CG, and we all know that the setup will be diffrent from person to person. But i'm still sure that the "pro hobbyist" will love this airframe. Because of the Glide, Speed, goode camera mounting opportunity.
The frame are not for beginners, you need to know a little about CG.
Pics of the body
The name of the frame will be OWL and not anything like eagle or scan.
Hooks, that looks fantastic! (I gather that previous versions have run afoul of Boeing trademark lawyers, so I hope you either have permission or change the name and design enough to avoid that!).
Any comment on the CG sensitivity concern with these sort of designs?
Comments
Stress points are augmented with carbon fibre and other composites.
@ Michal, is this an interesting price point?
@ Hooks, wouldn't a fiberglass frame be heavy? How are you producing this???
The CG issue is mostly a concern regarding payload flexibility. One of the great things about high wing trainers and EasyStars is that you can just toss a lot of gear in there or strap in under the wing and don't have to worry too much about CG. When the payload has to fly in the nose of a delicately balanced plane and you have to add ballast to the tail to keep the CG right, you end up having to be a lot more discriminating about the payloads you carry.
That just means more planning and more careful systems integration, but it definitely means that these sort of platforms are not good for development and experimentation, but rather from single-purpose missions.
The frame are not for beginners, you need to know a little about CG.
Pics of the body
The name of the frame will be OWL and not anything like eagle or scan.
Any comment on the CG sensitivity concern with these sort of designs?
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