Anybody doing 3D-printed RC airplanes?

[CJones]

YES! It's aviation related! WOOHOO!

Already stirred up the legacy 3D printing thread a few weeks ago, but thought I would start something new here specific to 3D-printed RC planes.

I've watched a few YT videos and there seem to be several options out there. Unfortunately, my A1 Mini printer bed is too small to print most of the stuff I've found so far, but I'll take care of that soon enough. I've never done RC stuff before (other than cheap-o drones for the kids or the RC cars that I would always disassemble after a week to see how they work as a kid).

Any suggestions on getting started? Seems like it's a pretty simple process - print an airframe, get some servos, batteries, motor and prop, and controller (where's the best place to get that kind of stuff), glue it together, and fly. Anything I'm missing? Any suggestions for equipment or suppliers to start out with or to stay away from?

CJ

 

[Jim K]

YES! It's aviation related! WOOHOO!

Already stirred up the legacy 3D printing thread a few weeks ago, but thought I would start something new here specific to 3D-printed RC planes.

I've watched a few YT videos and there seem to be several options out there. Unfortunately, my A1 Mini printer bed is too small to print most of the stuff I've found so far, but I'll take care of that soon enough. I've never done RC stuff before (other than cheap-o drones for the kids or the RC cars that I would always disassemble after a week to see how they work as a kid).

Any suggestions on getting started? Seems like it's a pretty simple process - print an airframe, get some servos, batteries, motor and prop, and controller (where's the best place to get that kind of stuff), glue it together, and fly. Anything I'm missing? Any suggestions for equipment or suppliers to start out with or to stay away from?

CJ

I used to watch FliteTest on yt pretty religiously, and I remember them doing a few. Seemed like an interesting way to get a highly detailed model for not much money. Seemed like they were a little heavier, so they necessarily had to be higher performance (ie harder to fly than foamies). I remember them posting a couple videos about plane designed to be printed in parts and glued together, which allowed for bigger models from smaller printers.

My personal RC airplane journey more or less ended when I kept crashing the damn things and decided that flying a real airplane was easier and more fun.

 

[ArrowFlyer86]

Great hobby! I've owned 5 RC planes in the last 7 years. Never 3d printed, always a store bought airframes.
Electronics are my hobby passion, so I like gutting the plane and installing all my own stuff (microcontroller, radios, sensors, gps, etc) and then running it off a ground station computer so I can fly with a joystick instead of a handheld controller. It allows me to get a feed of data back, too.

For most of the electronic guts and gadgets I buy them at Microcenter and Digikey.
For any extra servos I'll buy them at Microcenter when I can. Otherwise I think Horizon/Tower Hobbies are good, though I haven't bought from them in a few years now.
For engines/props/battery packs+chargers and all the other accessories it's a mix of buying online at Horizon/Tower or my in-person hobby store. For some of the mechanical things I need to physically see them in person to understand how they'll be linked together (like control arms, clevises that connect to flight controls, etc), so for that stuff I try to buy them in person from a hobby store.
Amazon is also a good source, but like anything, avoid buying any important parts from suppliers w/o many reviews.

Also, since you'll be putting a bit of legwork into building yours from scratch, I'd recommend buying a cheap trainer to practice with. You really don't wanna sink dozens of hours designing and building your airplane just to shatter it into pieces on its maiden voyage. I had a push-prop AeroScout that I crashed dozens of times and was always able to fix with adhesives and ducktape. It's not the fanciest plane but it took serious abuse and was always able to keep flying. Without that plane I would have absolutely destroyed my other, fancier planes. Having a pushprop saved a lot of time swapping props since you'll have a fraction the number of prop-strikes with a pusher.

 

[Pinecone]

Check current regs on flying them. I don't remember if you need a Remote Pilot certificate for them.

I have been in and out of model airplanes (and helicopter) over most of my life. I still have a number of balsa kits in my garage. Some NIB, some partially completed.

 

[SixPapaCharlie]

My midlife crisis seems to be going back and re aquiring all of the rc planes I had as a kid.
Wrapping up my Guillows Piper Tomahawk this week and Gentle Lady glider next week.
I have about 20 more I want to find but they are all vintage now and hard to track down.

This is my current work in progress:



I watch Flitetest and Peter Sripol a lot so while not 3D printing, I really enjoy their stuff.

Here's another good one:

 

[CJones]

Great hobby! I've owned 5 RC planes in the last 7 years. Never 3d printed, always a store bought airframes.
Electronics are my hobby passion, so I like gutting the plane and installing all my own stuff (microcontroller, radios, sensors, gps, etc) and then running it off a ground station computer so I can fly with a joystick instead of a handheld controller. It allows me to get a feed of data back, too.

For most of the electronic guts and gadgets I buy them at Microcenter and Digikey.
For any extra servos I'll buy them at Microcenter when I can. Otherwise I think Horizon/Tower Hobbies are good, though I haven't bought from them in a few years now.
For engines/props/battery packs+chargers and all the other accessories it's a mix of buying online at Horizon/Tower or my in-person hobby store. For some of the mechanical things I need to physically see them in person to understand how they'll be linked together (like control arms, clevises that connect to flight controls, etc), so for that stuff I try to buy them in person from a hobby store.
Amazon is also a good source, but like anything, avoid buying any important parts from suppliers w/o many reviews.

Also, since you'll be putting a bit of legwork into building yours from scratch, I'd recommend buying a cheap trainer to practice with. You really don't wanna sink dozens of hours designing and building your airplane just to shatter it into pieces on its maiden voyage. I had a push-prop AeroScout that I crashed dozens of times and was always able to fix with adhesives and ducktape. It's not the fanciest plane but it took serious abuse and was always able to keep flying. Without that plane I would have absolutely destroyed my other, fancier planes. Having a pushprop saved a lot of time swapping props since you'll have a fraction the number of prop-strikes with a pusher.

Oh man.. That's all I need is ANOTHER reason to go to MicroCenter. Somehow, we have two of them in the ATL metro area and I've become a frequent flyer with them with my 13 y/o son getting into computers and awakening my inner nerd. Every time I'm there, I walk through the STEM area and want to find an excuse to use those widgets, and now I guess I have one!

 

[ArrowFlyer86]

Oh man.. That's all I need is ANOTHER reason to go to MicroCenter. Somehow, we have two of them in the ATL metro area and I've become a frequent flyer with them with my 13 y/o son getting into computers and awakening my inner nerd. Every time I'm there, I walk through the STEM area and want to find an excuse to use those widgets, and now I guess I have one!

Jealous that you have 2! I used to be 15 mins away, but now I'm a 1h drive to the closest one. Nonetheless it's still at least a monthly pilgrimage for me.
The whole electronics DIY/STEM area is a total danger zone. I've spent too much money there picking up Arduinos, RPi's, 3d printers, DC motors, o-scopes, wave form generators, power supplies, solar panels, sensors, radios, you name it.
It's virtually impossible for me to go in without buying something that I discover "I need" .

... But located in that DIY/STEM section is where you'll find the servos and wiring for your RC project

 

[finnleyross21]

Please recommend a good printer! ??

 

[flyingcheesehead]

YES! It's aviation related! WOOHOO!

Already stirred up the legacy 3D printing thread a few weeks ago, but thought I would start something new here specific to 3D-printed RC planes.

Yes!!! In fact, I saw a YouTube video with a 3D printed RC airplane and that was the entire reason I bought a 3D printer to begin with.

Really, 3D printing and RC airplanes are an excellent match - Print the plane, fly the plane, crash the plane, print another copy of the plane and transfer the guts over. I think my initial reaction to the 3D printed airplane idea upon seeing that first video was "OMG that's f***ing brilliant!"

I've watched a few YT videos and there seem to be several options out there. Unfortunately, my A1 Mini printer bed is too small to print most of the stuff I've found so far, but I'll take care of that soon enough.

What's your build volume? I would think that you could probably print wing sections on the diagonal and still fit them. That said, I have a larger-than-normal printer (300x300x350) so maybe my perspective is off, but I didn't come anywhere close to using up any dimension on my printer.

Any suggestions on getting started? Seems like it's a pretty simple process - print an airframe, get some servos, batteries, motor and prop, and controller (where's the best place to get that kind of stuff), glue it together, and fly. Anything I'm missing? Any suggestions for equipment or suppliers to start out with or to stay away from?

A few:

1) Go subscribe to all of those YouTube channels that @SixPapaCharlie talked about. The majority of stuff isn't about 3D printed aircraft, but they're all good anyway. Also, Troy McMillan who is almost all about RC aircraft. He does some prebuilt stuff you can buy, but he also makes his own models and builds 3D printed airliners and stuff.

2) Flite Test also has an online store, and they sell "power packs" and such that group things like batteries, motors, etc. Keep in mind that a lot of their stuff is designed for their foamies so you'll likely need to be shopping on the bigger end of things. Part of why I like shopping here is that they seem to be on a mission to expose as many people as possible to RC flying and keep it as affordable as possible too. And hey, while you're at it you can buy a cheap foamie to fly around while you're waiting for parts to print on your 3D printer. They do have a 3D Printing section of the store where you can get things like Varioshore TPU and LW-PLA filaments. Varioshore TPU lets you print thicker/foamier rubber type parts by varying print temp, so for example you could print a foam-filled tire if you wanted to. LW-PLA also has a foaming agent in it that makes it lighter.

3) Eclipson is a great place to buy 3D printable airplanes from. They generally always have a trainer model available for free to get you started. They also design their planes to be able to be printed without any travel moves to avoid the problems LW-PLA has with stringing.

4) You don't need to make everything out of LW-PLA. It's nice to keep weight down, but for things that are easier to break, standard PLA is a good thing. I did my control surfaces as well as mounting points for wings, landing gear and servos all out of standard PLA for durability, while wings and fuselage are made of LW-PLA.

Please recommend a good printer! ??

BambuLab A1 is a great way to get started. Right now it's $359 for the printer, or for another $150 you can add the multi-material unit.

BambuLab is the Apple of 3D printers - They've done a lot of work to make things "just work", or at least as much as that's possible in the 3D printing world today.

 

[Albany Tom]

I've done RC flying, and 3D printing, but not the mix. My suggestion would be to get an off the shelf inexpensive foamy RC trainer and radio first, and learn how to fly RC, then do the custom building. Because otherwise you're kinda being a test pilot and learning to fly at the same time. Back before I was flying full size, we would teach kids to fly, and sometimes adults and sometimes private pilots. One thing a private pilot who has never flown RC has typically never done is control the aircraft while it's headed toward them. For some people that's not at all intuitive. So I'd find a club or something, and to the buddy box thing, and learn to fly.

The other bit of RC that's different from full size is that you get to set your own center of gravity, and it's possible to get it really really wrong. Pre-flight for RC is critical, to have the control throws going the right way, and the CG to be good enough for it to actually be flyable.

My take on 3D, filament anyway, is that it's not all that light, and it's not all that strong. But it could be good for little fiddly things like hinges, servo arms, brackets, etc. For the airframe, I'd be looking at foam or carbon fiber or some combination. For printers, I like my Prusa a lot. Reliable and easy to use.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

My suggestion would be to get an off the shelf inexpensive foamy RC trainer and radio first, and learn how to fly RC, then do the custom building.

One thing a private pilot who has never flown RC has typically never done is control the aircraft while it's headed toward them. For some people that's not at all intuitive. So I'd find a club or something, and to the buddy box thing, and learn to fly.

Flite Test does have some great, cheap little foam birds that can easily be built in a half hour or less and get you going. Heck, here's a $90 bundle with everything you need for three planes: https://store.flitetest.com/ft-ez-first-flyers-complete-starter-bundle/

My take on 3D, filament anyway, is that it's not all that light, and it's not all that strong.

It does seem like using LW-PLA makes a huge difference in weight. More standard filaments definitely make for heavy airplanes.

I've done some 3D printed rocket nose cones and empennages, and it's obvious that they're much heavier than strictly balsa/cardboard construction (though we were using cardboard too, I designed them for toilet paper/paper towel tube bodies). A motors launch it all of maybe 30-40 feet and the chute pops after the rocket has already come back to earth. Bs are better, maybe 80-100 feet up and the chute pops about when it hits the ground. A C motor does it some justice and works like a model rocket should be expected to.

 

[CJones]

Yes!!! In fact, I saw a YouTube video with a 3D printed RC airplane and that was the entire reason I bought a 3D printer to begin with.

Really, 3D printing and RC airplanes are an excellent match - Print the plane, fly the plane, crash the plane, print another copy of the plane and transfer the guts over. I think my initial reaction to the 3D printed airplane idea upon seeing that first video was "OMG that's f***ing brilliant!"

What's your build volume? I would think that you could probably print wing sections on the diagonal and still fit them. That said, I have a larger-than-normal printer (300x300x350) so maybe my perspective is off, but I didn't come anywhere close to using up any dimension on my printer.

A few:

1) Go subscribe to all of those YouTube channels that @SixPapaCharlie talked about. The majority of stuff isn't about 3D printed aircraft, but they're all good anyway. Also, Troy McMillan who is almost all about RC aircraft. He does some prebuilt stuff you can buy, but he also makes his own models and builds 3D printed airliners and stuff.

2) Flite Test also has an online store, and they sell "power packs" and such that group things like batteries, motors, etc. Keep in mind that a lot of their stuff is designed for their foamies so you'll likely need to be shopping on the bigger end of things. Part of why I like shopping here is that they seem to be on a mission to expose as many people as possible to RC flying and keep it as affordable as possible too. And hey, while you're at it you can buy a cheap foamie to fly around while you're waiting for parts to print on your 3D printer. They do have a 3D Printing section of the store where you can get things like Varioshore TPU and LW-PLA filaments. Varioshore TPU lets you print thicker/foamier rubber type parts by varying print temp, so for example you could print a foam-filled tire if you wanted to. LW-PLA also has a foaming agent in it that makes it lighter.

3) Eclipson is a great place to buy 3D printable airplanes from. They generally always have a trainer model available for free to get you started. They also design their planes to be able to be printed without any travel moves to avoid the problems LW-PLA has with stringing.

4) You don't need to make everything out of LW-PLA. It's nice to keep weight down, but for things that are easier to break, standard PLA is a good thing. I did my control surfaces as well as mounting points for wings, landing gear and servos all out of standard PLA for durability, while wings and fuselage are made of LW-PLA.


BambuLab A1 is a great way to get started. Right now it's $359 for the printer, or for another $150 you can add the multi-material unit.

BambuLab is the Apple of 3D printers - They've done a lot of work to make things "just work", or at least as much as that's possible in the 3D printing world today.

That's awesome! I thought I had seen you post something linking 3D printing and RC together.

My A1 Mini only has a 180x180x180 print volume, and so far all of the planes I've looked at have at least one dimension in the ~200-220 range, so I can't wiggle it around to make it fit. I'm trying to decide if I want stick with Bambu and move up to a Bambu X1C or jump over to try out the Prusa Core One, which has the same dimensions of the X1C, but doesn't adhere to the "Apple ecosystem mindset" that you mention. It makes it really nice for 'take out of box and print', but I'm a perpetual tinkerer hate the idea of being told I can't hack my own equipment if I wanted to.

With that said...I agree with your recommendation of a Bambu A1 or A1 Mini as a good first printer. It really is - take out of box and be printing in 15 minutes. And if you're fine with sticking with their ecosystem for everything, they have a large line of equipment to grow into in the future.

 

[bentmettle]

I so wanna do this one---https://www.3daeroventures.com/b-17flyingfortress -- I printed his Chipmunk, but lost momentum after gluing it up and then reading about some in flight breakups. Haven't been able to get a LW-PLA config working super great on my Prusa to do the B17 or re-print a few of the Chipmunk wing parts.

I'd definitely try to learn to fly on something else. I think most of the 3d printed planes I've seen fly faster (heavier wing loading) than a usual trainer would.

 

[Roller]

 

[flyingcheesehead]

My A1 Mini only has a 180x180x180 print volume, and so far all of the planes I've looked at have at least one dimension in the ~200-220 range, so I can't wiggle it around to make it fit. I'm trying to decide if I want stick with Bambu and move up to a Bambu X1C or jump over to try out the Prusa Core One, which has the same dimensions of the X1C, but doesn't adhere to the "Apple ecosystem mindset" that you mention. It makes it really nice for 'take out of box and print', but I'm a perpetual tinkerer hate the idea of being told I can't hack my own equipment if I wanted to.

Prusa would be my second choice behind Bambu. Prior to Bambu coming on the scene the Prusas were the best of the best for consumer 3D printers, and they seem to be good quality. You can also buy at least some of them as a kit and save a couple hundred bucks, though they seem to be somewhat overpriced to begin with so...

Another nice thing about the Prusas is that they usually seem to have upgrade kits available to take your existing printer and make it into the latest model. And if you're going to do anything really big or multi-material, their XL model is far more efficient with filament than other multi-material printers because each filament has its own hot end/tool head and so you don't need to have a prime tower. It's just a bit $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

With that said...I agree with your recommendation of a Bambu A1 or A1 Mini as a good first printer. It really is - take out of box and be printing in 15 minutes. And if you're fine with sticking with their ecosystem for everything, they have a large line of equipment to grow into in the future.

Until Bambu, you kinda had to want to tinker. I've done all right with my printer, but I'm about 2.5 years in and I've had to build a new Y axis belt as well as replace the hot end a couple times and the build plate once. Normally I have really good bed adhesion but the current build plate is spotty - Probably 75% of it is great, but in the right rear corner and a bit up toward right center it appears to be a bit higher than the rest so the first layer it puts down there is almost nonexistent and some things have been left behind there, but in the front center and left it's the opposite, with first layer adhesion issues that can cause a failed print if the part is only in that part of the bed. I have auto leveling, but there's no way to tilt the bed to fix this, it only goes up and down.

I so wanna do this one---https://www.3daeroventures.com/b-17flyingfortress -- I printed his Chipmunk, but lost momentum after gluing it up and then reading about some in flight breakups. Haven't been able to get a LW-PLA config working super great on my Prusa to do the B17 or re-print a few of the Chipmunk wing parts.

Eclipson has some settings for PLA and LW-PLA on their site. I used their recommendations and got really high quality right away.

 

[bentmettle]

Thanks for the settings link. The project has fallen way off the map.

Last year was instrument rating completion year. Between that and breaking my arm in the spring in Moab, radio control didn’t happen. I haven’t even rejoined the local ama club for 2025 and I’m a lifetime ama member. :/

 

[Albany Tom]

Prusa would be my second choice behind Bambu. Prior to Bambu coming on the scene the Prusas were the best of the best for consumer 3D printers, and they seem to be good quality. You can also buy at least some of them as a kit and save a couple hundred bucks, though they seem to be somewhat overpriced to begin with so...

Another nice thing about the Prusas is that they usually seem to have upgrade kits available to take your existing printer and make it into the latest model. And if you're going to do anything really big or multi-material, their XL model is far more efficient with filament than other multi-material printers because each filament has its own hot end/tool head and so you don't need to have a prime tower. It's just a bit $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Until Bambu, you kinda had to want to tinker. I've done all right with my printer, but I'm about 2.5 years in and I've had to build a new Y axis belt as well as replace the hot end a couple times and the build plate once. Normally I have really good bed adhesion but the current build plate is spotty - Probably 75% of it is great, but in the right rear corner and a bit up toward right center it appears to be a bit higher than the rest so the first layer it puts down there is almost nonexistent and some things have been left behind there, but in the front center and left it's the opposite, with first layer adhesion issues that can cause a failed print if the part is only in that part of the bed. I have auto leveling, but there's no way to tilt the bed to fix this, it only goes up and down.

Eclipson has some settings for PLA and LW-PLA on their site. I used their recommendations and got really high quality right away.

I can't speak to Bambu, but I've never had to tinker with the Prusa. I did build it as a kit, mostly so I'd know how it went together to be able to work on it later, and partly because I bought it at the beginning of covid and had the time. There are absolutely less expensive printers, and I don't know price/performance/tweaking ratios of those, just throwing out the data point for what I have. One reason for Prusa was the open source mindset. I think their slicer is free for anyone to use, as an example.

For any printer, though, unless you're doing very simple stuff or other people's designs, there is a learning curve to the whole additive construction method. How supports work, what you can and can't get away with, etc. To me that was fun and challenging. It's not all that hard, but you do have to remember just like you can't really weld in mid-air, you pretty much can't print in mid-air, either.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I can't speak to Bambu, but I've never had to tinker with the Prusa. I did build it as a kit, mostly so I'd know how it went together to be able to work on it later, and partly because I bought it at the beginning of covid and had the time. There are absolutely less expensive printers, and I don't know price/performance/tweaking ratios of those, just throwing out the data point for what I have. One reason for Prusa was the open source mindset. I think their slicer is free for anyone to use, as an example.

It seems like there are too many free slicers for anyone to charge for them. Bambu, Prusa, and Cura are all free.

I've not heard any bad things about Prusa either, they definitely make good stuff. Bambu has just gone hard-core into making things accessible to people who are more into printing than tinkering, and all of their software and hardware has that design philosophy.

It used to be that if you were looking for a low-end budget printer, you'd get a Creality for $99 on the MicroCenter new customer deal (or $199 if you didn't qualify) and you'd be required to manually level the bed and do lots of other things to get the printer working. I saw an interesting comparison of a Creality and a Prusa a few years ago where, once you put in higher quality components that the Prusa already had, you had invested $600+ into the Creality. Prusa was still more expensive even as a kit, but not by much.

The appearance of the BambuLab A1 Mini for $199 was a game changer - Yes, it's a bit smaller, but it's a very high quality printer at a bargain basement price. Even a Prusa Mini kit is $429! And the Bambu still had the capability of adding a multi-material unit. It's quite a compelling product for the price, and will likely bring a lot of new folks into 3D printing.

 

[CJones]

It's quite a compelling product for the price, and will likely bring a lot of new folks into 3D printing.

It's what sucked me into the game! My boys and I have been joking about getting a 3D printer for a few years now, but I always thought "What the heck would I actually do with it to justify the cost!?" Then this past Christmas when my wife was trying to think of something for me, she got the idea of a 3D printer and researched with some help from one of our friends who was already into printing and he said "Get the A1 Mini for <$300 and if he doesn't like it, oh well.".... and here I am 2 months later already shopping for a bigger model. I'm sure the 'Bambu effect' will be something that's talked about in 3D printing world far into the future.

 

[1RTK1]

I've never 3-D printed a plane but I "used to" be really big into RC before I bought my first plane. Most of my RC planes were pretty big, 100cc+ engines swinging 29" props, somewhere around 30-40% scale. Not much time anymore to fly them and full scale. It would be fun to 3D print planes though.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I've never 3-D printed a plane but I "used to" be really big into RC before I bought my first plane. Most of my RC planes were pretty big, 100cc+ engines swinging 29" props, somewhere around 30-40% scale. Not much time anymore to fly them and full scale. It would be fun to 3D print planes though.

I would think the larger models probably have a better power to weight ratio than the smaller ones. The first 3D printed plane I saw on YouTube was an A320 that was pretty large.

 

[1RTK1]

My gas planes weighing 30 lbs had about 60 lbs of thrust. They would go up about as fast as in level flight or so it seemed.
Some of the electric balsa planes have amazing power to weight. Battery tech and electric motors have come a long way

 

[Albany Tom]

"3D" can mean an entirely different thing with electric RC planes. 10+ years ago there were some local guys flying stiff sheet foam foamies with huge control surfaces, big props, and big motors for the size of the plane. They could "hover" them and fly them around like a helicopter, then transition to level flight and zoom around.

Found a link:

I do know a couple of guys that can fly like that. I think both were picked up by manufacturers as sponsors. Kinda of have to fly a lot to be able to do that. But if you have a radio that let's you setup what they call exponential rates they're absolutely flyable by a relative beginner, in normal flight and even some high AOA.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

They could "hover" them and fly them around like a helicopter,

Better video

 

[Pinecone]

My midlife crisis seems to be going back and re aquiring all of the rc planes I had as a kid.
Wrapping up my Guillows Piper Tomahawk this week and Gentle Lady glider next week.
I have about 20 more I want to find but they are all vintage now and hard to track down.

You might want to make a trip to Toledo for the big show. There have some rooms and hallways with people selling older stuff, including some old kits.

I would love to build another Goldberg Skylane 62. Never actually flew the first one.

 

[SixPapaCharlie]

You might want to make a trip to Toledo for the big show. There have some rooms and hallways with people selling older stuff, including some old kits.

I would love to build another Goldberg Skylane 62. Never actually flew the first one.

Sweet. Added to the calendar.
Thanks!