Anyone tried printing heli parts on a uPrint 3D printer?

[clough42]

Has anyone tried printing heli parts on uPrint 3D printer? I have access to one at work and was thinking about tinkering a bit.

Does the ABSplus material have the strength needed for rotating parts? Is it too brittle for frame components? Can the machine effectively print gears?

[wingtip]

The average 3d printer won't be strong enough except for scale parts like antennas or wipers etc. As for bell cranks and/or frame parts I wouldn't risk it. If you have use of an industrial sized platform then talk to the engineers there as they've already done studied on material strengths etc.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[wisconsinracer24]

Made by JR Prototypes on a Fortus. I have other parts as well that where made and flown, zero problems

[petertha]

Originally Posted by wisconsinracer24

Made by JR Prototypes on a Fortus. I have other parts as well that where made and flown, zero problems

Thats really nice. I'm not really up to speed on 3D printing, but I have Solidworks & often thought of having some parts made. Fortus is a brand of machine correct? ..as opposed to a printing service? Do you have any recs on good 3rd party printing services for small numbers & prototypes like your example? Some of the stuff I see examples of is quite rough looking & not as much selection of material types. (Sorry for the thread hijack, thought it might be applicable).

[clough42]

Originally Posted by petertha

Thats really nice. I'm not really up to speed on 3D printing, but I have Solidworks & often thought of having some parts made. Fortus is a brand of machine correct? ..as opposed to a printing service? Do you have any recs on good 3rd party printing services for small numbers & prototypes like your example? Some of the stuff I see examples of is quite rough looking & not as much selection of material types. (Sorry for the thread hijack, thought it might be applicable).

By all means...continue. I'm looking for any info I can get--especially if folks have had some success.

[wisconsinracer24]

I'm an applications engineer for JR Prototypes. The parts were made on a fortus out of blue ABS-M30. Fortus is the name of the rapid prototype machine which is made by Stratasys. Its a production level fused deposition modeling machine. Low production and prototype parts are all we do. We can go directly from 3D models to functioning parts. Depending on application and orreientation, we can acheive strengths in the vicinity of 10% of their abs injected counterparts. Cost is the limiting factor, being one of one has a price.

[jolyboy]

The strength of the ABS is related to factors such as the setting you use. In other words you could 3d print strong parts for your heli provided you had the right material, settings and printer.

[Manuel V]

Use Taulman 3d nylon filament
http://taulman3d.com/how-to-choose.html