I want to print a C-130 Hercules for remote control flight

[jonnybischof 60]

Make sure you get the maiden flight with hydrogen on video - That's gonna be one to remember

Btw, you spelled Jamaican wrong (I know, I'm evil).

 

[LePaul 321]

You are pretty really, really fast!

I know when I crank mine up that fast, Bowden tubes pop out

For an aircraft model with that level of detail, I'd slow it way down, set temp to 220 and walk away for a few hours (Or as RONCO commercials say "Set it and Forget it!")

 

[skint 61]

Comfort Beer and Stupid Gravity both made me chuckle. Its a real shame if you cant get to complete and fly these due to weight, what you have done so far looks great!

 

[schafe 3]

I'm still plugging away at this problem. Turns out there are several wing/weight/power calculators on the web. All have concluded it will have to fly fast if at all.

I have decided on plan B if it doesn't fly. Redesign the thing eliminating most of the plastic skin. Keep the carbon fiber arrows but make plastic ribs. Cover with monokote or maybe balsa. I will stick with plastic sections where there are features that are difficult to cover or are nicely detailed like the engine nacelles, wing roots, base of the rudder, etc. I will likely keep the nose plastic for the cockpit window detail. This should make it much, much lighter and still be 100% to scale.

The other night I printed a section at 60mm/sec, .1mm height, 100% flow at 250C. (Am I correct that you take the speed times the layer height to get the rate everyone is referring to in the "Almost always missing layers / underextruding" topic? If I have this correct then I was printing at 6mm3/sec.) I was using a filament I purchased from Makershed. The result was perfect. Last night I started a 28 hour print with the above settings and the same filament. I noticed this morning the extruder is skipping although I could not see any gaps or holes. I slowed the speed to 80% before going to work. We'll see what I come home to in a few hours. If the above math is correct this results in 4.8mm3/sec.

Unless someone says otherwise, I decided not to update my C-130 file on YouMagine and will likely delete it. I'm pretty sure no one wants to spend the weeks and filament required to print this thing, especially knowing it won't fly.

I wouldn't be in this mess if I could only find a ready to fly C-130 that got good reviews. I've been all over the internet with no luck. I think cargo planes are neat and you rarely see them in RC.

 

[schafe 3]

Nice new profile pic.

 

[mr.-waldorf 0]

Hi Shafe

Love the new profile pic and also the plan B. It seems a very good plan If you have enough "horse power" should fly... I think that this "additional" weight will give a beautiful scale flight feeling.

On my printer with UM filament I would print the detailed parts at 30mm/s 230ºC and the others parts at 50mm/s 240ºC, this avoids underextension and it seems that is easier to print more solid parts at lower speeds. Since you have a different filament this can change a bit...

Have fun, keep coming the photos and the good work...

Good morning Iowa, Europe is going to bed.

 

[schafe 3]

After 9 or so hours of printing the results are confusing.

In one photo you see the under extrusion is visible. I can see the extruder skipping backwards at the 80% rate I set before heading to work. I think it is at 4.8mm3/sec now. I slowed the speed to 70% and can still hear and see skipping at 4.2mm3/sec. I'm not going any slower. The screen says there are still 10 hours remaining.

In the other photo you see a new development. The retraction is on and I can see the extruder moving backward for the retraction step. However, almost always there is a small blob of plastic hanging from the tip. This results in the many blobs hanging from the side of the print. What changed? I just realized that now I am going slower I may need to lower the temp.

It is very confusing and slightly frustrating to use a group of settings one day and get perfect results only to use the EXACT same settings the next day and get random results.

With the popularity of the "Almost always missing layers / underextruding" topic I can only conclude there is a gremlin lurking somewhere in the machine.

I begin the next paragraph with this statement. I am a conspiracy nut. Conspiracies are everywhere. I'm intrigued by the silence from Ultimaker on this issue. If I were them I would not admit there is a problem with their new baby either. Without a doubt, there are people who are considering purchasing a UM2 reading these topics deciding where to put their money. Without a doubt, there are competitors reading these topics to gain an advantage.

It is nice that Ultimaker doesn't seem to hold grudges when someone is critical in their own forum pages.

For those reading this deciding where to vote with your dollars/euros, etc I offer this. Do I think I made the right decision buying the UM2 as my first 3D printer - yes. Do I think the gremlin will be eliminated - yes. There are simply too many people working to figure this out who don't even work for Ulitmaker. Do I think the UM2 was brought to market prematurely - yes. I stated in another topic that I was happy for everyone at Ultimaker. It is nice when people succeed - still true. I am also really impressed with my new friends in the Ultimaker world. Its cool that a geek from Iowa can connect with peers world-wide.

 

[schafe 3]

Nope, lowering the temp resulted in more extruder skipping and no change in the blobs.

The "standard" olympics are almost over. I really hope I can get coverage of the para-olympics for the next week or so. Those people are awesome!!

Stupid gravity.

Long live beer.

I just heard another extruder skip.

 

[mr.-waldorf 0]

Hi Shafe,

You were attacked by the underextrusion gremlin, the little bastard...

Lowering only the temp is worst unless you decrease the speed also. I know that printing times can be very disappointing but the print quality at lower speeds its just simply amazing.

 

[gr5 2,167]

1) First of all you have also multiply by the width of the nozzle (.4mm). Volume is height X length X width. So at 60mm/sec .1 layers that's 60*.4*.1 or 2.4mm^3/sec. Even Nico can print to 4mm/sec at 230C and he seems to think is printer is broken.

You shouldn't have any skips at that volume at 230C or hotter.

2) The retraction blobs can be improved by increasing retraction speed to the max (I think it's 35mm/sec) and lowering temp to 220C.

3) 250C is dangerous - I don't recommend that. If you stop the print or if it clogs you can burn the PLA a bit and cause nasty gunk in the nozzle that needs to be burned out requiring complete disassembly (not that bad really) and putting the nozzle in flame.

4) Are you *sure* it was skipping steps? Could it have been the retraction you heard?

5) How is the feeder doing? I recommend you put the filament on the floor like this:

 

[schafe 3]

Well blarpidy blarp!!! Of all the blarping blarp blarpishness!

Went to bed with about 8 hours left to print. Got up and found this.

BLARP!!

My printer must have a huge gremlin. I won't reprint it. Not wasting the time. I'll use it and fill in with balsa filler.

I'm sure it was skipping. It makes a totally different sound. 60mm/sec was my programmed speed in Cura. I had slowed it to 70% with the UM2's controller. Now that my math has been corrected I was printing at 1.68mm3/sec when this happend. Blarp. I'll try something different with the spool.

 

[mr.-waldorf 0]

Hi Boys,

 

Blarp. I'll try something different with the spool.

 

Yeah, you should do that... The original setup caused me underextrusion problems too. I still have them but not so severe.

 

I won't reprint it. Not wasting the time. I'll use it and fill in with balsa filler.

 

Be Careful, the parts with underextrusion are very fragile and with vibrations and air pressure they can break in mid air. I don't know what kind of balsa filler you have, but the ones that I tried doesn´t gave so much strength to the parts (like fiberglass or some other glues) they are just for finishing purposes. If you want to use that part you could reinforce the interior but this can bring added weight so maybe it's best to fine tune your printer first and then you can go for higher flights

Offtopic: Today, I received a new toy and it's a flight stablization system...

The FY-30A has an integrated three-axis gyro and three-axis accelerometer and can realize the plane automatic stabilization flight, 3D pose lock flight and PTZ camera gimbal stability control. This is very usefull for jet fighters that like high speed landings and they don´t like cross winds on landings. I also suspect that will add a huge scale flight feeling. I am happy happy happy!

Cheers

 

 

[schafe 3]

There should be no problem strength wise. It is a little hard to tell in the photo, but you can see one of the tubes that will house a carbon fiber arrow.

I previously questioned how you can get great results one day and then use the same settings the next and get crappy results. I thought nothing changed. I may be a little slow on this but I realized the spool is changing. More importantly, maybe, the radius of the filament is getting smaller. I don't think the smaller radius would cause the blobs though. My retraction settings have never changed from the factory settings. This was my first experience with the blobs.

Why does everything have to be so hard?

 

[mr.-waldorf 0]

I made this to my printer, maybe you already saw...

http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4319-prints-quality-improvements/page-2

If you have the space you shoud do as in Gr5 photo and this way the filament unspools with its natural bend orientated nicely for the bowden tube.

For some prints I like to change the retraction speed to 35mm/s and the retraction lengh to 5.35mm this should almost eliminate the blobs...

Have fun

 

[schafe 3]

I give up on plan A. I pulled the most recent print off of the base and discovered it is totally flimsy with really poor adhesion between layers. I think I will go with the plan of skinning it with balsa. Stay tuned for the next few months as I redesign. So much for getting this done for this summer.

 

[jonnybischof 60]

...

More importantly, maybe, the radius of the filament is getting smaller.

...

 

Do you mean the radius of the spool or the actual radius (diameter) of the filament?

What kind of filament are you using? I noticed there can be HUGE differences between crappy filament and high quality filament...

Actually, the filament seems to be the most important variable of the "how-good-will my-print-quality-be" equation.

 

[schafe 3]

I mean the radius of the filament as it got closer to the inside of the spool. It is wound tighter. I have never measured the diameter of the filament. I was using filament from Makershed. Printed Solid and printbl did not have any colors I wanted. I agree with your statement about filament variations. I have not had nearly as much trouble with the filament that came with my UM2. I just hate the color - blue. Since I have moved to plan B the color of the material won't matter since I'll be painting the plane when it is done. I'll use up the stuff from Makershed on experimental prints and get something else for the keepers. I will also say that I have had excellent results with the filament from Makershed. Those results were just very random. I will attempt to get the Makershed filament printing more reliably. My next plan is to put it on the floor as suggested by gr5. Hopefully in the near future Ultimaker will have a solution for the underextruding. I'm convinced this is a wide spread issue and not limited to a few machines.

After my trials and errors on this project I do not think a plastic extruder type printer, FDM, can create a successful RC plane. At least not the way I was doing it trying to create a 100% scale plane 100% from printed parts. The skin and other sections need to be so thin that the individual layers cannot adhere well. The minium thickness I was working with was .8mm or 2 passes of the nozzle. The math indicates it would be way too heavy as I designed it. The very thin skin just wasn't strong enough over the surface areas I needed. It may be that one of the professional grade printers can make this work. This is just a hobby for me and I'm not willing to pay to have the parts printed on one of those machines. I bet that if I try this again in the near future a desktop machine will be able to do what I want. I guess I had better keep the files from plan A for the future.

Lost sleep last night trying to figure out how to design the ribs so I can easily make them line up with the skin of the original plane. I think I have it figured out. It will take me a few months to redesign the thing but the parts will be able to be printed in MUCH less time. I think I have it figured out how to skin it with balsa and have the balsa line up perfectly with the printed sections I will keep for their detail. Sorry Europe but I'll have to use 1/16 inch balsa. They don't sell metric balsa in the US at least not at my hobby store.

 

[schafe 3]

Good news Europe!! I measured the thickness of my 1/16 inch balsa. 1/16 inch equals about 1.58mm. The balsa I have averages 1.9mm. I bet you guys can get 2mm balsa so there should be little problems since I will be designing for balsa that is 1.9mm thick. Maybe balsa in the US is actually 2mm balsa and they just put a 1/16 inch sticker on it and your 2mm balsa is actually 1.9mm.

I'm about to the point where I need to print sections to see if I have them correct. I may get this thing flying yet this summer.

 

[schafe 3]

I might just finish it for this summer! The clowns love it!

 

[skint 61]

Awesome Schafe Cool pool table too

 

[gr5 2,167]

Very nice. I see your UM2 is printing in the background. And the filament is on the floor! Nice! That's the secret for a happy UM2!

 

[schafe 3]

Nice product placement in photos. Its really neat when you design something and it fits the way you thought it would.

 

[schafe 3]

Oh yes, the filament on the floor only results in a marginal level of contentment for my machine.

 

[DidierKlein 729]

Looks very nice and big.

Are you still planning to make this thing fly? Looking forward to see how this will look in a couple of weeks

 

[schafe 3]

Yep. I am hoping it will fly. We'll see in a couple of months.