Printing RC Planes with Cura

LasseCR · November 13, 2019

Hello together,

some time ago I started 3D-printing RC-airplanes using Cura to generate the required G-codes.

The way I go is that I just build the required volume models with a CAD programm and then print them with the "Cubic Infill" and one outer perimeter to get light but strong parts. To vary the strength within a part I use overlapping volumes and assign different infill values to them.

(First the overlapping volumes, then the Infill without the outer perimeter)

The "Cubic Infill" works quite well as an internal structure for wings and such, at least if the parts are positioned exactly in a 15° orientation on the bed, but, it could be even better. While the diagonal "cross pattern" provides a lot of strength and bonds really well to the outer surface, the "horizontal beams" dont add much strength but still add weight.

A wing specific Infill profile, just containing this "cross pattern" and the ability to turn it as you need would be really great. (I am not sure if the turning is already implemented, I could not figure out how to do it)

Designing the internal structure of an 3D-printable plane is usually a very long and labour intensive process, to be able to use a generic infill saves a lot of time!

The next issue I encountered is the direction in wich the outer layer is printed. When the hinges to the flaps are designed as elasticflaps (basicly as a compliant mechanism) it is very important that they get printed the same way on the left and the right wing. Because the sides are mirror images of each other they would need to be printed going clockwise on the one, and counterclockwise on the other part - sadly they dont, and there is no such option. The only workaround I could find was to basically print the right wing two times, but with a reversed stepper motor during the second print. This does kind of a "hardware mirroring" effect, but it is quite inconvenient.

In the left of the picture you can see the hinges - The anticlockwise printing direction is fine for the lower one, but the upper one would need to be printed clockwise.

If there was an option to change the direction - that would be super cool!

At last, it would be super cool if it was possible to drag the "Object List" around. When setting different infills for the various volumes it is kind of annoying to have the "Object List" overlaying the "Mesh Type" dialog. It would be a lot easier if I could just drag the "Object List" al little bit to the side...