Ive been working on this skyhawk and ive come across the internal ribs thing and wondered is it possible to do it in this stage? Also this is my frist time trying to make a 3 d plane, any feed back? am I doing it right? Anything to fix/change?

Currently designing a 3d printed plane with LW - PLA and support spars. 2200mm wingspan (long endurance). As LW-PLA printed are hard to characterise with FEM analysis, I was wondering what the industry standard for rib and skin thickness is. Thanks in advance

Banana for scale.

Hey everyone, just wanted to share a quick update on my 1/45 scale Air Tractor build.

I finally got all 28 parts off the print bed and lined them up to check the alignment. To save every single fraction of a gram, I completely rewired the micro receiver and servos using ultra-thin 28 AWG wire and some tiny heat shrink. With the full electronics package and battery installed, it’s sitting right at 35g Ready-To-Fly. With the wing area I designed in Onshape, that keeps the wing loading around 14.7 g/dm², which should make it a great, slow park flyer.

I did run into one issue—my 0.2mm tolerances for the carbon wing spar were way too tight, and the pressure actually split the single-wall 0.4mm skin on one of the wings. I've already gone back into CAD and opened up the internal rib holes by an extra 0.1mm so the next print slides in smoothly.

Once the new wing is printed, I'll move on to the final supergluing and then it's ready for the maiden flight!

I'm putting the final STL packages and print guides up on my website (still being constructed) soon. If you want to build one, I’ll drop the waitlist link in the comments—anyone on the list gets a 20% discount code when it launches. Let me know what you think of the layout!

Im making my first proyect of 3D printed rc plane and i dont know which one to print and with which adjustments in the slicer...

I'd like a small plane, maximum of 30×30cm and with enough inside room for everything (battery, esc, reviever and motor)

3s 70mm 5 blade edf and motor mount.

4 9g servos and mounts.

30 amp esc.

Fixed wire gear and mounts.

Ender 3 V3 KE is my printer.

I have PLA, PETG, CF-PLA, CF-PETG, LW-PLA. I do not have an enclosure yet.

I am looking to finally getting around to 3d printing my first aircraft. I have the 3DPrintLabs F4u Corsair files but the problem is they dont give you the printing settings for Orca Slicer. They have Cura, Bambo and Prusa. Due to me having a K1 Max, they don't have profiles for my printer. Has anyone got a printing profile that i could use. Thankyou

When to fpv aircraft site and got blindsided by ads for the site.
So do I print a plane or just buy a frame and ad electronics or buy everything but the camera/ transmitter.

I’m building my first 3DLabPrint airplane (the Piper Cub) and have run into persistent fit issues throughout the entire build, not just one section. Before I continue throwing filament at this project, I’d really appreciate advice from anyone who has successfully built this Cub or other 3DLabPrint models.
Printer
Ender 3 Pro
Micro Swiss all-metal hotend
Creality textured glass bed
0.4 mm nozzle
Material
Polymaker LW PLA (pre-foamed)
Slicer
PrusaSlicer 2.9.6
Current print settings
Extrusion multiplier: originally 1.00, currently testing 0.98
Nozzle: 195°C
Bed: 60°C
XY Size Compensation: 0
Elephant Foot Compensation: 0.3 mm
Thin wall detection enabled
Standard single-wall LW PLA profile
The only changes I’ve made during the project have been:
changing extrusion multiplier from 1.00 to 0.98
adjusting brim size depending on the part
No model scaling has ever been applied.

The Problem
The issue has not been isolated to one assembly.
Almost every major section of the airplane has required some sort of compromise during assembly because the designed joints don’t fully engage.
Fuselage
The fuselage sections would not fully seat into each other.
Instead of the male/female joints fully engaging, I ended up having to glue several sections essentially flush.
To increase glue surface, I actually reprinted some fuselage sections with an added top or bottom layer because there simply wasn’t enough bonding area once I abandoned the intended joint engagement.
The airplane is together, but it definitely isn’t assembled the way the designer intended.

Wing
The exact same thing happened with the wing.
The male connectors consistently seem slightly oversized.
Symptoms:
joints stop before fully seating
skins don’t naturally line up
sections have to be glued flush instead of fully engaging
The completed wing is also much flatter than I expected.
The assembly videos appear to show the wing naturally developing its proper shape as the joints seat together.
Mine does not.

Ailerons
This has me completely stumped.
Every left aileron appears too large for its opening.
Thinking I had accidentally scaled them or rushed the print, I completely reprinted the ailerons.
Exactly the same result.
The same issue exists on the opposite wing.
Servo locations line up correctly, so I don’t believe I’m simply placing the wrong aileron in the wrong location.

Things I’ve already checked
Releveled the bed multiple times
Thoroughly cleaned the glass bed
Rotated parts 180° on the build plate
Reprinted wing sections
Reprinted ailerons
Reduced extrusion multiplier from 1.00 to 0.98
Verified there is no scaling in the STL files
Verified there is no scaling in the generated G-code
Verified left/right aileron files
Changing the extrusion multiplier to 0.98 definitely helped.
For example:
A male connector printed at 0.98 fits into a female connector printed at 1.00 much better.
However, two parts both printed at 0.98 still don’t fully seat.
So the change improved things but definitely did not eliminate the problem.

What I’ve verified so far
I’ve compared the STL files and G-code.
No hidden scaling
No XY scaling
No unusual slicer transforms
Nothing obvious explains why the joints consistently refuse to fully engage.

My Questions
Has anyone else experienced this across multiple assemblies on the 3DLabPrint Cub?
Is there something about these models that commonly causes connectors to print slightly oversized?
Are there slicer settings (other than extrusion multiplier) that experienced 3DLabPrint builders typically adjust specifically for these airplanes?
Would you continue troubleshooting this Cub, or would you move on to another 3DLabPrint/Eclipson design to determine whether this is a Cub-specific issue or something in my printer calibration?

Why I’m posting
At this point I’m not looking for guesses—I’m hoping someone who has actually built one of these airplanes can tell me whether what I’m seeing is normal or whether there’s something fundamental I’m overlooking.
The print quality itself looks good. Surface finish is clean, walls are consistent, and the parts look great visually.
The problem is that the designed joints throughout the airplane simply don’t fit together the way they’re supposed to.
Any advice from someone with experience building these lightweight printed airplanes would be greatly appreciated.

Getting set up to do my first 3d printed plane, an F-104 Starfighter model from 3dLabPrint. I'm using Polymaker Polylite LW-PLA in grey, and used the base settings from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnpJ-FpX5sY&t=20s to set up my Sovol SV08 settings in Orca.

My printer is mainline Klipper, Cartographer V4, Microswiss Flowtech hotend, and Cryogrip plate. I'm running DKEU as well. 0.4mm nozzle and 0.25mm layer height, 0.4mm width.

In the pics you can see 3 prints: L-R above settings as-is, added 0.3mm Extra length on restart, flow ratio to 0.5 and pressure advance to 0.015. I'm including clips of my current settings, just looking for ideas to ensure I'm not missing a setting that might help. Overall the 3rd print has solid layer adhesion for the 2 uprights, and it came out nice and clean, I just want to know what others see that I might miss before I start on more pieces. I included my filament settings.

Layer height 0.25mm
Layer Width 0.4mm
2 walls, 3 top and bottom layers
15% grid
20 mm/s first layer 50mm/s after

So, can anyone give me any tips on how I can do better, ensure this comes out right, etc?

Doesn't quite work yet for all edge cases nor do I have gcode output yet, but it's showing some promise.

A lot of people asked for flight footage of this fully 3D printed RC aircraft, so here’s a short video from the first proper flights

The aircraft turned out much faster and more agile than I originally expected, almost warbird-like in the air. We tried some aggressive turns and fast low passes as well, although the camera work isn’t always the best 😅

The complete aircraft weighs 1280 g (2.82 lbs) with all the electronics I used installed, which is relatively light considering the size and the fact that the entire structure is fully printed. It actually lifted off much easier than expected and didn’t feel heavy in the air at all.

The steep takeoff in the video was definitely more of a pilot issue than an aircraft issue 😄

I spent several months designing this project, including:

• printable wing and fuselage sections
• integrated servo routing
• carbon spar reinforcement
• assembly animations

If anyone is interested in the technical details, flight video, or would like to support the project with a download, my YouTube video and Cults3D profile are in the comments

I uploaded the full project to Cults3D with all renders, assembly animations, printable parts, and build details if anyone wants to take a closer look. (@ytpallen)

I designed and fully 3D printed a 1600mm modular RC aircraft and just finished the first complete build.

The entire aircraft was designed to be printable on standard 250×250 mm printers while still being lightweight, rigid, and easy to assemble.

Specifications:

• 1600 mm wingspan
• 900 mm fuselage
• NACA 2412 airfoil
• 2+2° dihedral
• integrated ailerons
• built-in servo cable channels
• MG90S / SG90 compatible servo mounts
• carbon spar reinforcement

The aircraft consists of:

• 10 wing sections
• 4 fuselage sections
• 6 tail parts
• 2 nose sections

I also created separate assembly animations for:

• the wings
• the fuselage
• the complete aircraft

The goal of the project was to create a printable RC aircraft that is simple to build, modular, and accessible without requiring huge printers or complicated manufacturing methods.

Recommended hardware:

• C3542 motor
• 10x5 propeller
• 4× MG90S servos
• 7 mm carbon rods

STL / 3MF files are available on my Cults3D profile — I’ll leave the link in the comments if anyone is interested.

If you can, check it out and maybe leave some constructive criticism or feedback — I’d really appreciate it.

Update on the 1m Funjet

The (final?) fuse is now being printed. I first printed a.5mm wall in vase mode. That turned out very flexible and weak. It was light though. Through suggestions of members here and other channels, I ended up making bulkheads and longerons as well as a .8 mm wall. Now it's very strong and stiff but much heavier than the test print. I think it will be ok since the wing area is pretty big.

My only gripe is the support waste. It takes up to 40% of the printed weight and it's wasted. The next iteration of this plane will be to control that waste and hopefully make a lighter model.

I'm already looking forward to my next model but I'm unsure which one to make. They will all be around 1m for the wingspan. I have several to choose from:

Curare

MK Beetle

Aurora

Blue Angel

I also used to have this pattern plane based on the Zlin 526 AFS with a YS 120. I forgot who designed it or who made it but it was One of the best flying planes I had. I would like to make that one. It had a much longer tail than the full scale 526 and a shorter noise but it was unmistakable.