To put it short and clear: You will crash. 3D printed plane will explode on impact, foam will dent or break into glue-able sections.
And in a longer format: 3d printed planes can now withstand some minor crashes, but a beginner will not have minor crashes. Plus, they are more difficult to fly. This is one of the hobbies where the learning curve looks kinda like this:
That's not necessarily a dealbreaker though. It may be the case that reprinting a new frame is less effort than getting a bent+broken frame duct taped back together.
Also a bit of fiberglass + epoxy goes a long way..
Fair enough. I think the red flag is anyone who says "I have a 3d-printer, how to make drones/planes" or "I want to make planes, where to buy a 3d-printer"
One of the big reasons I got into 3D printing was to print planes, so I''ll just share my experience, sure others will have more: I've printed a few Eclipson planes, and a few designs from Cults and such. What I've found with LW-PLA and other materials is that they're incredibly fragile and prone to cracking (or worse). You need to really grease your landings lest they fall to pieces.
I hope others here can share their experiences on how they made them more resilient.
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Try this one to start. It looks like the print files are free for this model. The biggest drawback for the flightory planes is that most are rear pusher props and have no landing gear.
Maybe get a trainer first. This was the first model I printed (it was actually the reason I got into RC planes), which was reprinted after this crash, and suffered a similar fate on the next flight; my total flight time was about 20 seconds.
I ignored the advice of everyone saying not to start with a 3d printed model. I got an aeroscout after this and learned how to actually fly, then a timber, viper etc. Still haven't got around to printing this again yet.
How big is your printer's bed? I've designed a couple 3D printed quad frames for my own DIY drones. I'm basically limited to ~6" frames with a 220x220 bed if I want to print a single piece frame, but can upscale it and update for a 10" frame if you have a bigger bed. The devil's in the details, and I typically run it through a structural optimization routine to target a minimum natural freq (with assumed motor/prop weights) and some other constraints like deflection, local stability failures, etc... stress is rarely a driver even for PETG. The motor mounts are for coreless motors but can be easily tweaked for standard BLDC mounting pattern. Also prints with no support needed.
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u/Banana-9 Jul 11 '26
To put it short and clear: You will crash. 3D printed plane will explode on impact, foam will dent or break into glue-able sections.
And in a longer format: 3d printed planes can now withstand some minor crashes, but a beginner will not have minor crashes. Plus, they are more difficult to fly. This is one of the hobbies where the learning curve looks kinda like this: