The American Youtube blogger rctestflight, who has 600,000 fans worldwide, is a renowned tech blogger passionate about mechanical modifications. Flashforge Guider 3 Plus 3D printer has helped him to realize many modification ideas. Recently, he used this 3D printer to refit the blower of a Dyson vacuum cleaner and created a small R/C plane with strong thrust. So far, his video about this refitted R/C plane has received 1.32 million views and 27,000 likes on his YouTube channel. In this project, the Flashforge 3D printer demonstrated a significant advantage in flexible manufacturing and in rapid production, with printed parts well meeting the requirements of a small R/C plane in mechanical performance, appearance, and assembly accuracy.
Fast 3D Printing of Blower Case
Dyson's blower has a strong vortex suction force. The blogger rctestflight planned to design a special case to convert the blower's powerful suction into thrust. After measuring, he designed the case as shown in the picture below, where the air inlet and outlet are designed according to the trajectory of air flow so as to maximize the conversion of the blower's power.
To achieve a smooth surface, rctestflight initially used LCD 3D printing technology to print the blower case. However, due to the difficulty in controlling light intensity, some redundant overhanging structures were printed on the surface of the blower, and there were even small air bubbles inside blower body. He tried this way many times but anyhow he got them all failed. Ultimately, he turned to Flashforge Guider 3 Plus 3D printer for printing. The print result was successful at the first attempt! Rctestflight was surprised and praised it as a 3D printer of a high success rate and stable performance.
In the post-processing, the printed blower case only required a small amount of paint on its internal surface. The smoothness fully met the usage requirements, ensuring smoother airflow circulation in the blower so that the Dyson blower could exert its maximum wind power. The high print accuracy (±0.15mm) of the Guider 3 Plus ensures 3D printed case parts matched perfectly. A qualified "wind propeller" was assembled smoothly. After testing, the blower can generate a maximum wind thrust of 260g.
Wing Making and Flight Testing
Next, the blogger rctestflight used lightweight materials and carbon fiber composites, to make the fuselage, wings, tail wings, rods and other parts, which were assembled together with two refitted Dyson blowers. The two blowers were installed on both sides of the wing, by adjusting the wind power to steel plane’s flying direction. Finally, rctestflight completed the wireless remote-controlled plane with Dyson's genes.
More information of 3D printer's help for this project
The Guider 3 Plus has a super-large printing space - 350*350*600mm. Its 600mm extra-long Z-axis height is very suitable for printing various parts of a small R/C plane, and it can even print the entire small wing without dividing it into multiple small pieces, saving a lot of time for the plane making. Besides, the 3D printer's hotend temperature can reach 320℃, which means this 3D printer is capable to print high-quality carbon fiber composite materials. The parts produced with such materials show features of lightweight and high mechanical performance, just suitable for the flying application of R/C plane.
About Flashforge
Flashforge is a leading brand in the global 3D printer industry. Flashforge deeply understands industry needs and has launched a new series of FDM 3D printers. The Guider series 3D printers focus on printing speed and empower rapid prototype design and fast manufacturing. The Creator series 3D printers focus on printout performance. The high-temperature chambers are good for printing engineering materials and carbon fiber-glass fiber composite materials, and the printed models get better mechanical performance.
Flashforge provides stable and reliable 3D printers, high-quality 3D printing materials, professional slicing software, and comprehensive after-sales services. Flashforge offers a full range of 3D printing digital solutions to rapid manufacturing for small and medium enterprises, accelerating design iteration and productization, and leading the future to 3D printing intelligence.
