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The mechanical parts of the printer aren't that important pretty much all the printers can reach a good enough resolution for production. The biggest thing in

The mechanical parts of the printer aren't that important pretty much all the printers can reach a good enough resolution for production. The biggest thing in 3D printing now is high end composite filaments and multi material applications. So for example if you print with PEEK (PolyEtherEtherKetone) or PEK/PEKK/PEKEKK you can print extremely strong parts which can be used for aerospace applications and even more. The problem is that those materials are very expensive PEEK can easily get to $250-300 per lb. and even higher for the better known brands and composite PEEK filaments (e.g. fibre reinforced PEEK). Beyond that you are limited by your print volume but many of the cheap printers especially the Chinese ones are pretty good in that regard. My largest 3D printer (Anycubic Chiron) has a custom print head (E3D Volcano) and custom drivers my hotend can reach 420c> so I can print with PEEK I just can't afford it, not to mention w/e NASA has used for this which I'll assume is probably even more expensive. That said I can print quadcopters and small drones with glass or carbon fibre reinforced nylon or PET easily and the 3D printed parts are usually the toughest part of those builds.

mdorazio 7y ago
Based on the size of most UAVs and the fact that it's NASA, they're almost certainly using a large format printer from Stratsys or 3D Systems in the $250K+ range.
- snazz 7y ago
  I would think so. One of the Stratasys engineers at their skunkworks division in Minnesota walked me through their process for printing something as large as a full-size table (upside down to minimize support material). The technology is really impressive but the uses seem few and far between.
- dogma1138 7y ago
  I have quite a few friends that work at Stratsys you’ll be surprised just how unimpressive their print quality actually is compared to many hobbyist printers. They are very consistent however especially at their volume and the material quality is also excellent which leads to very good production results. From the video at least they print the prop blades on an Ultimaker and an old one to boot this is something you can easily do at home. The body of the UAV looks like it is a skinned composite so it wasn’t fully 3D printed I’m guessing they printed a skeleton and then put composite sheets over it. This doesn’t look like anything you can’t print at home if you know what you are doing and have either a high end hobby printer or a custom built one.
  - mobilemidget 7y ago
    With not very much free time it took me a few months if trial and error getting clean prints from my cr10s. I also learned not to upgrade slicer software and firmware at the same time. I’m gonna start with a boat before anything that flies. Any tips on plastic and water?
    - adamweld 7y ago
      The vast majority of FDM filaments will not be water tight. I'd recommend sealing with an epoxy coat after printing and sanding.
      - Baeocystin 7y ago
        A quick acetone vapor dip of ABS parts does a good job, at least for the vases and such that I have printed. [edit] I found a page with some pictures for examples: https://rigid.ink/blogs/news/acetone-vapor-smoothing https://rigid.ink/blogs/news/acetone-vapor-smoothing
        dogma1138 7y ago
        ABS is a pain to print without an enclosure, and ABS for the most part doesn't absorbs water also it's not as much of an issue with the final parts (aside from Nylon that can expand easily) but rather that moisture caught in the filament boiling during the extrusion which results in your print looking like a sponge.
        Baeocystin 7y ago
        It prints fine on my non-enclosed delta. My printer isn't anything special, it's just, like you said, water absorption by the filament is an issue if it's left out in the open. The key is simply to keep the filament in a drybox before use. It doesn't need to be anything fancy- I use a 5-gallon Home Depot bucket, a small jar of Damp Rid (Calcium Chloride), and a seedling heater mat to keep things warm. It works great.
ordinaryradical 7y ago
The real problem with printing these materials is that the part isotropy is poor, so you get the expected strength on the x- and y- axes but the z- axis (where all of the layers are stacking up) is quite poor. Turns out that printing things in a layer-by-layer fashion has its own cost. I'm quite involved in this area, happy to share more if anyone is interested.
- dogma1138 7y ago
  Layer separation can be addressed trough proper material selection and print settings. Nylon and resin based filaments have excellent layer adhesion, also keeping your print area sterile and at a correct temperature is very important dust is your worst enemy. Also too many people think that printing thin layers improves strength it doesn’t it just compounds the problem. I’m printing large functional and structural parts in nylon with a 1.2mm nozzle and 0.6-0.8mm layer height and with a glass fiber reinforced filament I’ll have a material failure before layer separation.
  - ordinaryradical 7y ago
    I'm not talking about printing nylons, I'm talking about printing high-performance polymers.
    - dogma1138 7y ago
      Define high performance polymers as Nylon is also counted as such. If you are talking about exotic stuff like PEEK then from what I know it has even better layer adhesion. The most exotic thing I got to print with was PEI which also didn’t had issues with layers. Reading more about this drone I’m not even sure if they used high end polymers for it. The majority of their focus was around the continuous iteration from design to production workflow not material science. If the blades they printed for the video are the ones used in flight then they printed them with ABS not some alien stuff. Drones like this don’t actually experience that much force. No friction, very little torque, little to no shock. People print multi rotor drones all the time they work perfectly fine, this one is a bit bigger but nothing that would require a ground breaking advancement in the actual printing technology.
adamweld 7y ago
If anyone is looking for a good introduction to using (FDM) 3d printing for production, this is a great video of how super-car manufacturer Koenigsegg approaches them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw6cs7opvzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw6cs7opvzA The key to making FDM parts work for your use-case is generally not buying the most expensive printer - it comes down to material selection, print orientation (others have mentioned anisotropicity which is incredibly important to understand), and designing for manufacturability. I've spent the last three years running a 3D printing / rapid prototyping lab and love to teach people about the subject, so if anyone is interested in getting into the subject please feel free to get in touch.
- richk449 7y ago
  Good video. I'm curious about the laser scanner that he showed. What kind of resolution does it provide? And how much does it cost? Really, I don't care so much about the one he showed, but I want to know if it is possible to get one with high resolution (fraction of a mm) for a reasonable price.
  - dogma1138 7y ago
    You can get to a mm and even sub MM resolution even without a laser scanner but with a good enough camera and photogrammetry. https://hackaday.com/2019/03/13/3d-scanning-via-diy-photogrammetry/ https://hackaday.com/2019/03/13/3d-scanning-via-diy-photogra...

mdorazio 7y ago

Based on the size of most UAVs and the fact that it's NASA, they're almost certainly using a large format printer from Stratsys or 3D Systems in the $250K+ range.

snazz 7y ago
I would think so. One of the Stratasys engineers at their skunkworks division in Minnesota walked me through their process for printing something as large as a full-size table (upside down to minimize support material). The technology is really impressive but the uses seem few and far between.
dogma1138 7y ago
I have quite a few friends that work at Stratsys you’ll be surprised just how unimpressive their print quality actually is compared to many hobbyist printers. They are very consistent however especially at their volume and the material quality is also excellent which leads to very good production results. From the video at least they print the prop blades on an Ultimaker and an old one to boot this is something you can easily do at home. The body of the UAV looks like it is a skinned composite so it wasn’t fully 3D printed I’m guessing they printed a skeleton and then put composite sheets over it. This doesn’t look like anything you can’t print at home if you know what you are doing and have either a high end hobby printer or a custom built one.
- mobilemidget 7y ago
  With not very much free time it took me a few months if trial and error getting clean prints from my cr10s. I also learned not to upgrade slicer software and firmware at the same time. I’m gonna start with a boat before anything that flies. Any tips on plastic and water?
  - adamweld 7y ago
    The vast majority of FDM filaments will not be water tight. I'd recommend sealing with an epoxy coat after printing and sanding.
    - Baeocystin 7y ago
      A quick acetone vapor dip of ABS parts does a good job, at least for the vases and such that I have printed. [edit] I found a page with some pictures for examples: https://rigid.ink/blogs/news/acetone-vapor-smoothing https://rigid.ink/blogs/news/acetone-vapor-smoothing
      - dogma1138 7y ago
        ABS is a pain to print without an enclosure, and ABS for the most part doesn't absorbs water also it's not as much of an issue with the final parts (aside from Nylon that can expand easily) but rather that moisture caught in the filament boiling during the extrusion which results in your print looking like a sponge.
        Baeocystin 7y ago
        It prints fine on my non-enclosed delta. My printer isn't anything special, it's just, like you said, water absorption by the filament is an issue if it's left out in the open. The key is simply to keep the filament in a drybox before use. It doesn't need to be anything fancy- I use a 5-gallon Home Depot bucket, a small jar of Damp Rid (Calcium Chloride), and a seedling heater mat to keep things warm. It works great.

ordinaryradical 7y ago

The real problem with printing these materials is that the part isotropy is poor, so you get the expected strength on the x- and y- axes but the z- axis (where all of the layers are stacking up) is quite poor. Turns out that printing things in a layer-by-layer fashion has its own cost. I'm quite involved in this area, happy to share more if anyone is interested.

dogma1138 7y ago
Layer separation can be addressed trough proper material selection and print settings. Nylon and resin based filaments have excellent layer adhesion, also keeping your print area sterile and at a correct temperature is very important dust is your worst enemy. Also too many people think that printing thin layers improves strength it doesn’t it just compounds the problem. I’m printing large functional and structural parts in nylon with a 1.2mm nozzle and 0.6-0.8mm layer height and with a glass fiber reinforced filament I’ll have a material failure before layer separation.
- ordinaryradical 7y ago
  I'm not talking about printing nylons, I'm talking about printing high-performance polymers.
  - dogma1138 7y ago
    Define high performance polymers as Nylon is also counted as such. If you are talking about exotic stuff like PEEK then from what I know it has even better layer adhesion. The most exotic thing I got to print with was PEI which also didn’t had issues with layers. Reading more about this drone I’m not even sure if they used high end polymers for it. The majority of their focus was around the continuous iteration from design to production workflow not material science. If the blades they printed for the video are the ones used in flight then they printed them with ABS not some alien stuff. Drones like this don’t actually experience that much force. No friction, very little torque, little to no shock. People print multi rotor drones all the time they work perfectly fine, this one is a bit bigger but nothing that would require a ground breaking advancement in the actual printing technology.

adamweld 7y ago

If anyone is looking for a good introduction to using (FDM) 3d printing for production, this is a great video of how super-car manufacturer Koenigsegg approaches them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw6cs7opvzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw6cs7opvzA The key to making FDM parts work for your use-case is generally not buying the most expensive printer - it comes down to material selection, print orientation (others have mentioned anisotropicity which is incredibly important to understand), and designing for manufacturability. I've spent the last three years running a 3D printing / rapid prototyping lab and love to teach people about the subject, so if anyone is interested in getting into the subject please feel free to get in touch.

richk449 7y ago
Good video. I'm curious about the laser scanner that he showed. What kind of resolution does it provide? And how much does it cost? Really, I don't care so much about the one he showed, but I want to know if it is possible to get one with high resolution (fraction of a mm) for a reasonable price.
- dogma1138 7y ago
  You can get to a mm and even sub MM resolution even without a laser scanner but with a good enough camera and photogrammetry. https://hackaday.com/2019/03/13/3d-scanning-via-diy-photogrammetry/ https://hackaday.com/2019/03/13/3d-scanning-via-diy-photogra...