Just Wingin’ It
So I was printing some tweezers I downloaded from Thingiverse the other day, and they turned out really nicely because it was basically one big outline with very few starts/stops of the extruder. Playing with them, seeing how strong they were, and also looking at the cool profile they made got me thinking: Wow, this sort of looks like the profile of a wing! That idea got into my head, and I decided that I absolutely needed to try and 3D print wings of some sort.
Unfortunately I’m barely a n00b at 3D modeling, and I don’t know the first thing about wing design, so I hit up the Thingiverse Community to see if anyone had any models or experience. It turns out that a few of our members are avid RC plane hobbyists and were quick to post a few wing designs here and here. Their passion about this technology was really refreshing, and it was cool to collaborate digitally on a physical object.
The wings themselves turned out really nice. The grains are all in the direction of flow, and they are really smooth. If they don’t outright work, it would be a very simple 5 minute sanding job to get them absolutely perfect. I havent weighted them, but they are strong and light-weight. They are 70mm long, but I’m going to try and print ones that are 120-130mm next (current max build height) The only problem I have is that I don’t have access to any sort of wind-tunnel or RC plane to test them on. Does anyone want samples to play with?
Just Wingin’ It
April 24th, 2009 at 12:46 pm #
[...] (reposted from the MakerBot Blog) [...]
Andrew
April 24th, 2009 at 12:56 pm #
You should make them hollow to minimize weight/material!
Zach Hoeken
April 24th, 2009 at 1:22 pm #
oh, they are hollow… i guess i didn’t elaborate on that.
i printed them a few different ways: one with a single shell (outline) and about 40% infill (basically interior struts) and one with a double shell and same infill.
jeremie
April 24th, 2009 at 9:05 pm #
why don’t you just print a complete plane ?
you could use two arduino and some Xbees to make a rc system.
Oren Beck
September 8th, 2009 at 9:35 pm #
Good Work! I’d look into making “skinnable” wings so a Monokote etc covering might work.. IIRC there’s a class of “soap bubble” picofilm birds that have to be flown indoors as a gust of wind would destroy them.. So you might look at laying down a sheet of some filmy material and making supports akin to a leaf’s veins.