Oah, wunderbar! First crash test! I finally finished my first 3D printed plane
and boy, let me tell you, it doesn’t only look good, it even flies great. Stick around, when I show you the whole process
from setting up your printer over the assembly with superglue to the first flight. Guten Tag everybody, I’m Stefan and welcome
to CNC kitchen! 3D printed planes are not just something that
just kind of works, no, 3DLabPrints planes that everyone can print on their own 3D printer
do really fly awesomely and they look like a piece of art. If you have watched my last two episodes of
this series, you know that I printed the Messerschmitt BF-109 H and did some thorough investigations
beforehand on how to optimally adjust the print settings and which glue works the best
to fit the individual pieces of the print together. If you haven’t seen them then take a look
at the links in the description. The Messerschmitt is one of 3DLabPrints RC
airplanes that they are selling online. If you purchase a model in their shop, you
won’t be getting the finished airplane but rather getting the 3D models, g code file
and manual to 3D print one yourself. In this video we are going to cover the whole
process from printing the parts, gluing them together, installing the electronics and finally
getting the beauty up into the air. At first we’ll start with printing process. There are three ways you can get the GCode
for your printer. First, use the pre-sliced GCode that comes
with the models but that is made for the original Prusa MK2. Then, if you own Simplify3D, you can use the
included factory files, adjust some minor settings like bed size and retraction and
slice the models this way. And last but not least there is the possibility
to create a very specific printing profile in CURA for slicing the complicated models. If you just want to print the plane and have
a printer with a bed size, similar or bigger than the original Prusa Mk2 the most simple
way is to use the pre-sliced GCode. Even though these are specifically for the
Mk2, they should work on most other printers with some minor changes. I used them for my CR-10s for example. The only thing you have to change are the
retraction values. If you also have a direct extruder, you probably
don’t have to change anything. If you have a Bowden style extruder, then
you need to increase these a little, in my case to 4.5mm and the speed to 4000mm/min. Adjust your values as needed. Just use a text editor and open the G-Code
file. Scroll down until you see “G1 E-0.8000 F1800”
for the first time, highlight in and select search and replace. Enter “G1 E-4.5000 F4000” in the replace
field and select replace all. After a couple of thousand replacements your
GCode file should be good to go to run on your printer. Adjust the hotend and bed temperature, if
needed, in the GCode file or directly on your printers display. After you printed the first parts, weigh them
and see if the mass matches the values in the manual and check if layer adhesion is
good. If not, adjust the extrusion factor at your
printer. Keep in mind that these weights are for PLA
parts, if you use another material, the values might be way off. This method worked great when I printed my
Messerschmitt on the CR-10s, but as soon as you need replacement parts and don’t want
to print a whole set of parts you need to slice the models yourself. Since the Simplify3D files are included, I
won’t go into them in more details and I’ll rater show you how you can set up the latest
version of CURA to get your parts sliced. Please follow along carefully, otherwise the
internal structure for example might not be sliced. First, I created a new profile for my CR-10S. Then I changed the layer height to 0.25mm
and the wall thickness to 0.4mm which means only one perimter. Top and bottom layer thickness as well as
infill ratio is also set to zero. Adjust the temperatures to you optimum values. Next we activate the advanced retraction settings
and set them according to the values the printer needs. I also reduced the print speed a little and
deactivated cooling. The flow setting is also not visibly be default
and needs to be activated and adjusted. Combing needs to be deactivated. If you have bed adhesion problems then a small
brim can be added, but this is usually only necessary for the wing sections. Next we deactivate all mesh fixing options. At last we activate the slicing tolerance
and surface mode settings and set them to exclusive and normal. This should now allow you to slice your airplane
structure in CURA! This lets you slice all the wing and fuselage
parts. For the control surfaces, just turn the bottom
surfaces on and set the thickness to 2mm. For the motor mounts and spinner, increase
the wall thickness to 0.8mm and also turn on the top layers. Keep in mind that, if you only print single
parts without the fan on, the part quality will suffer, so in such a case it might be
a good idea to slightly turn the fan on. Always test your parts before use them by
bending them a little and if they feel to weak, play around with the settings a little. I printed all of the parts in Formfuturas
Premium PLA and I think PLA is still the go-to material for such a project, due to its print
quality and stiffness. A crucial thing in successfully printing one
of these airplanes is a flat and very level printbed and a very good bed adhesion. I used the stock glass bed on my CR-10 which
was very flat and on which I applied AprintaPros Aprintafix spray which lets PLA stick to glass
beds so amazingly when its hot and nicely releases it when it cools down again. Before you start any of the prints for the
wing, make sure that these pieces stick to your bed. If they release at the end it will make the
glueing process very hard in the next step. I unfortunately had my CR-10S fail on me during
these prints and the bed not heating anymore after a while due to a bad connector which
made me have to level the parts later manually by sanding. For the Messerschmitt, printing all of the
parts took 5 separate print jobs and a good 60 hours with the wing jobs being the longest
and around a good half roll of filament. After I finished all of the parts I continued
with the assembly. By the way, all of the steps from printing
to the first flight are nicely explained in short YouTube timelapse videos by 3DLabPrint
and linked in the manual. This is the reason why I don’t go into all
of the details. At first, I sanded all of the parts flat,
that the glue has its maximum strength. This is actually something very important,
because most glues, especially CA glue are not made for filling gaps and are the strongest
if they are only bridging a very small gap of around 1/10 of a millimeter. I’ll show you in a bit, how you can still
use superglue if you want to fill bigger voids. In order to glue the parts together I used
medium viscosity CA glue and the suitable accelerator. I assembled the parts outside, because the
fumes of the superglue and the accelerator can be quite nasty. I started with the wing halfs by firstly cleaning
the seam with some isoproplanol then I applied the glue on one side, put the pieces together
and made sure that they aligned properly. Then I applied the CA accelerator which makes
the glue cure instantly. After that I glued the wing-halfs together
and continued with the fuselage. I already said that I had issues with the
wing sections coming loose during printing because the heatbed failed, which resulted
in some quite severe gaps even after smoothing and the initial gluing. Since these gaps don’t contribute to the
strength of the parts they need to be filled. I could have used 2-part-epoxy, but this doesn’t
nicely flow into the seams. Instead I used a combination of superglue
and fine sand, or in my case glass beads. This allows you to even bridge bigger gaps,
because the fine particles act as fillers and reduce the glue gap to a minimum again
which makes the connection strong again. So I just filled the gap with CA and then
sprinkled some of the small glass beads ontop. Interestingly the glue hardens almost instantly
after that, but leaves you with a really nice, thick bond. Before I continued I drilled the holes of
the control surfaces a little bigger that the pushrods later can move easily. The cutout in the rudder and the fuselage
is simply done with a soldering iron. The movable hinges are realized using a hinge
sheet which is basically a piece of thick long fiber paper. You cut it to the proper size and then just
glue it into place between the control surfaces and the plane. I made sure that the gap is big enough to
leave space for moving and tried not to wet the hinge portion of the paper with too much
glue because this would have stiffened the connection. Next there are the electronics. You have to make sure that you have the properly
sized servos that fit into their designated cutouts. For the pushrods I used 1.6mm welding rod,
which was a little too thick, which made it quite hard to bend. Next time I would probably go for 1.2mm wire. I centered the servos, mounted the horns and
bent a Z-shape into the end of the pushrods, threaded them through one of the holes of
the servo horns and marked the appropriate length and made a 90° bend for the horns
of the control surface. This is easy for the ailerons but can be a
little tricky for the elevator and rudder. I used the metal piece from some electric
terminals to secure the pushrods into place. I again made sure that the servos and the
control surfaces are in their neutral position and then glued the servos into place. The ESC can be placed below the battery compartment
which has dedicated vents for cooling. For the motor I selected the appropriate motor
mount, screwed the motor on it and then secured the mount into place with three additional
screws from the side. The receiver is conveniently held into place
by a clip, but I used some additional double-sided tape to prevent it form falling out. I used some foam to cushion my 2200mAh 3 cell
battery and just slit it into the designated compartment where it holds nice and snuggly. At last I wrapped two rubber bands around
a rib in the fuselage which will later be used to hold the wing into place. Two, because of redundancy, that if one snaps,
not the whole wing comes off. And that’s basically it for the assembly. The only thing that still needs to be done
is to adjust the travel of the control surfaces in your remote and it is also recommended
to use a high amount of expo for the first flight, that the plane is not as touchy. I was horribly scared of the first flight,
because I put quite a lot of work into this project and my flying skills were quite a
bit rusty, so I practiced a little before with one of my old foam planes. I waited for an almost calm day and then just
went for it. I made sure that the CG was in the proper
location and actually even a bit nose heavy. Then I put it into full throttle, started
it with a slight angle into the air and boy did it fly well! It required only slight trimming to get it
perfectly diving through the air. Landing was a bit rough and my spinner suffered
a little but the rest was still in perfect shape! Unfortunately, I had the stupid idea to fix
a crappy camera to one of the wings for some in-flight footage which ended in the plane
crashing directly after launch on the second flight. Interestingly the major damage was the parts
breaking at the glued seams, so this step didn’t went perfect, but it absorbed enough
energy that the rest of the plane was mostly unharmed and gluing it back together was easy. So this was my experience with my first 3D
printed plane. The Messerschmitt from 3DLabPrint is a beauty,
on display and in the air and I regret this project not a single bit. I should have reprinted the wing sections
that warped during printing, because that made assembly a little messy but everything
else went smooth. Using a transparent filament was a good choice,
because makes the internal structure pop-out quite nicely. Though I probably wouldn’t recommend this
particular plane to any beginner because it is not that easy to fly and if you crash,
it’s gonna end in tears. If you have some experience with RC planes,
then what are you waiting for! It’s definitely worth it! Let me know if you already printed one of
these planes and how it went for you? Please don’t forget to leave a like and
consider supporting my work on Patreon. Take a looks at the description to find more
details on the plane and consider watching the previous two parts of this series. Thanks for watching, auf wiedersehen and I
see you in the next one!
