3D Printed Wing Section for Glider

[Daryn]

Hey all,

 

Created my first 3D printed wing section. Tried out this diagonal support setup, and surprisingly, it's able to withstand me standing on it. That's about 90kgs.

 

Needless to say, the design needs some tweaking. The supports are printing through the skin for some strange reason.

 

There's also that weird seam near the front, thats not visible in the part design.

 

Any tips would be greatly appreciated 😁

 

All in all, it seems to be a good start!

 

Looking forward to sharing my updates as I go with this build.

[Mr Fro]

The diagonal seams look like over extrusion to me - you should be able to dial this down in your printer software. It's quite common in non direct drive printers and can take a bit of fiddling to get right.

 

You may be stuck with the seam near the leading edge - that's where each perimeter layer starts & finishes. Extrusion fiddling will help but you will probably still have something there although it may not cause you a functional issue.

 

Is there a reason why you're not using a gyroidal fill?

[Daryn]

12 hours ago, Mr Fro said:

The diagonal seams look like over extrusion to me - you should be able to dial this down in your printer software. It's quite common in non direct drive printers and can take a bit of fiddling to get right.

 

You may be stuck with the seam near the leading edge - that's where each perimeter layer starts & finishes. Extrusion fiddling will help but you will probably still have something there although it may not cause you a functional issue.

 

Is there a reason why you're not using a gyroidal fill?

 

Thanks for the insights. I will take a look at the printer settings and see if I can dial it in a bit more accurately.

 

Regarding the infill, the supports are created manually and are apart of the design so that I can customise it to my needs. it's not standard infill from the slicer.

 

 

Thanks again!

[Simon Chaddock]

Daryn

That looks an interesting piece of printing and even more impressive that you are putting in the support structure manually.

I suspect the issue will ultimately come down not to strength but weight. A problem made worse by the fact that printed filament structures have a considerable difference in tensile strength across the filaments compared to along them by a factor of at least 3:1.

A wing is subject to bending forces. This means the lower wing skin will be under tension yet as printed this will be its weakest direction structurally. Most light weight printed wings do require a carbon rod insert to achieve the required bending stiffness.

 

Now if you could print a wing with its filaments laid along the line of the span it would achieve a significantly better strength to weight ratio.

Just an thought. 

[EvilC57]

14 hours ago, Mr Fro said:

The diagonal seams look like over extrusion to me - you should be able to dial this down in your printer software. It's quite common in non direct drive printers and can take a bit of fiddling to get right.

 

You may be stuck with the seam near the leading edge - that's where each perimeter layer starts & finishes. Extrusion fiddling will help but you will probably still have something there although it may not cause you a functional issue.

 

Is there a reason why you're not using a gyroidal fill?

Re. being stuck with the seam near the leading edge. In Cura (not sure about Prusa slicer etc.) you can control the position of the seam. If you’re printing the wing sections vertically, can you not put the seam at the back and position the piece so the upper or lower corner of the TE is at the rear of the print platform. I discovered this recently when I built one of Planeprint’s models, and this is what they suggested doing. I found the seam barely shows then.

Edited April 18, 2023 by EvilC57

[Mr Fro]

11 hours ago, EvilC57 said:

Re. being stuck with the seam near the leading edge. In Cura (not sure about Prusa slicer etc.) you can control the position of the seam. If you’re printing the wing sections vertically, can you not put the seam at the back and position the piece so the upper or lower corner of the TE is at the rear of the print platform. I discovered this recently when I built one of Planeprint’s models, and this is what they suggested doing. I found the seam barely shows then.

I didn't know that about Cura - I'll have to check it out!

 

Can't say I use the Cura much anyway, I much prefer the Prusa as they work pretty much every time without fiddling.

[EvilC57]

4 hours ago, Mr Fro said:

I didn't know that about Cura - I'll have to check it out!

 

Can't say I use the Cura much anyway, I much prefer the Prusa as they work pretty much every time without fiddling.

Like you I used to use Prusa until I built one of Planeprint’s models. Their build instructions and print settings are based only around Cura slicer, which is when I learned about the adjustable seam position facility.

[Andy Meade]

A couple of settings to tweak there - infill overlap (it's usually set quite high as default for multiple walls), and secondly you need to make sure print infill before walls is unchecked.