[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
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Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
I made this 130 mile capable VTOL drone in only 90 days. It can fly
for 3 hours on a single charge. That would make it one of the
longest range and endurance 3D printed VTOLs in the world. This is
the thing I'm most proud of building to date! Before this project,
I was a total CAD, 3D printing and aerodynamic modeling beginner. I
had only built and flown one VTOL before. SPECS Wingspan: 3.9 ft
(1200 mm) Length: 2.5 ft (770 mm) Weight: 5.6 lb (2.55kg)
Airframe: foaming PLA (Bambu PLA-Aero) and PETG structural parts
printed on A1 printer, CFRP booms and spars Battery: Li-ion
silicon anode Amprius SA08 cells, 6s2p pack by Upgrade Energy
Motors: 2807 AOS for lift and cruise (unoptimized) Lifting ESCs: 4
in 1 Holybro Tekko32 F4 45A Cruise ESC: Flycolor Raptor 5 45A
Lifting and cruise props: 7042 Gemfan (unoptimized) Flight
controller: Speedybee F405 Wing GPS: M10 Firmware: Ardupilot 4.6.0
--- This video edit ended up shorter than I planned. Being my
first Youtube video with significant post production effort, I
underestimated the work required to make a longer in-depth video
with voiceover, edited footage, etc.
Author : tsungxu
Score : 112 points
Date : 2025-06-10 20:47 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tsungxu.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tsungxu.com)
| truetraveller wrote:
| Top speed?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Not tested! But minimum I would say 70 mph. If designing for
| speed, I'd be looking at a cruise motor and prop that maximizes
| the thrust output rather than cruise efficiency
|
| edit: at least 70 mph
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Probably significantly higher even? A normal quad will hit
| 100Mph +.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Could be right! Really depends because the quad motors on
| freestyle say have massive throttle upside they can tap but
| it increases power draw and reduces flight time by
| multiples.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Yea def! You could also get into questions of cruise
| speed with level altitude vs in a dive etc, and you burn
| through batteries fast when max-performing quads!
| tsungxu wrote:
| Exactly! Didn't even mention cruise vs dive. But the
| latest WR for a quad doing 347mph I think, is just
| insane, even if drawing multi hundred amps for a few
| seconds only.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| It's an impressive achievement for an amateur.
|
| He has separate motors for vertical and horizontal flights, which
| simplifies the design, but creates a rather bad inefficiency, the
| vertical motors create lots of drag during the horizontal flight.
|
| Maybe it's not a big deal, I'm not sure. Making motors rotate
| would add weight for sure, thus reducing the range.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Adding a tiltrotor mechanism is surely not worth the added
| complexity and weight, in this case. You're right though on the
| added weight and drag from having separate motors and props.
| tsungxu wrote:
| And also iteration cycles slow down, adds cost to development
| and qualification if making them in-house for larger
| prototypes.
| tsungxu wrote:
| It's actually not a terrible inefficiency.
|
| With this config, the cruise motors and prop are optimally
| sized for cruise - which gives non trivial gains to both eta
| for propulsive motor efficiency and prop efficiency.
|
| Vs a tiltrotor/wing/body in which the cruise motor has to do
| double duty as lifting motors. Given it takes anywhere from
| ~4-7x more power to hover (depending on disc loading) than to
| cruise, you can see how the motors are not in an optimal
| throttle/rpm band in this case. Archer's CTO Munoz has actually
| said this publicly.
| tsungxu wrote:
| And the weight (and drag) penalty is ~5% given the actuators
| and subassemblies for tilting don't come for free either.
|
| This is also the most the penalty will ever be as electric
| motors continue increasing in specific power, and quite rapidly
| this century so far.
| xnx wrote:
| Very similar design already used by Wing. I'm guessing they did
| a fair bit of analysis and modeling of the cost, range,
| complexity, safety, etc. etc. tradeoffs before settling on what
| they're using currently.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Aviation#/media/File:Wing...
| tsungxu wrote:
| Two impressive things about Wing's design are 1) load paths
| are designed to break the airframe in controlled ways 2) the
| 4 blade props have alternating shorter and longer blades for
| quieter aeroacoustics
|
| Adam Savage did a video tour of their factory recently, worth
| a watch
| xnx wrote:
| > Adam Savage did a video tour of their factory recently,
| worth a watch
|
| Thanks! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BXm6dTHvY0
|
| I'm a big Waymo and Wing fan, but hadn't seen that.
| tsungxu wrote:
| It's great, check out the Slo Mo guys video from that
| same tour for the prop smoke vortex
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yaAFLpLmVg
| georgel wrote:
| Very awesome! Have you tried to see how much payload it could
| hold in addition to the drone's own weight?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks, I've not! But given the battery mass fraction is 53%
| for this build, rule of thumb is about 30% of a VTOL's weight
| for battery if you want to include payload. So I could just use
| a smaller 6S battery.
|
| Or I could probably add another ~0.5 lbs or a little more
| without issue. The lifting motors hover at 45% ish throttle so
| there is some headroom for more payload without reducing
| battery mass fraction.
| asadm wrote:
| Pretty impressive! what's the BOM here. That battery seems
| expensive (most expensive part?)
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks! Yes ~$700 without battery and I scored the Amprius pack
| on special for $700 but it is currently $1300.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| So, ~$2000 USD? Why not just say that?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Variability of price for the Amprius pack, anything from
| $700-$1350 at four price points.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| Yeah, can just take the max, like you did with the range
| calc.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > That battery seems expensive (most expensive part?)
|
| At first, I was like "Nah, just looks like my RC car battery",
| but then I Googled it...and it's a whopping $1,305 [0].
|
| I looked closer at the specs and they're insane for a battery
| as small as it is. They have double the energy density as
| measured by both volume and mass compared to my RC car
| batteries [1].
|
| [0] https://www.upgradeenergytech.com/product-
| page/gold-v1-6s2p-...
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Zeee-Connector-Vehicles-Helicopter-
| Ai...
| tsungxu wrote:
| Yep, to maximize range and flight time capability, you have
| to have the highest energy density batteries.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I'm curious how this compares to foam-frame designs. Being able
| to customize it is obviously a big advantage, as is the non-
| solid-infill of 3d-printed parts. I think for stiffness,
| 3d-printed frames don't work well for quadcopters compared to
| carbon fiber, but they sound like a nice alternative to foam for
| fixed-wing. I think the stiffness concern comes up in quads
| mainly when they do high-performance maneuvers that aren't a
| concern for the takeoff and landing this device does in that
| mode. (e.g. high accelerations/manevers of racing-style drones)
|
| If anyone wants to try this: The parts he uses are all standard
| Chinese-made COTS you can buy on amazon and similar.
|
| The ArduPilot firmware he uses is very flexible and robust, but
| setting it up is one of the worst UXs I've experienced.
| Commercial UASs almost universally use PX4 instead.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Yes I used single wall foaming PLA which is much less impact
| resistant and more brittle vs any foam, even cheap foamcore and
| especially EPP or EPO. This has definitely been an issue with
| crashing and rebuilding.
|
| But my first and only other VTOL build was foamcore Readyboard
| and that took a 12 ft drop onto asphalt with only a slight
| compression in the fuselage. Never replaced it.
|
| I would add dovetails or other clips for printed sections if I
| did another printed build.
|
| Yes avionics and propulsion parts are COTS for speed, the
| Amprius pack is US manufactured but others are all made in
| China.
|
| I'm starting to see some more Ardupilot used commercially too
| but yes the UX is janky and unintuitive.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Hopefully now that it's in a polished state, you don't need
| to worry as much about impact resistance as you did when
| designing/tuning.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks, I did crash it again, and that's why it was half
| assembled on the wall at the end. But yeah foaming PLA is
| extremely soft, almost feels like tough, thin paper.
| snapetom wrote:
| As someone who has always been curious about building one but
| haven't dove into it, I'd love detailed plans and a beginner-
| oriented tutorial. I'd be happy to donate/patreon to an effort.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Appreciate that! It's just a _lot_ more effort making long
| videos with the voiceover /clips/etc.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| damn, I would like built this too
|
| hope I can build mine 3d printer lab first
| tsungxu wrote:
| You should do it!
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Congratulations this is really fantastic and quite inspiring!
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thank you!
| protocolture wrote:
| Have you released the BOM/STLs anywhere?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Still tba if/what I open source
| gaudystead wrote:
| Would love it if you do! Also, you might get additional ideas
| if you post to the 3D printing subreddit as well.
|
| Either way, nice work!
| ImageDeeply wrote:
| Very cool. Very impressive. I hope it inspires other to build
| things they're passionate about. "You can just do things. And
| learn things." No need to wait for permission, or classwork (much
| less a degree), or a guide/teacher.
| normie3000 wrote:
| This is incredibly impressive. I'd love to hear more about what
| relevant skills & knowledge you started with, and how you worked
| out what you'd need to know to complete the project.
|
| How much customisation did you need to make to Ardupilot? Is your
| drone's control unique, or somehow standardised?
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(page generated 2025-06-10 23:00 UTC)