scratch building 101

[jsparky]

Well I lost a plane this year... full power dive through 60 feet of trees... did not end well .. so I put the CNC flat mill to some good use.. There where no paper plans for this build just what ever happen to come to mind.. So here it is..
FreeCad for design
CamBam for milling software
Super Slicer for makeing some parts but mostly templates and jigs
MACH 3 for the CNC software..

 

[jsparky]

some more pics

 

[Wayne]

Looking good! What are you calling it?

2 or 3 engines?

 

[jsparky]

Well the original was called the " Lil Annie " after my wife.. because this plane was squirrelly like you never never squirrelly on the ground... if you ever watched my wife in a grocery store you would know why..

As far as a model type... kind of looking like a CL-415 but mostly just a model..

If I could find another FS-20 I would probably go with a tri-motor... just for shits and giggles.. but since I have the two... a twin..

The basic design of the plane is such that , if you removed the two nacelles and replace with regular ribs.. then she could also be setup as a single engine..

By using a FrSky PWM decoder in the wing , it would leave only one wire to hook up.. two channels for ailerons and two for engines.. add a second decoder and I could have flaps and or retracts..

 

[jsparky]

long time.. but just an update.. finished the build and here she is.. first flight with the OS 20 FS was not so good.. that last bump in the grass got her up.. but pretty sad.. so repower with a pair of saito 30FS and that turned her on.. a lot of work to setup and balance the engines.. but well worth it.. so easy to setup master and independent sub trims.. with the frsky..

 

[Wayne]

Nice. so how does she sound when she flies by? That is the best part of a twin!

 

[jsparky]

engines where nicely in sync.. and ya.. low fast flyby... sweet.. nothing like the sound of a pair of FS's in sync

 

[HappyRCFlyer]

I've only just opened up and looked around FreeCad, they don't at all make it simple to start out learning it. I've mastered Lightburn, I also have a solid grasp with Blender, I wanted to be adding FreeCad to the mix as well. Do you have any non video based tutorial to learn the basics for it?

 

[Wayne]

I have seen some pretty amazing work done in Blender for the hobby. I tried to setup blender for CAD work, but I found it very confusing, there is a lot going on in there.

 

[HappyRCFlyer]

I have seen some pretty amazing work done in Blender for the hobby. I tried to setup blender for CAD work, but I found it very confusing, there is a lot going on in there.

I have a lot of experience with an old school 3d renderer called Moray, it wrote code to Pov Ray which is command line only graphical interface. It took some digging to find the familiar tools I was used to dealing with, then how to use them as well. I'm running Lightburn for 2d/cad format, importing into Blender for the times it's needing to be a 3d object, I need to dig more into making Blender also a 2d design thing, I'll look into that and keep you updated if I'm able to make that work and happen.

 

[jsparky]

sorry to say but no " non video " everything I learned was from youtube video.. you just have to be choosy about which .. some good.. so not so good..

 

[HappyRCFlyer]

sorry to say but no " non video " everything I learned was from youtube video.. you just have to be choosy about which .. some good.. so not so good..

The problem is, to extract just the data you need from them means hours and hours of watching irrelevant video's and hoping you find something that actually covers any given topic. In almost every single case you get a giant amount of dialog and video of people wandering all over the place, you are forced to filter through so much useless dialog just because they like to hear themselves talk. I can scan through text and images and get exactly what I need and when I post my own tutorials, that's what is received on the builders end. In a video you are then forced to memorize which section of the video to scroll through, it's cumbersome. I use Chatgpt in combination with things which can be helpful but also does it's own share of leading you down rabbit holes and trails that lead to a dead end.

 

[Wayne]

Yeah, with CAD videos I have seen things are are really basic with a lot of talk. And I have seen stuff with no talking, but they are doing really complex things that I end up having to watch over and over to avoid missing the little settings that can make a huge difference in the way a tool works. Such is life with this sort of teaching method. Not unlike anything else in life.

 

[HappyRCFlyer]

Don't you love it when they are flipping through menu's and the rest so lightening fast, no human being can possibly follow them? With Blender, it's severely bad to extreme levels especially when you get into creating animations and the rest, not just basic design or objects.

 

[Wayne]

Blender is on a whole different level! I'm amazed at what people "easily" accomplish with it. I played with it for 10 minutes and said - No way José! Would take my feeble brain years to figure that one out.

 

[jure]

I remember modding a picasim model with blender, just to change the color scheme. a total pain...

 

[HappyRCFlyer]

Blender is on a whole different level! I'm amazed at what people "easily" accomplish with it. I played with it for 10 minutes and said - No way José! Would take my feeble brain years to figure that one out.

My experience with Moray Ray tracer did give me a leg up on figuring out Blender, there are many common elements both pieces of software share, just a totally different way of how they do the menu and handling of it. I did end up making a simple to follow beginner tutorial on how to use it to let people dig in and make some sense of it from their first setting. What I found in the video's were pretty much people trying to do things and instead of the straight forward, least amount of steps, they throw in so very many steps and systems, it overly complicates it all together, and I find there are several ways to achieve the same thing. I stuck with it over Fusion 360, partially since it runs on my Linux box rather then putting my little windows laptop through too much stress, ie. I kill windows machines by overworking them already so what last one I have is only for running my laser cutter, nothing more. The other part, it's capable of doing things well beyond just for making 3d parts and modeling, the results they are able to do with it, with advanced users rivals anything any big set or operation is using including any big box movie company.