[BETA] ManaFly 3" Generative FPV Drone Frame

This frame is currently being developed. If you want to help us improve it, submit your feedback in out discord: https://discord.gg/H9avyxBVJ7

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ManaFly 3” is a fully 3D Printed unibody FPV drone frame engineered from the ground up for optimal flight characteristics, strength, and ease of use. Created using generative optimized design, ManaFly pushes the limits of what’s possible with 3D printing.

 

Why ManaFly Exists

Everyone knows that carbon fiber sheets are way stronger than the filaments we use for 3d-printing. Therefore, most people assume that a 3d printed drone frame will suck in comparison with a traditional frame. That is true for most of the 3d-models you will find, but for ManaFly we have used generative design, tons of iterations and carefully engineered load constraints to make a 3d-printed frame that can perform. Even though the material itself is weaker, the shape is optimized to get the most out of every gram of material, making a strong rigid frame without carbon fiber.

 

And the best part? Each frame only costs about $1. Many times cheaper than a traditional frame.

 

Unlike most 3d-printed frames, ManaFly is designed to be printed with 100% infill. The optimized skeletal structure makes this possible without adding too much weight.

 

Crash? No Problem.

Yes, a 3D-printed frame will likely break more easily than one made of carbon fiber. So we solved the problem differently:

We made electronics transfer effortless.

If you crash, simply:

1. Unscrew your electronics
2. Transfer them into a spare frame and screw them in place
3. Be back in the air in minutes

No repairing arms. No resoldering. No metal cages. No rebuilding stack spacers. No fuss.

What ManaFly is Good At:

• Cheap & repeatable — Print multiple backups easily, each frame costs as little as $1
• Zero assembly required — Unibody design printed in one piece. Component transfer is fast and easy
• Strong but lightweight — ~35g weight with 6 walls & 100% infill
• Wide compatibility — ManaFly is compatimble with almost all 3" stacks
• Optimized via generative design for stiffness and resonance control
• No fancy materials needed — Regular PETG or ABS works perfectly 
• Designed for real crashes — Lots of carefully designed load cases plus real world testing and iteration
• Optimized for flight — Low resonance, high stiffness, predictable handling

Boost MeIf you like my models, please consider dropping me a boost, comment and rate the profile! Any of these things keeps me motivated to Keep going! Thank you!

 

Compatibility

Manafly is compatable with almost all 3" stacks. Below is a list of the mounting patterns that the frame supports.

Flight Controller

• 25.5 × 25.5 mm AIO
• 20 × 20 mm FPV stack

Motors

• Any motors with a 9-12mm mounting pattern (Recommended: 1404 motors)

VTX

Compatible with every major 20 mm / 25.5 mm mounting system:

• DJI O3
• DJI O4/ 04 Pro
• Walksnail Avatar
• HDZero
• Analog VTX

Camera

• DJI O3
• DJI O4 / O4 Lite
• Walksnail Avatar
• HDZero Nano / Micro
• Analog Mini / Micro / Nano

Prop Size

• 3 inch props (standard)

Print the camera adapter that matches your setup.

1. DJI O4 Camera Mount
2.  Analog 14 mm, HDZero Nano Camera Mount
3. DJI O4 Lite Camera Mount
4. DJI O3, Walksnail, Analog 21 mm / 19 mm, HDZero Micro

Video Antennas

• Almost all digital antennas
• MMCX antennas
• Supports single antenna and dual antenna setups

Filament 

We recommend to use one of these three filament types for printing ManaFly:

 

Easy, cheap and durable: PETG

If you want a cheap and easy to print option that is also relatively durable, we recommend using PETG. Even though PETG has a lower tensile strength than most other filaments, it can deform a lot before fracturing. It is also one of the filament types with the strongest layer adhesion. Therefore, it is great at absorbing impacts when the drone crashes without breaking. It is also cheap and easily accessible.

 

Slightly higher performance: ABS

Another relatively cheap option is to use ABS. ABS is about 20% lighter, which will reduce the weight of the frame from 33g to 27g. It is also stiffer than PETG. How durable it is depends a lot on the print quality and filament quality (don't buy super cheap ABS), but if you have a good printer and filament it can be about as durable as PETG. You will need an enclosed printer with ventilation to print with ABS, as it gives off poisonous fumes while printing. 

 

Try at you own risk: PA6-CF

If you are willing to spend a bit more per frame, we recommend using PA6-CF. The frame will be able to absorb up to twice as much energy before it breaks compared to PETG and ABS, so it will survive crashes better. The durability of the frame when printed with PA6-CF will be highly sensitive to the print quality, so we only recommend this if you have a good enclosed printer and can dry the filament completely before printing. We do not recommend printing with other Nylon-based filaments like PPA-CF and PPS-CF. These are super strong, but they have a very low impact strength in the Z-direction, and that is the most indicative parameter for how well the frame will survive crashes. 

 

NB! Some people in the Discord have been informing us about vibration issues when using this filament or other filaments with similar stiffness, so print in this filament at your own risk!

What to look for if choosing other filaments

If you are wondering if another filament you have found is good for ManaFly, the best way to tell if it will make for a durable frame is to look at its impact strength in the Z direction. This parameter indicates how much energy the filament can absorb before breaking between the layers. ManaFly usually breaks between the layers, so a higher impact strength in the z-direction will mean that the frame can survive crashes better.

Print Settings (Recommended)

• Infill: 100%
• Walls: 6
• Filament Use: ~30 g
• Print Orientation: Flat / horizontal for maximum strength

 

How good is ManaFly compared to a carbon fiber frame?

We did some static simulations to simulate how well this frame would perform against a traditional frame made from a 4mm thick carbon fiber plate. 

Stiffness

With a vertical force of 10N acting on the motor mount, and the middle of the drone frame constrained, the max displacement of the ManaFly arm and carbon fiber arms were:

 

Mana Fly: 0.251mm

Carbon Fiber Frame: 0.189mm

 

For the simulation, the Autodesk Fusion “PET” (and “ABS”) preset was used for the ManaFly. It has a Young's modulus (kind of a measure of the material stiffness) of 2.75 GPa. To compare, Bambu Lab Translucent PETG filament has a Young's modulus of 1.42 GPa (x-y) and 1.23 GPa (z), and Bambu Lab PET-CF filament has a Youngs modulus of 4.730 GPa (x-y) and 2.16 GPa  (z). If we substitute the x-y stiffness of these filaments (because the arms are mainly strained in the x-y directions) for the PET properties, we get the following conclusions:

• A ManaFly printed in PETG will have about 61% lower stiffness than the carbon fiber frame we compared to.
• A ManaFly printed in PET-CF will have about 29% higher stiffness than the carbon fiber frame we compared to.

Strength

With a load of 10N acting in the middle of the motor mount, the optimized shape reduces the stress from about 14MPa to just 4MPa. That’s a 3.5x reduction from the optimized geometry.

 

To determine how crash resistant the frame would be compared to a carbon fiber frame, we used a simplified model where a “crash resistance factor” is calculated as the product of the shape factors (from the stress simulations), Youngs modulus and elongation before fracture. The absolute value of the crash resistance factor has no physical meaning, they are proportional to the max energy absorption, so comparing them gives a good idea of how well the different frames resist crashes compared to each other.

	Shape Factor	Youngs modulus	Elongation before fracture	Crash resistance factor
Carbon fiber frame	1	60 GPa	1.08%	0.684
ManaFly frame (PETG)	3.5	1.42 GP1	8.2%	0.398

From these results we can see that the carbon fiber arm can absorb around 70% more energy on an impact. Due to the kinetic energy being proportional to the squared velocity, this means that the carbon fiber frame we analyzed will be able to survive a crash with 31% higher velocity than the ManaFly frame. 

 

Simulation Details

The carbon fiber material in the simulations was based on this material: https://www.carbon-composite.com/en/Carbon-Plate-4.0mm/CP040-S

The material for the ManaFly frame was based on Autodesk Fusion “PET” preset for the stiffness evaluation, and Bambu Lab Translucent PETG for the strength evaluation. The shape of the arm for the simulations of the carbon fiber frame is based on the ImpulseRC Micro Apex 3″ frame. The version of ManaFly used in the simulations is Beta 1.0.

 

It is worth noting that these simulations are not very accurate, as the layer lines of the 3d-printed parts makes it weaker in the direction perpendicular to the layers.  It helps that 100% infill is used, and the print orientation makes the most exposed stressed areas oriented parallel to the layers. However, there is still likely a non-negligible difference between the simulation and the real performance. In addition to this, the simulations and calculations assume that the carbon fiber and 3d-printed plastics are isotropic and purely elastic. In real life this is not the case. So please do not take these results as exact values, they are rather ballpark numbers to get an idea for how the frame performs, so you can take a more educated decision if you would like to use it or not.

 

 

Current Status

Manafly is currently in BETA testing.
Performance, durability, and compatibility are being refined based on real-world feedback. If you want to contribute, please share your feedback in the discord: https://discord.gg/HW2AXHCG5s

 

 

Change-log

BETA Version 4.0

Minor structural changes in the middle of the quadcopter frame. There was originally a small gap that allowed cables to go through between the FC mount and VTX mount. that hole has been widened to allow a full XT60 Connector to go through.

BETA Version 3.0

Minor improvements over the previous version. 

Main changes were making certain design features thicker to make it easier to 3d print

BETA Version 2.0

The main improvements for this version was slightly thicker mounting points for the motors, and an increase in the thickness of the frame around the front AIO 25.5mm mounting hole. These were weak-points in earlier iterations.

ALPHA Version 3.0

This version had two main improvements:

• The rear arms were made stronger, especially around the mounting points of the motors, as this is where out alpha testers drones broke the most often.
• The camera cage was made wider, as for some cameras it was visible at the edges of the field of view.

ALPHA Version 2.0

This update brings several key improvements over the initial Alpha release, addressing all major issues identified in V1:

• Full support for the DJI O4 system
• Redesigned top panel with better-positioned slots for battery straps
• Optimised VTX antenna mounts with more appropriate length and fit

ALPHA Version 1.1

Improvements on the initial Alpha version, addressing the following issues:

• Updated antenna holder to support the TBS Crossfire antenna.
• Redesigned VTX antenna mount to fit both MMCX and IPEX connectors.
• Modified frame structure to make electronics installation and transfer easier

 

Credits

Made in Collaboration with:

• Manafish ROV- Instagram
• Ayaan Raj Khanna- Instagram