September 2, 2023
Description
2.9.2023 Update:
You were and I was wrong, forgot to add type of tab. Description updated, files added (some filenames had changed to avoid confusion)
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The B2 bomber is one of the most unique aircraft ever designed. It is visually striking, involve complex and novel modern building techniques, technologies and cutting-edge research.
In order to admire that and have a piece of it, I've designed this wall-mount model based of design by Shafier Khan over at GrabCAD.
I've fixed the model to be one solid body, than sliced it and added tabs for alignment and structural integrity. This model is both designed for ease of 3D printing and to be visual pleasing.
The model was designed with a wingspan of 1 meter in mind, resulting in overall dimensions of 1000mm x 400mm x 96mm.
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Alright, let's get technical:
Material:
it is preferred to be printed in matte black PLA for 2 reasons: be similar to the original aircraft and everything in matte black looks cool AF =]
Amount of material:
if used proposed settings, the whole model weights about 1.6 kg, meaning 2 spools of 1 kg should be enough.
Temps:
I suggest printing temp. tower before printing. I've found out that my material (eSun ePLA matte black) is better printed at 200/65 rather than the usual 210/60 recommended for PLA. Variation is mainly due to stringing reduction and better bed adhesion.
Settings:
4 parameters top/bottom/sides @ 15% gyroid. Print all parts so that the straight faces alongside the width of the aircraft (direction- nose to tail) is on the bed. It'll make it easier to glue and visually pleasing in the final product. It still means there's straight faces printed in some angle to the build plate, therefore maybe some of you prefer slight sanding before gluing- I didn't.
important note: these settings are a little overkill but the model you see printed and mounted in the pictures is actually the 2nd model I've printed. 1st model was 2 parameters @ 10% gyroid but it had only the upper wall mount (there's two mounts right now) and someday at 3am the model bracket broke and fell on my (very expensive) PC screen. One of the most scariest scares I've had in a long time and I've decided to beef it up because the cockpit smashed and there was no way to fix it & I felt it was kinda wasted (original model designed to require only 1kg/1 spool of PLA but the peace of mind that if it'll take a hit again it'll probably stay fine and not destroyed is worth it to me for the price of another spool).
Therefore, print the Wall Mount (x2) with 6 parameters @ 50% gyroid to ensure no failure will occur to this critical, weight supporting parts.
Parts: there are 10 parts of the aircraft itself, 11 tabs and the wall mount parts. Some can be printed together but preferably print the aircraft parts separately.
From now on I'm going to refer to the different parts in the names I've given to them in one of the pictures.
So the main reason to print each aircraft part separately (other than the obvious size of some of them) is that there are some sharp corners that tend to lift (given earlier story, I've printed it twice and some parts failed along the way so some more than twice). Therefore, I haven't hardcoded in the STLs/STEPs lily pads but you might consider adding them to the sharp corners of Exhaust Left, Exhaust Right & Tail.
BOM (bill of materials, meaning in this context how much of every part to print):
This build also requires six DIN912 M3x20 screws
Important notice about tabs!
the tabs, as it is, is mathematically fit perfect wherever they need to- which means that if you print it as-is without changing dimensions- IT WILL NOT FIT.
This is by design since everyone's printer tolerances is different and the aircraft parts don't fit INTO each other so there's no concern there.
My suggestion is this:
Assembly Instructions:
I've used about 5 small tubes (around 2gr each) of CA glue.
The general steps for gluing 2 adjacent parts:
After gluing the entire aircraft, connect two Mount Leg(s) parts to the aircraft.
their names -Top/Bottom- corresponds to the orientation you see in all of the pictures: nose down therefore is Bottom and tail is up therefore it is Top (I think this is the best way to display it but this is just a way to distinct the two different mount legs- you can mount it in whatever angle you wish).
After that, the mounting process goes like this:
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I think I've covered everything, sorry for the length but this is not that easy build and wanted to make sure you know everything I know.
If someone will have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments and I'll answer them (and perhaps fix the description if needed).
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial — Share Alike