NO MODIFICATION - Laser cut / 3D printed Micro RC BabyAce (airplane)

!!!!!THESE ARE NOT REAL LASER CUTTER FILES!!!!!!

This is a fully laser cut and 3D printed rc airplane that has been laser cut with a 3D printer that has NO MODIFICATIONS besides mounting a high powered 2W blue laser. Allow me to explain....

I have "tricked" cura into running a single layer without extruding any material while "pre heated" to room temperature. This is done by drawing the laser cut files as 3D models in sketchup or whatever you use, i then make everything a .5mm square. Cura is set to have a .5mm wide nozel, with an inital layer of .3mm and a layer thickness of .2 mm... This will make the head do 2 passes while not messing with the focus of the laser too much.. The wall thickness has to be smaller then .5mm otherwise cura may break up the walls... Always double check the layers before cutting to make sure that the "layers" are solid.... If they are broken, make the wall thickness smaller. I find .485 or so gives good results with .5mm drawings..

I have added pictures of my cura "laser cutter" settings to give you an idea of what worked for me...

All cutting is done at 15mm/s and then the feed rate is adjusted on the printer to compensate for thickness of material... 1/8" plywood works well at about 60% feed rate with the settings i have pictured, while 2mm balsa can run 100% and paper you can go 200%

The laser never shuts off... Ther are NO MODIFICATIONS to the printer at all... you just have to have your travel speedspeed set high so that inbetween cuts the head moves quickly to the next cut. this doesnt give enough time to damage your parts... I use around 250-300mm/s and i only get slight burns on mutiple layer passes...

ply wood actually takes a few passes... 9-10 to be exact.. so i set the inital layer height in cura to 0.1mm, and then the layer thickness is set to like 0.05 or something to give a total of the amount of layers i think i will need... You just have to play with the settings a bit to find what works best for you.

Dont draw parts like this thicker that need to cut through tricker material because this will really mess with the laser focus.. always adjust your number of passes with the inital layer height and the layer height. have the settings combined to equal how many layers you need. Also dont cut thick materials slower to try and cut it in one pass, because this will burn the crap out of your part...

I used printer paper coated in CA glue and laser cut for hinges. They seem to work for now. If they are too big, scale them down. But you will have to set your wall thickness to like 0.3mm or so otherwise cura will break them up for sure.

UPDATE sept-10
Dont use CA and paper as a hinge.. it will crack over time. I am currently using 1 single layer of printed ABS bent against the grain once in both directions, then glues into place with CA.this is alot more durable.

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There is no design to this plane.. these are just parts that you can use to design your own... I based it off of a Baby Ace that my father owns... It is supposed to ba an open cockpit single seater. Use your imagination!

Hope this helps someone out! thanks for looking!

If you make one please post a "made One" I would like to see it!

Comment with questions. I will try to help.

UPDATES

SEPT 10- Have updated the cockpit cover to fit my model a bit better, and to match the angles produced when using the firewalls and the cross beams in the same way i have.

SEPT 10 - Added 2 more slots in the ailerons and widened the gaps to make them print better without having to grind out the hinge slots.

SEPT 10 - Dont use paper / CA as a hinge

SEPT 10 - Added micro control horns for .8mm pushrods. (print then at lower temperature then usually as they are really small and your print head will melt them. (-10*~))