RC Plane Fuselage

3D printed aircraft are very interesting, but not really feasible due to their weight and durability (or lack of). However, I've designed this fuselage because I think 3D printing can be useful in some cases. I still plan to make the wing and tail surfaces out of foam board due to foam board being a more suitable material. The fuselage of a radio control aircraft is usually quite difficult to construct from foam board depending on the electronics you choose and it's usually the first thing to break in a crash. So the purpose of this fuselage is to remove the work behind constructing one from foam board and allow replacements to be built with little effort. 3D printing a fuselage also has other advantages, such as pre-designed servo mounts and also being able to adopt an aerodynamic shape without sanding foam for hours.

I've uploaded the CAD files as stl, step and fusion360 files. That way you can edit the fuselage to fit your needs, whether that be adding a motor mount to the nose or adjusting the servo mounts.

I recommend using CA glue to fix the two halves together as it bonds well with PLA, as well as adding minimal weight. Also, the canopy clip must be glued to the canopy (as seen in one of the uploaded photos).

This fuselage is designed to work with CS-929MG servos and an 8mm diameter carbon tube for the rear tail. The recommended maximum battery size is 35x35x100mm. The wing will be held on with rubber bands and 2x 4mm rods, which pass through the holes in the fuselage. I am intending to mount the motors on the wings, therefore there isn't a motor mount on the fuselage, but feel free to modify it for your own application.

Printer settings: (note: some of these settings are specific to simplify3D and I'm not sure if they are available in other slicers)
Material - PLA Plastic
Nozzle Diameter - 0.4mm
Layer height - 0.2mm
Extrusion multiplier - 1.05 (5% more than my usual setting)
Nozzle temperature - 220C (hot for PLA to get strong layer bonds)
Bed temperature - 40C
Cooling fan - OFF
Print speed - 1500mm/min
Thin wall behavior - Allow single extrusion walls
Allow perimeter overlap - 50%
Minimum Extrusion Length - 0.00mm
Minimum printing width - 50%
Maximum printing width - 200%
Endpoint extension distance - 0.2mm
Infill - 10% (for the sold rear section of fuselage)

Here is my tutorial of how you can design your own lightweight 3D printed parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ8dy_4DVfE