SpudFiles

As my printer is working, leveled the bed and extruder calibrated, I'm up to building something cool with it. Apart from some nice suppressor baffles I didn't found much use of it for serious rifle making so that's kinda off the board. However I used to love RC planes and stuff back when I was a kid this seem like a great opportunity to make a quadrotor as it seems popular and parts are easy to find.
Any head up? I'd like to start from the electronics then work the hardware part to suit it.

The electronics aren't nearly as complicated as the hardware part of what you're planning... there are pre-built libraries for Arduino which you could look at and build to suit, or you can go full analog-tard and build to suit as well.

I think it applies to 3d printers more than anything to say "The world is your oyster"... go forth and create.

Myself, I would be building disposable, unserialized things of a nature we can't discuss here... but quadrotors are cool too.

I can see the hardware sort out with some carbon fiber pipes and 3D printed parts. How are the arduino ones controlled? Or they are drones that fly by their selves?

Talk to poland spud!

I would wager on using an Xbee - arduino combo. There are so many options out there now and for under $300 you can have something really cool!

3D printing is a good option for making hubs (for the carbon tubing) for smaller quad copters and planes - if you want real durability you may want to look into water jetted carbon fiber sheet's for your frameset though.

My source of carbon fiber limits to eBay so there isn't much fancy options... I'd love to get my hands on carbon fiber sheets mold my own stuff...
Edit: Help! The print is sticking to the tape but it curves up! It even lift the tape from the glass bed!

Help:
It's getting cold here and as my print doesn't have a heated bed, the parts are getting bent (see photo).
I'm thinking of mounting this. How can I connect it and what do I need to add to the Marlin code?

At that size - you will need a relay to control the power going to it. Just look for a heated bed relay. You will send power directly from your 12V power supply to the relay, and then wire the relay control directly to your controller board (usually an arduino mega style board sandwhiched to a RAMPS control board - or one of the many other varieties).

You'll also have a thermistor you'll need to attach to the board (unless you find a heated bed with one incorporated) and this will go to one of your "RAMPS" style boards thermistor inputs.

Next you'll need to reconfigure your firmware so that your heated bed is powered, and controlled via feedback from the thermistor.

It's pretty well documented on the http://forums.reprap.org/ how to do this should you run into any issues! Just ask over there - you'll learn a lot in the process!

Well, found a detailed tutorial there.
However, for now the problem is solved by heating the glass bed for a couple minute with a hair drier...

lol In reality that will be perfectly fine - the heated bed really only has any thermal significance on the first 1-3 layers depending on your layer height settings.

My next 3d printer is going the way of fully enclosed with thermal control of the enclosure itself - that is really what should be happening with ALL 3d printers - but it's not commercially possible right now since Stsratasys has broad overreaching patents for such a process. There have been companies that find work arounds - one is such that you create an enclosure around the build area with intent to merely keep the build environment separate from the outside. Next - you include a heated build surface, which miraculously transfers heat to the build area that's enclosed - voila - heated build enclosure with a slight backhanded way to get around Statasys's patent haha.

I'll be building the printer for myself so as it is for personal experimentation and not profit - the Patent will not concern me.

the heated bed really only has any thermal significance on the first 1-3 layers depending on your layer height settings.

Yap, as soon as the PLA doesn't get into contact with a cold glass bed, after a couple layers it won't bend up anymore. Quite a problem though as it's getting colder.
I think I will make a sealed shell for the printer and install a low power heater inside to keep a decent temperature.

You could recycle a fisk tank and a hair dryer would heat up that little area in a minute or two...

I glad for you getting this machine to work, I really had daughts. Congrats!

look on the reprap forums for the "turkey oven bag" trick for creating a heated/isolated enclosed area - pretty cheap way to go about it!

wyz2285 wrote:I can see the hardware sort out with some carbon fiber pipes and 3D printed parts. How are the arduino ones controlled? Or they are drones that fly by their selves?

They all use some sort of board that has both gyros /accelerometers and a microcontroller. You couldn't achieve stable flight without the controller board/autopilot - it balances the position and orientation of the quad by changing RPM of the motors using sensors. You control the quad using RC equipment, signals from your transmitter to the receiver and from there to the controller board/autopilot. The autopilot then takes your input and sensor readings to balance the quad and makes it do what you want it to do.

If your controller/autopilot has GPS receiver it can do autonomous missions. You can't really get rid of RC equipment (well ok you can but you'd have to use a separate transmitter to send commands from your computer to the quad so technically it's still RC, and/or make a small circuit that would fool the autopilot that the RC equipment is connected and works perfectly well; You could even get rid of any transmitters but you wouldn't be able to control the Quad - you'd have to trust that it can autonomously and safely execute the mission you uploaded to it)

You can either buy an ardupilot (official ones or clones) or buy a board made specifically for quads.

More here:
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/what-i ... s-it-work/

I was searching on eBay and GPS included micro controller is waaaaaaay out of my budget (+1k euros).
I'd prefer to buy a ready made micro controller (just load code) and make the hardware myself.

From the link I sent you
http://store.3drobotics.com/products/apm-2-6-kit-1 -> $240

That's the original thing (aka overpriced). I've seen clones of it for less than 130$ (with gps)