So I have an idea to make a mold from scratch but im not an artist. I don’t do cad and cannot find an SDL i want to use as a base. I am building a droan and want a custom canopy. I tried spray foam and a knife but just for the sake of argument it’s not working out. If I had a 3d print of the top plate of a Tarot 680 pro and crafted my vision of the canopy then cast a mold then I could create a fiberglass canopy. It’s roughly 20 cm circle with 12 sides and 6 of them are recessed slightly. I’m sure I could draw some trace on a piece of paper and spend some time with my bandsaw and some pcb material and get it close but if someone were to cad the thing out for me then shoot out 4 or 5 printed parts then I could mess up a few times and if I cannot get my inner artist to wake up then I would have the file to have someone make more. I just don’t want to play a design firm R and D to create this thing. If anyone has the desire and free time to research the thing I need and design a prototype then print 4 of them for a fair price please email me I attached a picture of the part.
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Hey James. Sounds like an interesting project. I’m sure you’ll find someone here who’s in your area and could bang it out for you. Just so I’m clear. Do you want copies of the top plate printed, or the canopy itself?
Here’s a drawing I found…
Spray foam, and a knife sounds like a good method to get your shape right, although it might be a better idea to finish the shape in modelling clay. Then you could get the shape 3D scanned and from there it’s pretty simple to make the digital file printable.
Hope this helps
Cheers,
AndyL
Pot8oSH3D
MB3D
3
Hi James, I could help you out with CAD modeling and could also print the part for you, instead of 3d printing you should consider lasercuttting the template out of acrylglass. Check my hub out by clicking on the icon below, if you are interested. Kind regards, Marius Breuer
Just the top plate. I need the actual canopy itself to be as light as possible. I will mold the design on top of the part. I think it would be easier to hold it and make changes with a part that I could break/cut/whatever without fear of messing up my helicopter. when I finish the cast then I could make a mold and create a thin light composite canopy then paint it and add a hinge and clasp.
Hey James,
I think Marius’ suggestion of laser cut acrylic would be much cheaper for the plate than 3D printed. It’s a bit fragile but if you have it cut from, say 5mm, you shouldn’t break it.
Far as the actual canopy construction is concerned, 3D printing would be a good option. It’s certainly less time consuming and messy than Fibreglass and, while It may not be quite as robust, it’s easier to make in modest quantities and if you do manage to break it, I think it’ll be the least of your worries. A 4-5mm thick canopy with, say 0.8mm surface thickness and 25% infill in PLA or ABS would be lighter than fibreglass too.
Cheers!
AndyL
This is so exciting. thanks for the info. Maybe Marius can help. That’s why you guys are the pros…
Hi James,
We can 3d print your top plate. Just use a scanner and scan your model
Send it to for quotation.
Kind regards,
Jocelyn
Copterlab
That’s a better idea. I’m picking up an Xbox kinect next week from a guy on Craigslist for $20. My intention is to make a 3d scanner. I will keep your email so when I get the thing working and get to the stage of printing maybe you can print it. I also traced the top plate with cardboard and put spray foam on it. Now I’m going to go to hobby lobby and get some clay and make my design. Then scan it. AndyL suggested a list or type of material with dimensions to print it lighter than ffiberglass. This whole process is inspiring to me as a novice maker. Attached is a picture of my drone at the stage im at with it. As you can see the canopy is not top concern at this point but a good distraction when im waiting on air china for some other part.
Fiberglass is light, i think it’s a good solution. The main problem of fiberglass is weakness with crashes. (PLA is weak too)
The main problem for me is your hex screws are too tall, it will generate vibrations in your plates. Please reduce height to the maximum
Hey Jocelyn, thanks for the input! Just a heads up I moderated your email out. Moving forward could you please use only a link to your Hub profile, if needed? By the way users can now contact Hubs through the clickable user icons. Hope this helps
What hex screws are you referring to? The brass ones between the top plate and the electronics plate otlr the tall white ones? The tall white ones are just holding my gps module up. The 6 brass ones between the top plate and the electronics plate are 12mm high. Or are you referring to something else?
Hey James,
Good to hear you’re planning to start 3D scanning. The Xbox Kinect is a good place to start, although you’ll need to ensure it comes with the USB power supply and in actual fact, the scanner itself is not the most costly component. You’ll need to run some specific software on your computer. My suggestion would be Skanect, although there are others I’ve evaluated. Skanect is the best one, in my experience.
As regards the materials I’m suggesting for your canopy, I’d recommend ABS. Or, if you can find someone to print it, PET. If you want to go the whole hog, you can 3D print a solid buck, produce a mould from it and successfully mould the canopy in Carbon Fibre. This website will tell you all you need to know and supply you all you’d need…
To be honest, if you’re thinking of moulding in glass fibre, I’d suggest carbon anyway as the process is very similar and the results are considerably more robust.
Thing about 3D printing your canopy is that once you have a digital model, it’s easy to make a new one or modify the old one, for that matter. If there are other users who want to use the same canopy, it’s pretty straightforward as you can just publish the 3D model. So, as an example, you could decide that the nylon stand-offs for the GPS module are too long, you could mod the canopy design so that you can fix the GPS module to its underside.
My ten cents, for what it’s worth 
Cheers!
AndyL
Pot8oSh3D
It looks like you have a GPS module and some other communications equipment on that top plate that will be covered with this canopy. i would not recommend carbon fiber as it is conductive and may block some of your signal from reaching the craft or your ground station and will certainly cause issues with range for your craft.
Glassfiber will not have these issues.
I plan on leaving a spot for the gps to see the sky and my reciever antennas as well as my FPV transmitter hang out the bottom. My bluetooth module is on the top (for now) eventually I may go with a long range transceiver for telemetry and my thoughts were to remome the minimosd from the craft and use the telemetry on the ground station for osd. Other than bluetooth being under the canopy if I go with carbon fiber will it still interfere if all my other antenna anr on the bottom?
Radio frequency will see Carbon Fiber as a barrier so so long as the line of sight between the receiver and the antenna is not going to be blocked by the carbon fiber part you should be good to go.
I had a similar issue with my tricopter and wound up just printing cases fro my electronics instead of making an over all canopy, however i will say it looks a bit of a mess, albeit a functional one 
Mine looks like a flying surveillance van…
