There is something about quadcopters and other man-made aerial vehicles that are just downright sexy. I’0Im not sure if it’0Is the fact that humans have been enamored with flying vehicles since even before the Wright brothers invented and built the world’0Is first successful airplane, or if perhaps there is something extremely challenging and adrenaline filling to the the act of soaring through the skies. Fact is, it doesn’0It matter, but there is no arguing the point that un-manned aerial vehicles have become all the rage as of late. For those who keep up-to-date on the desktop 3D printing space, you are probably familiar with a man named Daniel NorsYe, and his OpenRC Project. OpenRC is a community dedicated to 3D printing radio controlled vehicles. This community shares their design files, their ideas and tips on creating radio controlled cars, trucks, and whatever else, all from the ground up, with the help of 3D printers. One project, which up until recently very few even knew that NorsYe had been working on, is his OpenRC Quadcopter;rPa project that was aimed at creating a 3D printed radio controlled unmanned aerial vehicle.

’0LI started by looking at what electronics to get but man it’0Is a jungle, and rather complicated for a beginner,’0M NorsYe tells 3DPrint.com. ’0LI was about to give up when a friend offered to loan me a complete quad (DJI 450 Flame Wheel) so I could use the electronics from that and put it in my own project. In terms of design, I wanted to do something a bit different than whatrds already out there and I also wanted to enclose the electronics in the design itself. As taulman3D is a great supporter my initial idea was to use taulman’0Is ’0HTritan’0I to create a thin walled, low infill design that would be strong but still rigid enough for a quad.’0M

NorsYe started out by modeling the arms of his vehicle, and he admits that this was quite a challenge in and of itself. He wanted to fit the ESCs (Electronic Speed Controls) into the arms, but at the same time didn’0It want to make them too large. He also insisted on creating a design thatrPwould move beyond the typical rectangular shapes that are common with other 3D printed RC vehicles. Finally he resorted to splittingrPthe arms into two individual parts to accomplish exactly what he wanted to do. This only created another challenge for NorsYe, though.

’0LThe next challenge was, ’0Hhow [could I] merge two parts into one unit?'’0M NorsYe explains. ’0LAt first I was trying to fit screws and nuts in the design but there was no way to do that in a good way. So what I did was create ’0Htunnels’0I in the arms and use a Zip tie to merge the two parts. To help keep these two parts in place I used small pieces of regular 1.75mm 3D Printing filament.’0M

As for the body of the OpenRC Quad, NorsYe started out with a quite elaborate plan, one which we still may see in the future. He wanted to create a central unit which would be able to keep the arms in place and work as a ’0Lbase unit.’0M The top and bottom parts would be interchangeablerPwith other designs, depending on exactly what the ’0Lpilot’0M of the quadcopter wanted. He planned on printing the top portion as a shell in order to keep its weight down, while the bottom portion would be the housing for the battery compartment and electronics.

’0LThe idea was to create a sort of cassette system for the battery so a number of different batteries could be used with the same bottom part,’0M NorsYe tells us. ’0LMeaning you could design your own cassette and fit the battery in it and then slide that cassette in and out of the bottom part also making it very easy to switch batteries when needed. I never got to designing the cassette system so I just made a simple compartment to fit the battery.’0M

You will notice that the design files for the OpenRC Quad are earmarked as ’0LBeta,’0M and this is because the project has not yet officially been completed. NorsYe ended up abandoning it, at least temporarily, as other projects popped up that he had a great interest in working on. He plans to experiment with flying other quadcopters, to get a better understanding ofrPexactly how they work, before resuming this project in the future.

’0LEven though I have abandoned the Quad project for now, I had put too much time in it to not realease the files for everyone else to play with,’0M says NorsYe. ’0LMaybe someone else can benefit from it, if only getting some inspiration or even using parts of the design itself.’0M

The design files have been made available on YouMagine, Thingiverse, and grabcad for anyone to download, print, and modify free of charge. It should be interesting to see if anyone can get this work of art to successfully fly. What do you think about this Quadcopter design by Daniel NorsYe? Discuss in the OpenRC Quadcopter forum thread on 3DPB.com. Check out some more photos below.