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This is such a perfect example of why right-to-repair matters: sometimes a “$1,590 part” is really just access. Also, that print looks solid — I’d still check material/heat/vibration limits on a rotor part, but the ingenuity is 💯
See, what no one in here realizes is that the plan was to use this as a master to cast an aluminum one. Aluminium is a metal, and metal is strong. I’m sure everything will be fine. Bonus–aluminum doesn’t rust, so it should last forever. OOP wonders why they weren’t made of aluminum in the first place, and figures it’s “planned obsolescence.”
He’s just waiting for his casting kit to be delivered. He expects to be flying again later that day.
I nominate it for the Darwin awards…
One time, this was back in my skydiving days so a very long time ago, the drop zone’s CASA 212 was down due to a bad hydraulic pump. The pump finally arrived and the DZO asked me to help him install it. He was a certified A&P, I just had a lot of experience wrenching on cars but it allowed me to get a lot of free jumps due to helping him out on things like this.
He handed me the pump, which was a LOT lighter than I expected and told me with a smile: “Don’t drop it.”
In inquired as to how much it cost and he replied: “$10,000.”
I was holding a pump in my hands that weighed barely 10 pounds that cost more than my car (this was circa 1998 or so).
A couple years later the igniter box on the port engine died and I helped him replace it… That was a cool $15000. The engines were about $250,000 a piece back in those days.
And now you’ve just given Boeing executives some great ideas how to further reduce costs! I don’t thank you!!
I have news for you:
3D printing is very common in the aviation industry by now.
They don’t exactly use TPU and Bambulab printers, though… ;-)TPU? You’ll get PLA and like it
Oh yes they do.
Aircraft crashed in Gloucestershire after 3D-printed part collapsed - BBC News https://share.google/v8NcjqE0tAK34AiI7
IIRC that entire plane was a DIY plane from a popular kit, not a commercial vehicle.
(not clicking on a Google shortlink)
“Hey, John! How much are we paying those 3D printers again? I found one here that looks like it would do just the same job for much less!” – quote that will show up in a leak in 2032 after a handful of planes crashes.
ChatGPT said it would work.
AI said it would be fine. Send it.
That should last about 0.7 seconds.
That’s exactly the joke.
I was thinking the same thing! lol.
Please tell me they’re not done, and they’re going to make a ceramic moulding of it, to pour a very strong alloy into… And have the competence in chemistry, metallurgy, metalwork and engineering to know they have the precision and strength to make it work.
Yolo.
In this helicopter, we fucking ball!
This is a kind of part you want a single metallic-crystal of… anything less would we subpar and jesus. So no uncontrolled cooling of the cast for you. (or the rotor can decide this is a good day for a extra slow spin and no-flight.)
That sounds like way more work for approximately the exact same result. If it fits, it fits :D
Stop trying to gatekeep for the fat cats in aviation safety. Your time of plenty is over. We’re onto your lies.
P.S. Pretty sure that dumb little spinny blade on the tail isn’t even doing anything. Just another useless part they want to sell you.
I’m sure it’s not the Jesus bolt(?), don’t worry.
He can just 3D print a second chance at life though, so you’re being kinda whiney bro.
You are ready to own an airplane if you can wake up in the morning, burn a $100 bill and flush it down the toilet without feeling anything.
You are ready to own a helicopter when you can do the same thing, except with ten $100 bills.
With a helicopter, I think you also need to be actively suicidal.
Not my video, but I did ride it that year at the World Freefall Convention.
Ok, i’ll bite: 3D print… in what material?
it’s a joke. Morons are crashing planes with 3D printed parts made with plastics designed for Pikachu figurines.
If it only cost pennies to print it’s not strong enough.
Yeah but it’s some serious costs savings!
“Don’t have to pay pilots if they’re dead” – some CEO, probably
PET, of course!
So is the bolt food safe?
It’s PET, so probably.
Tpu
With all the bad shit happening due to corrupt government agencies, it’s refreshing to read comments in this post about how the FAA is still anal as fuck like they should be, though flying on a Boeing still makes me nervous.
I honestly don’t even believe that bolt is that cheap. I read horror stories about a set of 4 normal ass “aviation grade” screws that cost thousands of dollars.
Its the signatures that validate the screws that you’re actually paying for.
This is called the Jesus nut. It holds the main rotor onto the helicopter. It doesn’t have any redundancy, so if it fails, you’re going to be meeting Jesus in moments.
TIL there’s many Jesus’s nuts are all over the sky.
Chem trails! Jaysus is nutting!
Thankfully this one is built of many redundant layers instead of just one layer of metal.
Not needing food or shelter anymore because you’re dead is also great for your budget.
Going out with a bang is great for everybody’s budget!
Probably until you get to the megaton range. At that point I suspect you’re probably bringing a lot of people with you.
And the environment!
Na, it sounds good but your ungrateful relatives take all your money.
Wont even take off
Someone who owns a helicopter but is bitching about spending $1500???
I know the post is a joke but it’s more like “somebody owns a helicopter rental business and they’re bitching about repairs on helicopters they themselves don’t pilot so they themselves aren’t in danger”
Helicopter landlord!
land?.. Helilord.
The etymology of helicopter is actually a compound word divided in an unexpected place:
- “Helico” means rotating or spiral.
- “Pter” means wing, as in the word “pterodactyl.”
So if we’re gonna bring that into another compound word, we should probably chop it in the right place: pterlord.
TIL 👍
And one step closer to turdlord.
Aerolord.
I just realized we will probably have aerolords in a couple decades. I should invest in clean air and stockpile it. Maybe it’s my chance to be a lord. I’m going to need a compound, barbed wire, and machineguns too. Shit, it’s a lot of work being a lord. I think I’ll just pay for an air subscription.
Skylord?
Oh, this perspective didn’t occur to me, it makes everything so much worse 😅
People think private pilots are rich because airplanes are expensive. They’re not - they might be upper-middle class (with a mortgage and other debt) but most have to budget their aviation spending. Truly wealthy people don’t fly their own planes, they hire pilots and crew, and probably have no idea what a Jesus nut looks like.
That said, this is obviously satire/bait.
I had to check up Jesus nut, and learned that’s what it’s called because it’s the one you pray will hold because if it don’t you crash. Hahaha
How do you think they managed to own a helicopter?
Unfair. I’ve spent my entire life not buying expensive (or even cheap) helicopter parts and I still don’t have a helicopter.
I do have a 3d printer, though…
Hm…
Jarvis! Preheat the print bed.
I printed an ABS powerwheels gear out for a friend to test the fit. 100% infill, tt was chonky, was going to get it redone in nylon.
it fit and was ripped to shreds in 30 seconds :)
Try 200% infill next time
Have you seen the prices on the non-Euclidean filament these days? Only Voidstar labs can afford that shit.
FYI: Plastic Welding is a thing that exists. Use it literally all the time to fix what my kids break.
Power Wheel Wheel included. Takes literally seconds to fix a crack
Gear D was what broke, it delivers the full thrust to the final axel and take most of the force when the wheel take a hit. there’s no welding that
You needed to increase walls
At 100% infill, it’s all wall. Though the better bet is probably using the printed part to make a mold.
Not sure, might be different. Like the infill might go side to side but walls go up and down. So increasing walls might still give more strength.
it’s a gear, so you need the layers to be perpendicular to the rotation to give it a chance, but the final drive interface came up off the gear like a tophat. It was not a good candidate for FDM. Realistically, it wasn’t a good candidate for resin either. The tophat really needed to be metal with an interface into resin or nylon for the gear to gear surfaces.
nah there’s a difference in print line orientation on all the slicers I’ve used. When printing functional parts like that, especially mechanical ones, you really got to pay attention to printing orientations
For a use case like this it would be a good use case to do 3D printed casting.
3D print the part. Mold out of silicon. Then make the final part in resin.
Or just buy the real part.
There’s also ways to make plastic parts via injection at home.
Resin was one of my early thoughts. The original Nylon is pretty tough, and they kept breaking gears. (I think he was overvolting it) He tried replacement boxes but they just broke immediately, he managed to get a couple of original gears at $80 a piece, but they didn’t last long either.
I think the right answer would have been to replace the motor with something that had a higher Kv and done a belt drive. (like electric skate parts with a little more ratio)
I bet there’s some good threads in RV cars forums for stuff like this.
I didn’t even consider belt driven.
Yeah, even annealing it didn’t help much. I think the original part of the injection-molded nylon was a bit under-specified.
It would have been a good project for metal, but it would have been 4 years in the box and cost more than the original ride-on.
