Custom Circuit Breaker Mishap

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Jeff Curtis

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First flight for my Circuit Breaker. Flight went well but upon landing, in grass I might add, the transition snapped in two. The transition looked like it was 3-D printed. Given the clean nature of the break it would appear there was a seam in there. I'll reach out to Custom and see what they have to say.

Circuit Breaker mishap.jpg
 
No worries Jeff. Most 3D prints are made of PLA. I guess that is likely what it was. They generally are weaker in the z-direction, up when printing, due to the adhesion between the layers being less than the strength of the material in the other (X, Y) directions.

FYI I strenghten my ABS parts using cyanoacrylate glue and they have worked to over Mach 2 successfully. Not sure what people use to strengthen PLA. Anybody else want to chime in here?
 
That break doesn't look like anything I've ever seen. But I've never seen these 3D printed things either.
To me, it just doesn't seam profitable to print transitions as long as it seams to take by some stuff I've read.
Blow mold or injection mold is much faster making it more economical.
Custom kits are not that expensive to begin with. I picked up a couple the other day on sale for $4.50 at JonRockets.
I got the Serin & Freestyle, The Land Viper was $7 and the Liberty was $8.63.
Also grabbed the ASP D-Region Tomahawk & Sania Sandhawk in 13mm to go with my ASP 13mm ISQY Tomahawk.

To reinforce it, would coating the inside with with epoxy and some card stock work?
 
To me, it just doesn't seam profitable to print transitions as long as it seams to take by some stuff I've read.
Blow mold or injection mold is much faster making it more economical.

Injection/blow molded molds and equipment are very expensive to make. You'd need a very large number of units purchased to make it worth the startup and fab costs.

Printing allows a smaller kit run to be put together since the unique cones and transitions can be created in house instead of having to be ordered from a factory somewhere.

Epoxy reinforcement, maybe. Cardstock would probably be useless here. Finerglass is a better reinforcing material
 
That's true, but Custom doesn't switch out kits very often. And several of their kits use the same nose cone and fin set.
Looking at their available parts assortment will see how many different components they use.
I'm sure Custom doesn't sell no where near the kits some of the other LP companies do, which is probably why they don't change out their designs often.
I like several of their kits, especially the Galaxy and Liberty which use the "Mighty-D" engine.
And the cluster Landviper, and the sporty Redliner. And lets not forget the Vanishing Point.
They have switched to pressure sensitive decals which I don't care for though.
 
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