Nope. To be scrapped.
2blades have been abandoned (mostly) in marine applications for some reason. Performance is not even close to 3 blades, manoeuvrability also, annoying vibration which seems to set back the motor, it struggled to get up to full speed but at partial throttle also was not pushing hard, like with excessive pitch prop.
Unfortunately I’m running suicidal since one month, no switch no volt/ammeter no fuse… So I can only judge by the fact that I found many solder joint melted, almost lose! One motor cable with xt150, the parallel connector awg10 inside the battery box, almost gone.
At the end of the day, I can tell that Caeses app is cool and produces better profiled blades, but more fragile 3d printed so fiberglassing mandatory.
3 blades is the good tradeoff, I will try to crimp the most of the joints fron now on.
Back to prop, the 3 blade today took me to 24kt, and it’s gentle on the motor/esc
Hi MaB
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with 3d printing the props!! I just got a spool og Polymaker PC-Max today and started printing the 140-230 prop this morning. The print unfortunately failed because of the wings lifted of the print bed, print was 50% done, but I noticed that the layer adhesion wasn’t very good, when bending the half-finished prop.
Could you maybe share your print settings and your experience printing with PC-Max? Temps, speed, layer height, line width etc.? And did you anneal the prop afterwards in an oven?
If someone is interested, here is a 3d model close to the one FR used to reach 50kmh the first time :
Generated using the same software, I do not have that much time to tinker the different parameters so I share it “as it”.
Yeah, this prop is made to be CNC’ed. You’d get way better results trying to make it in alu. I would suggest anyone wanting to mill it to use 7075-t6. That’s what FR is using. This particular al is aerospace grade bu is not corrosive resistant, meaning you have to anodize it afterwards. Here too, I would suggest hard anodizing with 50µm at least.
I will try to upload a thicker version if I can but I can’t promise for now.
Have you got any tips for the shroud? My new 3D printer arrived and I can print that missing part now.
What profile should I use?
How many struts?
What angle is best?
How much clearance is best?
As a starting point, have look at Pacificmeisters build, there is a parametric prop and duct. You could adapt that parametric duct to your needs. It has six struts. I printed a modified version to fit my prop. It is printed in ASA-X and with 6 struts it’s fairly stable.
I was also playing with the Caeses B-series propeller generator, what did you choose for root thickness and minimum blade thickness? Not sure what the minimum for a 3d printed prop would be that it does not break. Any real world values? Prop diameter 150mm.
