Oct. 13, 2014 | By Alec

While 3D printing technology has a host of useful, innovative and even life-saving applications, why not have some fun with it too? That's the idea behind a new Kickstarter campaign launched for the FPV (First Persion View) Quad Racer. This campaign was started by a team of quad-crazy Australians who want to develop a 3D printing service that brings affordable, efficient and aerodynamic quadcopters to racing enthusiasts everywhere.

Indeed, as this introductory video shows, its all about the thrill of the race to them:


As they explain on their Kickstarter, quadcopter racing is becoming the fastest growing sport in radio-controlled mechanics, which is understandable. These camera-mounted speed devils are not only easy to control, but they're also becoming increasingly affordable through 3D printing.

In flight

Various open-source quadcopter designs can easily be found on Thingiverse and other 3D printing databases, and anyone with a desktop 3D printer can create their own. As these speed-crazy Aussies said, 'We just wanted to build something FUN! Who doesn't like racing? There's a little bit of racing in all of us, FPV Quad Racing is all about being immersed in racing First Person View quadcopters.'

3D Printed Parts, The parts are made out of PLA plastic

Prototype Quad Racer

And through its cheap, plastic nature, parts on 3D printed quadcopters can easily be replaced; 'We all know that in all forms of racing there's aways going of some crashes. The cool thing about the FPV Quad Racer is that all the parts are 3D printed and easily replaced.'

However, their project aims at all those speed-freaks who don't have a desktop 3D printer themselves. This Australian trio – Wayne Ratcliffe, Sam Thurtle and Hai Tran – know exactly what quadcopter racing is all about. Ratcliffe has claimed the New Zealand Championship for F3C Model Helicopter Aerobatics earlier this year, while Thurtle and Tran have copious experience with racing and designing 3D printed contraptions as well.

Ready to Race

Together, they intend to set up an affordable print & build service for quadcopters: 'we print it, you race it!' They already own a 3D printer (brand unknown) capable of printing two of these copters a day, but with the funds they want to realize a printing capacity of ten to twenty (!) copters a day.To realize this service, they hope to gather 6,000 AUD (or Australian Dollars) by 9 November. Obviously, generous backers will be rewarded with actual quadcopters.

Fits in a small Pelican case

Obviously this all sounds nice, but many of you might think 'why bother? Why not just print out my very own quadcopter or get a friend to do it for me?' Anyone thinking of that does have a point, as there are many designs out there. Just in recent weeks, we've reported on the Hovership project and the Elf Quad. What makes their Quad Racer worth the effort?

And this would be the answer: unlike all those other designs, the Quad Racer is optimized for RC racing. As they explained, their design borrows and acknowledges those other copters, but improves on them: 'We became inspired to design our own 3D printed quad after seeing a number of open source designs. Our design was made to have as many interchangeable parts with other 3D printed quad copters as possible. The FPV Quad Racer was designed using Autodesk Inventor and printed in 3D using a Flashforge Creator.'

Ready to Race

All parts, from the structure to the positioning of the motor arms and avionics plate, have been designed to be as light as possible and to make flight as quick and aerodynamic as they could. Finally, all parts can be easily replaced, as they understand that racing isn't without risks.

This makes the Quad Racer an interesting piece of flying equipment. Racing enthusiasts should therefore definitely check out this cool 3D printed RC machine. After all, why race cars, when you can take to the skies with camera-mounted quadcopters that can fly like the wind?

Want to see more about the thrill of racing, check out this footage of 3D printed quadcopters in action:



Posted in 3D Printing Applications

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bethel wrote at 6/19/2015 5:00:54 AM:

Hello, Here's bethel from ONBO(www.onbopower.com) Our 45C 250 / 280 / 350 FPV Racing Drone mini quadcopter RC lipo battery were launched , which super suit for Lumenier / Vortex / VooDoo : 1100mah 45C3S size:18*34*72mm(T*W*L) 1400mah 45C3S size:24*34*72mm(T*W*L) 1600mah 45C3S size:25*34*72mm(T*W*L) 1900mah 45C3S size:22*34*103mm(T*W*L) looking forward to your interesting. best wishes bethel

Thunter wrote at 10/15/2014 4:24:41 AM:

I've reported to kickstarter, would recomend others to do the same, its a terrible thing to see appear on kickstarter as well as on here(THEY EVEN REFERENCE THE OPEN SOURCE PROJECT IN THE SAME ARTICLE)

Bri wrote at 10/13/2014 2:43:20 PM:

This looks like a complete ripoff of the hovership project, they even have the exact same retracting arms. Gotta love it. The poor designer is probably spending more time sending take downs than actually designing.

droneflyer wrote at 10/13/2014 2:10:29 PM:

This kickstarter campaign creator is trying to profit copying open source project created by Hovership and free to download from thingiverse. Please do not help him to achieve that by free publicity. His move already made damage to comunity, Hovership was going to publish version 2 of the quadcopter but now he is hesitating. DIYDRONES published this news but removed it after short while because of complaints of abuse of licence (not for sale) on thingiverse.



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