UPDATES (2024): New Links to the Props: cults3d.com/:2543315 Fusion tutorial on props is up: (We went with toroidal since they are the most complex) ruclips.net/video/1JPMgXGwauw/видео.html The feedback and tips have been amazing! Thank you for all the advice!
Two things: I am getting an injection molding machine and might be able to work with you. Second: would you be interested in an conversation on a novel application concept that I have using a drone?
The creator of APC props was a RC plane guy at my club in the 90’s. We all were part of his product testing efforts fun times. He made them in his garage using a resin molding process. The 3D printed stuff today is really just proof of concept and mold making blank capability of which we didn’t have in the 90’s. The zip line prop concept should generate just as much thrust as a similar surface area standard prop as long as turbulence from the leading blade isn’t affecting the trailing blade. I will say that the foil shape at the root of the blade was found to have a large impact on the prop performance at various RPMs. The blade tip also can affect performance especially if the blade flexes under load. The APC props have a unique root foil and rigidity for a reason. Each prop use / profile be it Pylon Racing, aerobatics, general sport flying evolved into a unique foil design due to the performance differences and speeds the aircraft we’re running at. Drone props are massively ripped off designs in many ways to each other by the typical Chinese manufacturer. I haven’t really seen any drone props that are really engineered to a level we see with Zipline based in California or even what we did in the 90’s with our club member who created APC props in California 😆. Is there a need for real foil design in drone props? Oh heck YES!!! The trash I see being run today on drones is like our wood hand carved props we flew way back in the day😆.
That's very interesting, and I'm sure it would have been a cool experience! 3D printing really is just a great proof of concept/prototype medium with some limited production uses. Makes a lot of sense. Most of our fpv drone props are extremely flexible (with the exception of our cinelifters) which is great for crashing, but I'm sure it is also a tradeoff in performance. I'll have to look into the APC props a little more. Thank you for the detailed explanation, it's really helpful 🤘🏼 Lol, this is so true. The copy and paste method of manufacturing is getting out of hand 😅 I'd love to see this become more mainstream. You've sparked my curiosity and I'm definitely digging into this soon. Thanks for the info and detailed comment! 😎🤘🏼
Ah, also...on this design we are more than DOUBLING the rotational mass for no additional lift. Who's tried just running props with more surface area? Assuming we are going to sacrifice for "quiet"...how much is too much sacrifice? You guys are going to drag me down this rabbit hole. 🤦🏼♂️
a very large range of speeds does not allow to be a good propeller for drones, it’s just that somewhere it’s better, somewhere worse, in general, we will still get the same average value, if we do not take into account a certain category.
0:15 Zipline's props are streamlined, have a long stem for a smaller counterweight and interference with the blade-generated vortices, and look like a larger angle between the blades. 7:57 yours aren't quieter because you've missed at least two design parameters that Zipline used.
Yeah, you definitely can't trial-and-error these into silence with any amount of parameters. They likely developed the Zipline props with CFD to do something like destructive interference to cancel out noise.
PLA is not the weakest. It's stronger than PETG and ABS. The reason people like PETG is for durability, which is quantified by the Izod notch toughness test. The issue you're really running into with the orientation you're using though is inter-layer adhesion. FDM prints are highly anisotropic, which means different material properties in different directions. I'd recommend SLA printing for prop prototypes as they are far closer to isotropic. They're also far higher resolution to capture the propeller airfoil most accurately. Good luck
Yeah the layer binding in PETG can be very high. Like PLA though it's rather brittle. For FDM I'd probably go with PC for this application, but it would be interesting to see how some of the less brittle resins hold up too.
The second it started printing up I knew this would be an issue. Granted lying down it would have lots of supports but on it's side you should be able to get only supports on the very edges of the blades and that's much eaiser to fix/sand. Also nothing stopping him splitting the design into 2 or three parts that lock together reducing the supports even further.
There's a quick "Easter Egg" related to something that happened today hidden in this video. Comment below the time stamp and what it is and I'll include your comment in the next video. Hint: It's a full clip, not something within a clip. Cheers 🤘🏼
My initial thoughts (after designing, printing, testing, iterate) is that you are printing with stacked layer being normal to the axis of rotation. Hence the instantaneous destruction or RUD (Rapid Unplanned Destruction). You realize this at about 3 minutes into the video. I printed both the TriLobe and DuoLobe (3 blades and 2 blades) for a DJI Mini laying flat, slowly, 0.12mm layer height, without supports (sliced with both Cura 5.3.1 and Prusa 2.4.0-alpah-alpha6). I tried PLA, PLA+, PLA+CarbonFiber, ABS, and NinjaFlex (TPU). PLA+ worked best for me.
My take from the zipline video was that the two blades were also not identical. This meant that the sound each makes is at a different frequency so they don’t reinforce each other. Might be something to try for V2.
Isn't the sound frequency dependent on the motor's RPM? I'd think the blades would produce noise at the same frequency since both blades are rotating at the same RPM.
Amazing video! You could try to "cast" them using salt powder. If you powderize salt, print with 100% infill you can than press the props inside of a brick of salt ( in a pirex container) and remelt them to form a solid object made out of one single matrix of plastic....
When you have a working shape, you can create a mold with two components silicon rubber, and cast them with special a resin. I did some propellers using prochima sintofoam (it's similar to ABS when catalyzed) and i added some carbon filament inside the mold before putting resin
It works by disrupting the vortex shedding from the tips of the props. The necessary LONGER "counter balance" is used to break up the vortex's . It is not only a counter balance.
Pro tip - been using 3D printed props for air and water (boat) with no issues for years by simply coating props with cyanoacrylate. No annealing required. Quick, fast, reliable.
Can you try offsetting the outersurface of the prop by about 0.3mm and then fiber glass? Use carbon or glass toe around the hub. The aerodynamic centre of the zipline prop force is not centred on the hub which causes vibrations and twisting of drone arms. I would be interested in finding out what happens with a similar three blade prop with the props at 95.5, 124.9, and 139.6 degrees (these are prime ratios which I think will spread out the frequency of excitation. You get fewer repeating patterns with prime numbers with the rotation of the blades if that make sense. If you know what a response spectrum is, it flattens out the response spectrum). Each prop can be a different size so the aerodynamic centre of force is at the hub which also reduces vibration. Stag the heights of the props for clean air. I am really curious to see what the result would be.
That could work! I'll add this to the list of test versions for the follow up video. Interesting. I'll take your notes and do some more digging to get a better understanding of the science before our next design. Thank you for the details!! 🤘🏼
Great video! Super interesting to see you going through all the different versions and also just taking something you’ve seen from a video and just making it happen! Who knows where prop designs will end up in 5 years!
Thank you!! I'll have to admit, this video was more for me than anyone lol. Making the video gave me the excuse to keep experimenting with different versions 😅. It is pretty exciting to see all the new designs. I seriously am considering picking up an injection mold 🤘🏼
@@CK3DPRINTS awesome! I really like sunlu nylon like resin. It's got a lot of flex to it. It can be a little bit challenging to print with since it's consistency while printing is pretty stretchy. But for something like this where it's small and there's not a lot of stress on the material while printing it would probably be perfect. The nylon (pa) like can be hard to come by so an abs like is a good alternative (I like the sunlu abs like) Just for the love of God don't use a standard resin like elegoo grey or something. They are way too brittle. You're going to need something a bit more specialized
I was hoping someone mentioned this. I've been effectively 3d printing and using parts for professional projects since 2000, and although most of that time was utilizing FDM, I knew it was a deadend(layer weakness and detail/finish). The main reasons SLA was not utilized was a combo of price/availability and material quality. Not only has the price of it all plummeted in recent years, the materials have also come a long way. I now mostly use an Elegoo machine and water soluble resin, much easier to deal with than the alcohol stuff, but some of the more exotic and stronger resins are still alcohol based. You may need to try a few to find the best resin for this use, but if you do you may never go back to FDM. Especially if you can manage to print with little to no support structure, tricky but do-able, and produces the best 3d parts I've seen in decades.
I've printed quite a lot of props and found Tough PLA to be the best option, printed flat. Also, bigger (8" in my case) props work better as they rotate slower, reducing the centripetal force. Unfortunately, printed props always seem to be noisier and less efficient even if you work hard to sand & smooth the surface. While it's cheating a bit, my attempt at the zip-line prop used a pair of decent Carbon Fibre props with one blade cut off, stacked with the stem of the counterbalance sandwiched inbetween. You can buy hubs with a female thread - then use a long screw to hold it all together, along with some glue to fix the positions. For 8" diameter, I spaced the two bladed 10mm apart with a 30 degree angle between the blades. This seemed to give the lowest perceived noise level with decent efficiency. Even still, silent it was not.
Could definitely make resin printed molds and diy injection molding set up with say a drill press and hydraulic press/jack. Maybe even silicone 2 part molds and epoxy🤷🏻♂️
If you want to quickly strengthen a PLA print, you can brush it with runny superglue, then spritz it with hardening accelerant, and the glue will go into the voids and pores, and your prints will be instantly far stronger. I learned this trick from the RUclips channel of Robert Murray Smith, the maker/engineer dude.
the ideal prop, efficiency-wise would be a single blade, large, slow moving prop, so i think this would be pretty good actually (you will have uneven trust and you need to make the counter balance as aerodynamic as possible)
I think the best approach would be to use a 3D printed prop for making a mold which can be used to mold something more durable in one solid piece e.g. resin.
You definitely will benefit from resin printing on this. Better surface and uniform performance of its materials in all axis. And yeah obviously not with standart resin it will be even more brittle)
If you want to do injection molding you can 3d print a mold. Use the high temperature stuff and print 100% infill then use lower temp plastic to injection mold. For an injector it is fairly easy to make one from low cost steel pipe. Make a plunger and a nozzle then use an Induction heater to heat the steel pipe. It will take some trial and error to get the temp right but you can easily and cheaply do it
So last year I was building a quad and I needed this very specific set of props but they were all sold out every where and I was at my wits end until my printer looked at me in that way and I was like screw it let’s give it a go and through all of my prop explosions I learned a good way to make them strong with out changing the physical features of the prop like what might happen when annealing them I learned I could buy large amounts of ca glue for cheep so $40 later I found my self dipping my props in a bowl of ca on my front porch and letting the sun cure them and after that I just balanced them and they flew amazing well amazing for props I made my self but they were reliable and I flew the final version I made for six months anyways I really hope that you can have the same success I did and you have definitely earned a subscribe from me as I feel your pain😂
it would be cool to see a weighted single toroidal prop, would it have less turbulence from the blade wingtips wrapping around instead of being separate? maybe stronger than the ziplines?
I have designed and printed some 5" zipline-style props to compare against some other printed props for a project. I MSLA printed them in a mix of Siraya Tech Blu and Siraya Tech fast resin. The surface finish was good and they were almost balanced right of the print plate. So far they have managed to slowly ramp up to 23 000 rpm before exploding. I haven't tested the thrust yet but will soon. Just going off how much air they are blowing compared to regular props I assume it would be possible to fly on them but would need, on my 5" fpv quad, a throttle stop at about 70%. Maybe soon I will flight test them.
Could you not use off the shelf props, cut off and epoxied into a 3d printed hub? Or do the blades need to be shaped totally differently from standard ones? As others have said, the approach where you use 3d printing to make a mold might be the strongest option.
I would assume that lower frequency is still an advantage in that lower frequency noise tends to be less obvious/dissipate better from far away outdoors, accomplishing the goal of being less noticeable to bystanders
For strength it’d probably be better to print in something that melts with ISO and fume smooth the outside which would not only make it more aerodynamic but would eliminate layer lines on the outside. It may even be beneficial to anneal the props then fume smooth after that.
Great effort, I think the main facor in making these props quieter goes towards first spinning them slower. If you've ever built a giant 15inch prop quad you'd know how quiet they are compared to a 5 inch - just because they spin the prop at a much much slower rate to begin with they move all the noise and wasted energy lower down in the spectrum
Thank you! You have a valid point. Larger props are much quieter in most cases. We are going to do a follow up video where we will test 15" (ish) props. Should be interesting 😅🔥
Assuming you have the AMS accessory for your X1, you should go for that dissolvable support you were talking about. You don't have to print the entire support in it, just the "interface". You may not even need to put it in water, it should separate more cleanly from PETG than using PETG support material exclusively. As for molding, you could make resin molds with silicone, OR you could use an mSLA printer to print injection molds and build a little DIY injection molding machine from a couple drill presses and simple electronics.
Re: Injection molding. You can make limited-use injection molds for some lower-temp thermoplastics on a resin printer using special high-temp resins. You would still have to make an injector, but the resin and collars for printed molds are both sold at reasonable prices for people who want low-volume manufacture that's too much to be entirely 3D printed but not economically viable to have actual dies cut from steel or aluminum. If you do end up exploring this, have fun with it! HDPE is infinitely recyclable and might be strong enough to work - then you can make a video called "Making groundbreaking propellers out of laundry detegent bottles!" or the like
To massively improve the stabilety you could print them vericaly, cast them into plaster and then throw them into an oven to remelt the plastic inside of the plaster, make sure to keep it long and hot enougth to compleatly remelt the plastic
ModBot recently did a video on printing pla with petg as support material and visa versa. Gives a very good supported surface finish without marring. Might be worth a look.
did you hear me screaming while the first 2 tests with the pla/petg printed vertically? :D I mean, every 3d print user would know the problem. entertaining video! I vote for the design guidance video, have to learn still a lot in fusion360 :D
Lol, I knew it would be a little frustrating to the 3D printing crowd 🤣 Thank you! That video is up, but unlisted. We are going to makes some adjustments and re-upload. You can watch it here though: ruclips.net/video/e1RtExmpnto/видео.html
It’s not just what you use to print with but how you print it. You need to find the correct angle so that the layer lines are longitudinally their longest with less separation.
A Fusion 360 design walk-through would be phenomenal. One thing I would try is resin 3d printing, since you can get much much finer layer lines and surface finish, even printing horizontally.
We are trying resin in the follow up video, thanks! The Fusion tutorial is up as well: Draw Props in FUSION 360 | Toroidal and Zipline ruclips.net/video/1JPMgXGwauw/видео.html
Hi, for greater resistance have you tried putting UV resin on these propellers, applied with a brush so that it remains a thin layer I think it could strengthen the resistance?
PLA is in fact among the stro gest philament, its not tough, thats what you tought you had an issue with. As PLA has higher tensile strength, than PETG or ABS. However the issue was the isotropic quality of FDM prints (aka. weak along layer lines). If you. have issue with that i recommend high hardness grade TPU. If you cannot print it in proper orientation that is.
Yea, PLA is stronger, but not as flexible as the PETG. The start and stop of the props seems to be the majority of the stress and this is where flex is better. I thought about TPU but haven't found one that is hard enough to keep its shape at speed. Any recommendations?
I wonder if this may be a good use case for resin. You wouldnt have the issue with layer delamination since resin prints are pretty uniform regardless of print orientation. Resin is not shock resistant but is pretty strong in tension. You would also get more accuracy in general. Though definitely not a permanent prop solution
Are these props scalable, as in, can you scale them down and put them on smaller quads? Or does the aerodynamics get all weird when you scale them up or down?
The point is to over size. Use low rpm high torque motors. Also the trailing blade has a 10-15% higher pitch than leading blade. The angle between the blades is based on the optimal rpm
The angle between the blades is set, so at the pitch, turbulence noise is 180 degrees out of phase of the other blade. I found a tuning it was simple to record the sound at hover under load and tune by moving them apart, tell the sound from 1 blade, cancels out the sound of the other at that rpm, and load. I did all my testing on a bench with a load cell on an arm off the side of the table, swinging a T16x8 prop and modified by cutting 2 props dril holes in the CF and casting bismuth and trimming to balance each blade and the to as a set a modified tall hub let's me change the angle between them to tune to the 3500 rpm I ran them at for for efficiency. Power was a bench supply at 90v to a hv vesc a a set of umik2 from minidsp I use 1 at 5ft and 1 at 20ft to capture noise peeks and tune the props. It's no joke I managed to drop 19db doing this
HI Cliff! May I suggest that you lengthen the blades and make them wider. This would increase the surface area of lift and would reduce the rpm required for take off.
Hey! I think you are correct with this. We started designing them a little on the “stubby” side to make them easier and stronger when 3d printing. Our follow up video will go this route though. Cheers! 🤘🏼
If we picture the Zipline-prop as a single unit being used in a tractor configuration so that one of the two offset blades is first being forward, does it matter which is advanced and which is trailing? This may be a stupid question but, when geese fly in V formation the trailing bird must be above to catch the pressure wave from it's leading bird. I imagine the second blade of the prop should trail behind to catch the wave to amplify the thrust, but if it does will this alter the acoustics or the performance?
If you were serious about wanting to make a mold I have a good friend who makes injection molds for a living. He can make a small mold called a mud mold with a cavity for the left hand right prop pretty easily
The offest seems to be the key, have you tried 3 offest props? I would also space them out so they are not evenly spaced to lower the resonant frequency.
Combine the toroidal with the zipline concept. If the blades are connected, they will be stronger, and maybe the loop itself can be made to add some lift. You could also try making one perfect example, hand smoothed and polished to perfection and make a support mold from clay or something for your printer to build onto/into, and eliminate the support structure removal issues altogether.
These are great ideas for sure, and something we will definitely consider. Our channel was originally a camera/drone channel, but after this video I realized how much more I enjoy the engineering side (what I grew up doing). After 6 months of moving and setting up a new shop, we just posted our transition video today. So, we will FINALLY be revisiting this project very soon and on a much larger scale 😅. I'll be sure to mention this, and other comments when we finally finish the next video on this. Thanks for your advice!!
Could make a channel inside the props, shove a metal wire coated in epoxy in there. The metal wire will hold it together better, and the epoxy will slightly shrink (and mate the two materials together). Additionally, you could get a slightly conductive filament and electroplate something onto it. (Might have luck resin printing a micro lattice, for lots of surface area for the electroplating to deposit material on. Would have to be sparse unless using a electroless plating solution.)
You need a X1-Carbon Combo. If you printed them laying flat to align with layers optionally out of PETG with PLA as the support interface it would give you a support that would breakaway cleanly and give you a much stronger part. After prototyping the concept use either PA12-CF or PET-CF with Bambu Lab breakaway support material ("Support G") if necessary. I find using 3 interface layers with a grid like pattern with the carbon fiber reinforce nylon blends you really don't even need the specialized support material. It comes off extremely clean. Your printer and material choices will make a huge difference in your success...I promise you that!!
You're exactly right. Bigger propellers are also more efficient and run on lower rpms. The limiting factor is the frame size of your drone. There's a give and take as increasing the frame size increases the forces it needs to withstand and increases weight from the compensating material.
Such a cool video! Is that chimera 7 used? It looks identical to the one i used to fly and then sold on fpv market place. Mainly because of the forward pushed gopro mount.
If you dont want to print in the 300deg range , look into mold supplies and use your filament print as templates for the mothers you can cast. You can even cast metal in reusable modings material these days
Most all cooling fans on vehicles are not symmetrical, the blades will still be balanced but spread out varying widths. It helps to quiet the percussion waves like you’d hear from a helicopter.
For better sheer strength, consider metal reinforcement. Extra light aluminum strip just inside the outer rim of the blade, creating a tension pulling inwards along the whole prop. Cheap, light, solid, reusable. Its the method I do for anything that needs to hold any sort of weight, because 3d prints are notorious with sheer because of the layering
Also, I wonder about the circle arc supportless 3d printing system. If you adjusted the arcs along the shape of the prop, you might be able to dramatically improve the whole print and get rid of the supports entirely in a single upgrade
Print the props with wax and then put them in a plaster of paris (PoP) or sand mold and then push in hot liquid plastic or metal. Ideally, Wax will burn off and you should get rough cut props which can be polished to an accurate shape.
Also the pattern it's prints is important, 100 percent infill move around on plate till z seam is diminished or in exceptable location, also fine layer lines on each layer.
Good call on running a higher temp, I’m doing that on our next set. 🤘🏼 Balance was close in all directions. The wide counterweight allows for adjustments both ways. It wasn’t as perfect as I would have our cinelifter props though. Thanks for the tips!!
Another thought that came to mind it was hard for me to explain, even though weight is balance on balance tool all the way around, the angle of attack or incidents to hub ,ounce lift starts acting on blade at different speeds unequal forces are applied to attach point on spinning hub. Like the flex in say top blade angle changes and forces the blade to go in unrealistic angle of attack and tear itself apart. High speed camera with smoke might tell u more of forces acting on blades. Also test subjects I would be curious on how brittle vs toughness, or flexibility. Just trying to be constructive not over critical. Thanks for all your hard work!
Love to see a vid of your prop’s design process. I use Onshape but Fusion is cool too. Thanks for sharing a fun video. I reckon a mould might work…? Cheers!
That was my thought. You can also acetone smooth them which would make the props super smooth and bind the layers together better. I do this all the time on my models (not props yet).
The obvious solution is to use SLA resin 3D printing. You can get much better stiffness vs flex properties with resins like Siraya Tech Blu etc. Secondly... if you want to knock out batches and batches of these things, you really ought to get into simple mold and casting techniques. This is where 3D printing obviously shines, especially resin printing. Due to the smooth, almost non-existent layer lines. Casting is super easy, and not expensive at all, using Smooth-On products. Plus, there's awesome casting resins that harden in minutes. With a silicone mould in your drone kits, you could literally make new props in the field and be back flying well under an hour.
Carbon fiber won't help but i'd give a shot to nylon if you are able to print some. It's a pain in the ass to print but the X1 is more than capable to do so. No part cooling and the right temperature should make those very solid and the flex will prevent them from "exploding".
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
UPDATES (2024):
New Links to the Props:
cults3d.com/:2543315
Fusion tutorial on props is up: (We went with toroidal since they are the most complex) ruclips.net/video/1JPMgXGwauw/видео.html
The feedback and tips have been amazing! Thank you for all the advice!
Try silent computer fans that have a band around the circumference of the blade tips. Should be a simple modification of the shaft connection.
Two things: I am getting an injection molding machine and might be able to work with you. Second: would you be interested in an conversation on a novel application concept that I have using a drone?
link rot issue. The files are no longer available. Can you provide a new link or put it up on printables etc.?
Where is the link for the model ?
@@Larsbor I think the link is down again. I will update it later today, and reply. Thanks for the reminder 🙏🏻
The creator of APC props was a RC plane guy at my club in the 90’s. We all were part of his product testing efforts fun times. He made them in his garage using a resin molding process. The 3D printed stuff today is really just proof of concept and mold making blank capability of which we didn’t have in the 90’s.
The zip line prop concept should generate just as much thrust as a similar surface area standard prop as long as turbulence from the leading blade isn’t affecting the trailing blade. I will say that the foil shape at the root of the blade was found to have a large impact on the prop performance at various RPMs. The blade tip also can affect performance especially if the blade flexes under load. The APC props have a unique root foil and rigidity for a reason. Each prop use / profile be it Pylon Racing, aerobatics, general sport flying evolved into a unique foil design due to the performance differences and speeds the aircraft we’re running at.
Drone props are massively ripped off designs in many ways to each other by the typical Chinese manufacturer. I haven’t really seen any drone props that are really engineered to a level we see with Zipline based in California or even what we did in the 90’s with our club member who created APC props in California 😆.
Is there a need for real foil design in drone props? Oh heck YES!!! The trash I see being run today on drones is like our wood hand carved props we flew way back in the day😆.
That's very interesting, and I'm sure it would have been a cool experience! 3D printing really is just a great proof of concept/prototype medium with some limited production uses.
Makes a lot of sense. Most of our fpv drone props are extremely flexible (with the exception of our cinelifters) which is great for crashing, but I'm sure it is also a tradeoff in performance. I'll have to look into the APC props a little more. Thank you for the detailed explanation, it's really helpful 🤘🏼
Lol, this is so true. The copy and paste method of manufacturing is getting out of hand 😅
I'd love to see this become more mainstream. You've sparked my curiosity and I'm definitely digging into this soon. Thanks for the info and detailed comment! 😎🤘🏼
I love APC Props!
Ah, also...on this design we are more than DOUBLING the rotational mass for no additional lift.
Who's tried just running props with more surface area?
Assuming we are going to sacrifice for "quiet"...how much is too much sacrifice?
You guys are going to drag me down this rabbit hole. 🤦🏼♂️
APC had a terrible tip airfoil....and I knew Fred too. We raced giant scale.
a very large range of speeds does not allow to be a good propeller for drones, it’s just that somewhere it’s better, somewhere worse, in general, we will still get the same average value, if we do not take into account a certain category.
NOT THE SPACE X EXPLOSION 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Haha, good catch! It happened the same day we edited this. I had to throw it in there 🤣
😅
Do you think they'll have Big Bird on that flight this time
0:15 Zipline's props are streamlined, have a long stem for a smaller counterweight and interference with the blade-generated vortices, and look like a larger angle between the blades.
7:57 yours aren't quieter because you've missed at least two design parameters that Zipline used.
Can we even get our hold on that design pramater or zipline managed to witheld them from public pretty well
yeah, i think the zipline folks mentioned wingtip vortices as a contributor to noise, and the ends of the blades on this one are not very optimized.
Yeah, you definitely can't trial-and-error these into silence with any amount of parameters. They likely developed the Zipline props with CFD to do something like destructive interference to cancel out noise.
oh, more bs... *sigh
>you've missed at least two design parameters that Zipline used.
what are they?
PLA is not the weakest. It's stronger than PETG and ABS. The reason people like PETG is for durability, which is quantified by the Izod notch toughness test. The issue you're really running into with the orientation you're using though is inter-layer adhesion. FDM prints are highly anisotropic, which means different material properties in different directions. I'd recommend SLA printing for prop prototypes as they are far closer to isotropic. They're also far higher resolution to capture the propeller airfoil most accurately. Good luck
I suspect PETG has higher through-layer axis strength than PLA but your point still stands.
Yeah the layer binding in PETG can be very high. Like PLA though it's rather brittle. For FDM I'd probably go with PC for this application, but it would be interesting to see how some of the less brittle resins hold up too.
Resin printing is going to explode the second the motor starts.
The second it started printing up I knew this would be an issue. Granted lying down it would have lots of supports but on it's side you should be able to get only supports on the very edges of the blades and that's much eaiser to fix/sand. Also nothing stopping him splitting the design into 2 or three parts that lock together reducing the supports even further.
@@TheAxebeard depends on the resin ie: Siraiya Tech Strong
There's a quick "Easter Egg" related to something that happened today hidden in this video. Comment below the time stamp and what it is and I'll include your comment in the next video. Hint: It's a full clip, not something within a clip. Cheers 🤘🏼
Starship at 7:00! Found your channel today, underrated stuff 👍
Yep, that boom was a nice touch!
Haha, nice work!! 😎
Thank you, that's really motivating!
Lol, I thought it would be a fun little detail 😅
try 3d printer resin it's much harder
Finally someone made those props, great work!
My initial thoughts (after designing, printing, testing, iterate) is that you are printing with stacked layer being normal to the axis of rotation. Hence the instantaneous destruction or RUD (Rapid Unplanned Destruction). You realize this at about 3 minutes into the video. I printed both the TriLobe and DuoLobe (3 blades and 2 blades) for a DJI Mini laying flat, slowly, 0.12mm layer height, without supports (sliced with both Cura 5.3.1 and Prusa 2.4.0-alpah-alpha6). I tried PLA, PLA+, PLA+CarbonFiber, ABS, and NinjaFlex (TPU). PLA+ worked best for me.
Rapid unscheduled disassembly *
Such a nice video. Well paced. And no stress, just someone trying and having fun. Great! Subscribed.
Thank you! I really appreciate the kind feedback, and welcome! 🤘🏼
Silent props… who would’ve ever thought you had great spirit through this 🎉 happy to see your creations
Haha right.
Thank you!!
One of our genius creative collaborators doing what they do best!
Being creatively entertaining!💡
Hey! Thanks you 🙏😎
My take from the zipline video was that the two blades were also not identical. This meant that the sound each makes is at a different frequency so they don’t reinforce each other. Might be something to try for V2.
Isn't the sound frequency dependent on the motor's RPM? I'd think the blades would produce noise at the same frequency since both blades are rotating at the same RPM.
Amazing video! You could try to "cast" them using salt powder. If you powderize salt, print with 100% infill you can than press the props inside of a brick of salt ( in a pirex container) and remelt them to form a solid object made out of one single matrix of plastic....
your videos are off the hook! I dont know if they are more informative than they are just plain fun!
Hey Dan!! Thank you, that means a lot!
We are really trying to lean into the fun side and hope people will join us for the chaos that likely follows 🤣
Well shot and edited. Entertaining as hell! 😄
Thank you!! We had a blast putting this one together 😎🤘🏼
When you have a working shape, you can create a mold with two components silicon rubber, and cast them with special a resin. I did some propellers using prochima sintofoam (it's similar to ABS when catalyzed) and i added some carbon filament inside the mold before putting resin
I think the stylized lines of the propeller help a lot, they are extremely balanced and the counterweight is flatter and longer
It works by disrupting the vortex shedding from the tips of the props. The necessary LONGER "counter balance" is used to break up the vortex's . It is not only a counter balance.
Pro tip - been using 3D printed props for air and water (boat) with no issues for years by simply coating props with cyanoacrylate. No annealing required. Quick, fast, reliable.
Can you try offsetting the outersurface of the prop by about 0.3mm and then fiber glass? Use carbon or glass toe around the hub. The aerodynamic centre of the zipline prop force is not centred on the hub which causes vibrations and twisting of drone arms. I would be interested in finding out what happens with a similar three blade prop with the props at 95.5, 124.9, and 139.6 degrees (these are prime ratios which I think will spread out the frequency of excitation. You get fewer repeating patterns with prime numbers with the rotation of the blades if that make sense. If you know what a response spectrum is, it flattens out the response spectrum). Each prop can be a different size so the aerodynamic centre of force is at the hub which also reduces vibration. Stag the heights of the props for clean air. I am really curious to see what the result would be.
That could work! I'll add this to the list of test versions for the follow up video.
Interesting. I'll take your notes and do some more digging to get a better understanding of the science before our next design.
Thank you for the details!! 🤘🏼
@@CK3DPRINTS Really looking forward to seeing results. Thanks for the work you put into this. It is pretty interesting.
Great video! Super interesting to see you going through all the different versions and also just taking something you’ve seen from a video and just making it happen! Who knows where prop designs will end up in 5 years!
Thank you!! I'll have to admit, this video was more for me than anyone lol. Making the video gave me the excuse to keep experimenting with different versions 😅. It is pretty exciting to see all the new designs. I seriously am considering picking up an injection mold 🤘🏼
The actual video start at 6:53.
Have you tried resin printing those props? They do ABS-like resins for printing and the result doesn't have layering to weaken the design.
We haven't yet, but just ordered a new resin printer for the follow up video. Thanks!!
@@CK3DPRINTS awesome! I really like sunlu nylon like resin. It's got a lot of flex to it. It can be a little bit challenging to print with since it's consistency while printing is pretty stretchy. But for something like this where it's small and there's not a lot of stress on the material while printing it would probably be perfect. The nylon (pa) like can be hard to come by so an abs like is a good alternative (I like the sunlu abs like) Just for the love of God don't use a standard resin like elegoo grey or something. They are way too brittle. You're going to need something a bit more specialized
I was hoping someone mentioned this. I've been effectively 3d printing and using parts for professional projects since 2000, and although most of that time was utilizing FDM, I knew it was a deadend(layer weakness and detail/finish). The main reasons SLA was not utilized was a combo of price/availability and material quality. Not only has the price of it all plummeted in recent years, the materials have also come a long way. I now mostly use an Elegoo machine and water soluble resin, much easier to deal with than the alcohol stuff, but some of the more exotic and stronger resins are still alcohol based. You may need to try a few to find the best resin for this use, but if you do you may never go back to FDM. Especially if you can manage to print with little to no support structure, tricky but do-able, and produces the best 3d parts I've seen in decades.
I've printed quite a lot of props and found Tough PLA to be the best option, printed flat. Also, bigger (8" in my case) props work better as they rotate slower, reducing the centripetal force. Unfortunately, printed props always seem to be noisier and less efficient even if you work hard to sand & smooth the surface.
While it's cheating a bit, my attempt at the zip-line prop used a pair of decent Carbon Fibre props with one blade cut off, stacked with the stem of the counterbalance sandwiched inbetween. You can buy hubs with a female thread - then use a long screw to hold it all together, along with some glue to fix the positions.
For 8" diameter, I spaced the two bladed 10mm apart with a 30 degree angle between the blades. This seemed to give the lowest perceived noise level with decent efficiency. Even still, silent it was not.
Over heated filament for better layer adhesion and printing slowly so it does not droop, and in a heated chamber so it does not warp. 25% speed.
Could definitely make resin printed molds and diy injection molding set up with say a drill press and hydraulic press/jack.
Maybe even silicone 2 part molds and epoxy🤷🏻♂️
If you want to quickly strengthen a PLA print, you can brush it with runny superglue, then spritz it with hardening accelerant, and the glue will go into the voids and pores, and your prints will be instantly far stronger. I learned this trick from the RUclips channel of Robert Murray Smith, the maker/engineer dude.
try carbon fiber polycarbonate filament, really strong and easy to print with, just needs a hardened nozzle for the printer.
What about printing the prop and then coating it with fiberglass resin. I think it would make
it a lot stronger
It may be quieter...buy what about efficiency and how much difference in thrust?
the ideal prop, efficiency-wise would be a single blade, large, slow moving prop, so i think this would be pretty good actually (you will have uneven trust and you need to make the counter balance as aerodynamic as possible)
I think the best approach would be to use a 3D printed prop for making a mold which can be used to mold something more durable in one solid piece e.g. resin.
This is the way 👆🏼😎
You definitely will benefit from resin printing on this. Better surface and uniform performance of its materials in all axis. And yeah obviously not with standart resin it will be even more brittle)
Yea that seems to be the general consensus. Any resin you recommend?
Thanks 🤘🏼
Mad props bro 😁👌
Instead of an STL can we just have the .step or whatever file format Fusion 360 uses?
Setting a reminder now. I’ll be back in the studio Monday. Thanks!
Awesome video! Entertaining and informative too!
Hey!! Thank you 🙏
If you want to do injection molding you can 3d print a mold. Use the high temperature stuff and print 100% infill then use lower temp plastic to injection mold. For an injector it is fairly easy to make one from low cost steel pipe. Make a plunger and a nozzle then use an Induction heater to heat the steel pipe. It will take some trial and error to get the temp right but you can easily and cheaply do it
So last year I was building a quad and I needed this very specific set of props but they were all sold out every where and I was at my wits end until my printer looked at me in that way and I was like screw it let’s give it a go and through all of my prop explosions I learned a good way to make them strong with out changing the physical features of the prop like what might happen when annealing them I learned I could buy large amounts of ca glue for cheep so $40 later I found my self dipping my props in a bowl of ca on my front porch and letting the sun cure them and after that I just balanced them and they flew amazing well amazing for props I made my self but they were reliable and I flew the final version I made for six months anyways I really hope that you can have the same success I did and you have definitely earned a subscribe from me as I feel your pain😂
Let's call them bunny props!
it would be cool to see a weighted single toroidal prop, would it have less turbulence from the blade wingtips wrapping around instead of being separate? maybe stronger than the ziplines?
We are thinking the same thing haha. These will be tested in the follow up video, and imagine they will be much stronger. Thanks! 🤘🏼
to ultimately create a silent toroidal propeller you must implement the owls wing in particular the wing tips /edge the owl is the most silent flyer
This is a really interesting point. I may have to try this. Thanks for the tip! We will mention you if we do 🤘🏼
Also apologies for the terrible pun “tip” 😅
I have designed and printed some 5" zipline-style props to compare against some other printed props for a project. I MSLA printed them in a mix of Siraya Tech Blu and Siraya Tech fast resin. The surface finish was good and they were almost balanced right of the print plate. So far they have managed to slowly ramp up to 23 000 rpm before exploding. I haven't tested the thrust yet but will soon. Just going off how much air they are blowing compared to regular props I assume it would be possible to fly on them but would need, on my 5" fpv quad, a throttle stop at about 70%. Maybe soon I will flight test them.
Could you not use off the shelf props, cut off and epoxied into a 3d printed hub? Or do the blades need to be shaped totally differently from standard ones?
As others have said, the approach where you use 3d printing to make a mold might be the strongest option.
I would assume that lower frequency is still an advantage in that lower frequency noise tends to be less obvious/dissipate better from far away outdoors, accomplishing the goal of being less noticeable to bystanders
Awesome Video, I really like your sound design. Can you tell me which song/sound you used for background music while printing/drawing. 2:10
For strength it’d probably be better to print in something that melts with ISO and fume smooth the outside which would not only make it more aerodynamic but would eliminate layer lines on the outside. It may even be beneficial to anneal the props then fume smooth after that.
Great effort, I think the main facor in making these props quieter goes towards first spinning them slower. If you've ever built a giant 15inch prop quad you'd know how quiet they are compared to a 5 inch - just because they spin the prop at a much much slower rate to begin with they move all the noise and wasted energy lower down in the spectrum
Thank you!
You have a valid point. Larger props are much quieter in most cases. We are going to do a follow up video where we will test 15" (ish) props. Should be interesting 😅🔥
HELL YEAH EXCISION but seriously i love the presentation and style of the vid and a great music taste too boot! subbed!
HAHA yea! We fly for the Lost Lands live stream. The show is incredible! Thank you!!!
Assuming you have the AMS accessory for your X1, you should go for that dissolvable support you were talking about. You don't have to print the entire support in it, just the "interface". You may not even need to put it in water, it should separate more cleanly from PETG than using PETG support material exclusively.
As for molding, you could make resin molds with silicone, OR you could use an mSLA printer to print injection molds and build a little DIY injection molding machine from a couple drill presses and simple electronics.
You could print a mold and do a carbon fibre moulding. Easy Composites have a video on how to do it. The makes a bike brake lever in the vid.
Tpu actually has some of the best layer adhesion for 3D printing.
Hello form north east Ohio. Very nice work!
Hello and thank you!
O-H
Re: Injection molding.
You can make limited-use injection molds for some lower-temp thermoplastics on a resin printer using special high-temp resins. You would still have to make an injector, but the resin and collars for printed molds are both sold at reasonable prices for people who want low-volume manufacture that's too much to be entirely 3D printed but not economically viable to have actual dies cut from steel or aluminum.
If you do end up exploring this, have fun with it! HDPE is infinitely recyclable and might be strong enough to work - then you can make a video called "Making groundbreaking propellers out of laundry detegent bottles!" or the like
What if you combined toroidal props with the zip line props? Just a thought.
This is a possibility on the follow up video. Thanks!
@@CK3DPRINTS your welcome!
To massively improve the stabilety you could print them vericaly, cast them into plaster and then throw them into an oven to remelt the plastic inside of the plaster, make sure to keep it long and hot enougth to compleatly remelt the plastic
ModBot recently did a video on printing pla with petg as support material and visa versa. Gives a very good supported surface finish without marring. Might be worth a look.
exactly what I was thinking, but for that you'd need a material station with his printer
That's a good call. I've had decent results with this method. We may try this in the follow up video. Thanks!
Fortunately our Snapmaker 2 has the dual extruder module 🤘🏼
did you hear me screaming while the first 2 tests with the pla/petg printed vertically? :D I mean, every 3d print user would know the problem.
entertaining video! I vote for the design guidance video, have to learn still a lot in fusion360 :D
Lol, I knew it would be a little frustrating to the 3D printing crowd 🤣
Thank you!
That video is up, but unlisted. We are going to makes some adjustments and re-upload. You can watch it here though: ruclips.net/video/e1RtExmpnto/видео.html
It’s not just what you use to print with but how you print it. You need to find the correct angle so that the layer lines are longitudinally their longest with less separation.
Can you please update the link to the files? I would LOVE to try out the ones you made!
A Fusion 360 design walk-through would be phenomenal. One thing I would try is resin 3d printing, since you can get much much finer layer lines and surface finish, even printing horizontally.
We are trying resin in the follow up video, thanks! The Fusion tutorial is up as well: Draw Props in FUSION 360 | Toroidal and Zipline
ruclips.net/video/1JPMgXGwauw/видео.html
@@CK3DPRINTS Do you have plans to make a design video for the Zipline style props? That's what I find super interesting
Hi, for greater resistance have you tried putting UV resin on these propellers, applied with a brush so that it remains a thin layer I think it could strengthen the resistance?
PLA is in fact among the stro gest philament, its not tough, thats what you tought you had an issue with.
As PLA has higher tensile strength, than PETG or ABS.
However the issue was the isotropic quality of FDM prints (aka. weak along layer lines).
If you. have issue with that i recommend high hardness grade TPU. If you cannot print it in proper orientation that is.
Yea, PLA is stronger, but not as flexible as the PETG. The start and stop of the props seems to be the majority of the stress and this is where flex is better.
I thought about TPU but haven't found one that is hard enough to keep its shape at speed. Any recommendations?
I wonder if this may be a good use case for resin. You wouldnt have the issue with layer delamination since resin prints are pretty uniform regardless of print orientation. Resin is not shock resistant but is pretty strong in tension. You would also get more accuracy in general. Though definitely not a permanent prop solution
I agree, resin is probably the best option for working prototypes. We are getting ready to test and start the next video very soon!
@@CK3DPRINTS awesome I look forward to watching it!
ABS horizontal and iron (with tin foil).
that's a good idea 🤔
Are these props scalable, as in, can you scale them down and put them on smaller quads? Or does the aerodynamics get all weird when you scale them up or down?
I printed props for a pylon racer that survived spinning up to 30k+ RPM. They were printed flat out of Polymax PC.
The point is to over size. Use low rpm high torque motors. Also the trailing blade has a 10-15% higher pitch than leading blade. The angle between the blades is based on the optimal rpm
Yea, we are going to try larger props on slower motors in the follow up video. Good call on the pitch! Thanks!
The angle between the blades is set, so at the pitch, turbulence noise is 180 degrees out of phase of the other blade.
I found a tuning it was simple to record the sound at hover under load and tune by moving them apart, tell the sound from 1 blade, cancels out the sound of the other at that rpm, and load.
I did all my testing on a bench with a load cell on an arm off the side of the table, swinging a T16x8 prop and modified by cutting 2 props dril holes in the CF and casting bismuth and trimming to balance each blade and the to as a set a modified tall hub let's me change the angle between them to tune to the 3500 rpm I ran them at for for efficiency. Power was a bench supply at 90v to a hv vesc a a set of umik2 from minidsp I use 1 at 5ft and 1 at 20ft to capture noise peeks and tune the props.
It's no joke I managed to drop 19db doing this
HI Cliff!
May I suggest that you lengthen the blades and make them wider. This would increase the surface area of lift and would reduce the rpm required for take off.
Hey!
I think you are correct with this. We started designing them a little on the “stubby” side to make them easier and stronger when 3d printing. Our follow up video will go this route though. Cheers! 🤘🏼
Might have to try resin on em
very good! Thanks for sharing!
Could you, use and silicone mold, and use epoxi resin?
This is something I think we are going to try in the next video 🤘🏼
If we picture the Zipline-prop as a single unit being used in a tractor configuration so that one of the two offset blades is first being forward, does it matter which is advanced and which is trailing? This may be a stupid question but, when geese fly in V formation the trailing bird must be above to catch the pressure wave from it's leading bird. I imagine the second blade of the prop should trail behind to catch the wave to amplify the thrust, but if it does will this alter the acoustics or the performance?
polymaker polymax PLA printed at about 235 is very tough. I use it in combat robotics
What is the puff of vapour on your right at 9.49?
You could use abs, then vapor smooth it with acetone
If you were serious about wanting to make a mold I have a good friend who makes injection molds for a living. He can make a small mold called a mud mold with a cavity for the left hand right prop pretty easily
Might have to look into that. Molding parts definitely has its advantages. Thanks! 🤘🏼
The offest seems to be the key, have you tried 3 offest props? I would also space them out so they are not evenly spaced to lower the resonant frequency.
I have not, but this is an interesting idea. I'll look into it. Thanks!
Combine the toroidal with the zipline concept. If the blades are connected, they will be stronger, and maybe the loop itself can be made to add some lift.
You could also try making one perfect example, hand smoothed and polished to perfection and make a support mold from clay or something for your printer to build onto/into, and eliminate the support structure removal issues altogether.
These are great ideas for sure, and something we will definitely consider.
Our channel was originally a camera/drone channel, but after this video I realized how much more I enjoy the engineering side (what I grew up doing). After 6 months of moving and setting up a new shop, we just posted our transition video today. So, we will FINALLY be revisiting this project very soon and on a much larger scale 😅. I'll be sure to mention this, and other comments when we finally finish the next video on this. Thanks for your advice!!
Could make a channel inside the props, shove a metal wire coated in epoxy in there. The metal wire will hold it together better, and the epoxy will slightly shrink (and mate the two materials together).
Additionally, you could get a slightly conductive filament and electroplate something onto it. (Might have luck resin printing a micro lattice, for lots of surface area for the electroplating to deposit material on. Would have to be sparse unless using a electroless plating solution.)
Awesome. Could you plc reupload the stl Files?
Could maybe try to make a 3d printed mold and for a forged carbon fiber propellor
You need a X1-Carbon Combo. If you printed them laying flat to align with layers optionally out of PETG with PLA as the support interface it would give you a support that would breakaway cleanly and give you a much stronger part. After prototyping the concept use either PA12-CF or PET-CF with Bambu Lab breakaway support material ("Support G") if necessary. I find using 3 interface layers with a grid like pattern with the carbon fiber reinforce nylon blends you really don't even need the specialized support material. It comes off extremely clean.
Your printer and material choices will make a huge difference in your success...I promise you that!!
I keep wondering if bigger, slower props will be quieter. More surface area for lift means props can spin slower, right?
You're exactly right. Bigger propellers are also more efficient and run on lower rpms. The limiting factor is the frame size of your drone. There's a give and take as increasing the frame size increases the forces it needs to withstand and increases weight from the compensating material.
Hi, please try using E-DA brand TPU, it is a bit stiffer then other TPUs, I use it in a bowden tube printer, I think it would work well for this.
(very high layer adhesion, will bend instead of snapping, nylon-like but easy to print)
thanks for posting the stl. now the horror can end.
😅
Such a cool video! Is that chimera 7 used? It looks identical to the one i used to fly and then sold on fpv market place. Mainly because of the forward pushed gopro mount.
Hey! Thanks! Haha, yep that’s your old quad. It flies great with “real” props lol
@@CK3DPRINTS ahh nice!! Im glad to see it doing some great work for you! 😀
If you dont want to print in the 300deg range , look into mold supplies and use your filament print as templates for the mothers you can cast. You can even cast metal in reusable modings material these days
Most all cooling fans on vehicles are not symmetrical, the blades will still be balanced but spread out varying widths. It helps to quiet the percussion waves like you’d hear from a helicopter.
What about Resin printing??
For better sheer strength, consider metal reinforcement. Extra light aluminum strip just inside the outer rim of the blade, creating a tension pulling inwards along the whole prop. Cheap, light, solid, reusable. Its the method I do for anything that needs to hold any sort of weight, because 3d prints are notorious with sheer because of the layering
Also, I wonder about the circle arc supportless 3d printing system. If you adjusted the arcs along the shape of the prop, you might be able to dramatically improve the whole print and get rid of the supports entirely in a single upgrade
the link for the file download is messed up for me, do you think you can post them again?
Print the props with wax and then put them in a plaster of paris (PoP) or sand mold and then push in hot liquid plastic or metal. Ideally, Wax will burn off and you should get rough cut props which can be polished to an accurate shape.
It's great you are showing your progress. What temp where you using?
I have printed props, it has to be hot no fan each layer melts together.
Also the pattern it's prints is important, 100 percent infill move around on plate till z seam is diminished or in exceptable location, also fine layer lines on each layer.
Also shape is odd, might not be balanced equally on all directions, possible reason for self destruction.
Good call on running a higher temp, I’m doing that on our next set. 🤘🏼
Balance was close in all directions. The wide counterweight allows for adjustments both ways. It wasn’t as perfect as I would have our cinelifter props though.
Thanks for the tips!!
Another thought that came to mind it was hard for me to explain, even though weight is balance on balance tool all the way around, the angle of attack or incidents to hub ,ounce lift starts acting on blade at different speeds unequal forces are applied to attach point on spinning hub. Like the flex in say top blade angle changes and forces the blade to go in unrealistic angle of attack and tear itself apart. High speed camera with smoke might tell u more of forces acting on blades. Also test subjects I would be curious on how brittle vs toughness, or flexibility. Just trying to be constructive not over critical. Thanks for all your hard work!
You spend a little more and try Taulmans 910 alloy CF nylon! It was great layer adhesion and amazing strength!
what if blowing hot air on prop while printing instead of putting them in a fryer after printing.
or put your printer in an oven.
Will it still work if you encased it in a circular ring for extra strength?
Possibly. I'm going to test this.
Love to see a vid of your prop’s design process. I use Onshape but Fusion is cool too. Thanks for sharing a fun video. I reckon a mould might work…? Cheers!
I hear ASA filament is pretty tough and good for UV resistance too.
That was my thought. You can also acetone smooth them which would make the props super smooth and bind the layers together better. I do this all the time on my models (not props yet).
The obvious solution is to use SLA resin 3D printing. You can get much better stiffness vs flex properties with resins like Siraya Tech Blu etc.
Secondly... if you want to knock out batches and batches of these things, you really ought to get into simple mold and casting techniques. This is where 3D printing obviously shines, especially resin printing. Due to the smooth, almost non-existent layer lines. Casting is super easy, and not expensive at all, using Smooth-On products. Plus, there's awesome casting resins that harden in minutes. With a silicone mould in your drone kits, you could literally make new props in the field and be back flying well under an hour.
Cool video! They look like Playboy bunny ears. Should make them in pink.
Thanks! Haha, I really missed an opportunity there 🤣
Carbon fiber won't help but i'd give a shot to nylon if you are able to print some. It's a pain in the ass to print but the X1 is more than capable to do so. No part cooling and the right temperature should make those very solid and the flex will prevent them from "exploding".
I have some nylon on the way. Thank you for the detailed tips!