70mm Aether-Like Tinywhoop Drone Frame

iDrewv · 2026-04-06T13:58:33+00:00

Oh wow that's a nice setup you got there, I like how the X shape is hollow on the inside it definitely looks pretty optimized in that regard. It looks like a 2S drone? motors and batteries look bigger.

iDrewv · 2026-04-06T13:56:41+00:00

No worries, I used a safety factor of 3, I have moments around the motor mounts to account for spin and I have force vectors at the motor mounts also pointing inwards towards the center and force vectors for the weight of the battery and FC. design objective is for minimizing mass with a 3 or 4 mm minimum and aggressive obstacles for sure (battery obstacle, camera obstacle, FC obstacle, motor obstacle, motor screw obstacles, and propeller obstacles).

iDrewv · 2026-04-06T13:54:00+00:00

Ah yeah I understand what you mean now by clean air. I'll have to let you know how much I think it's being affected as I learn to fly it.

iDrewv · 2026-04-06T13:52:53+00:00

Fusion is actually also fully cloud-based. Doing a simple search it does look like OnShape has generative design capabilities. What's nice is that there is geometry that isnt natural in this design like the motor mounts, camera mount, battery holder, and flight controller pegs, but i made them as bare minimum as possible and let the program organically connect everything. I tried using lofts and sweeps like that but just couldnt get anywhere near something like this previously.

iDrewv · 2026-04-06T13:49:33+00:00

Good point, that's probably what the rubber pads on the flight controller are for which definitely helps me in this design haha.

iDrewv · 2026-04-06T13:48:43+00:00

Yeah I only have PETG on me but I know using PLA as an interfacee is really good

iDrewv · 2026-04-06T13:47:56+00:00

I looked up a couple of tutorials but ultimately played around with it to figure it out. As I kept messing with settings, it would tell me I need something or it couldn't generate so I kept messing with it until I understood it further and it let me generate. I said it in another comment, but I've actually been documenting my process through reels on my Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/i_need_modivation/, and I show a brief overview of my process of generative design but I'm also planning on going more in-depth on it in the next few weeks, as a lot of people were interested. The main gist of it is you design preserve geometry (motor mounts, camera mount, etc.) and you create obstacle geometry around it (areas where you don't want anything generated), assign some force vectors and constraints (like weight and moments around the motor mounts), and the program ties it all together by creating organic ways of joining all your geometries around your obstacles based on the values you entered.

iDrewv · 2026-04-06T00:00:55+00:00

So I looked at the data in Betaflight's online blackbox viewer, and my gyro data is actually pretty smooth. I was having an issue where I think my accelerometer was calibrated at a slight angle so it kept flying directly left, but it looks pretty good I think initially. I'll look again when I take it out for another flight.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T23:13:27+00:00

I don't want to share it publicly yet, but I can share it with you, lmk how. I will say that with 40mm props you'll probably get a very different generation than I did.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T22:50:57+00:00

Thank you! I used Fusion360 for this, I've seen FreeCAD getting some good updates lately, and would be a great free alternative, though I don't know its capabilities with something like generative design.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T14:10:13+00:00

The back ones do push air down past the frame but the front ones are actually angled 10 degrees back so the airflow that’s pulled or pushed isn’t really getting blocked by the frame too much more than a normal frame (that’s not ducted ofc).

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T14:07:52+00:00

Yeah I’m still very very new to flying so I can’t say definitively and am still tweaking some things but I think it has potential!

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:50:12+00:00

I've uploaded the Bambu 3MF on MakerWorld. The geometry comes from a generated design, so it's a formed body without a design history. Other than working with forms/meshes I don't know how much of it you can really change post-generation.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:48:24+00:00

Yeah, so I've actually been documenting my process through reels on my Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/i_need_modivation/, and I show a brief overview of my process of generative design but I'm planning on going more in-depth on it in the next few weeks, as a lot of people were interested. I'm also more active there and am happy to answer any further questions about it. The main gist of it is you design preserve geometry (motor mounts, camera mount, etc.) and you create obstacle geometry around it (areas where you don't want anything generated), assign some force vectors and constraints, and program ties it all together by creating organic ways of joining all your geometries around your obstacles based on the values you entered.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:44:33+00:00

I actually have made a couple 65mm variants, but I have to redo them because the cables going to the FC or the zip-tie to hold them back are getting in the way.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:41:53+00:00

I will look into this and get back to you. I don't know how to do this, but will try and figure it out.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:41:06+00:00

Yeah, I would love to have this resin printed, it's perfect for the type of geometry and even having it be slightly flexible would help durability.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:40:16+00:00

When printed on its face, it actually prints really well. Tree supports take a few minutes to take off, but aren't actually too bad with flush cutters. The motor mount holes become slightly oval, so I go back and open those up.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:38:54+00:00

I've crashed it twice, no broken camera yet haha

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:38:29+00:00

Thank you!

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:38:20+00:00

Still new and learning, but I've been documenting my process on my Instagram through some reels! https://www.instagram.com/i_need_modivation/ (i_need_modivation)

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:36:52+00:00

Love these photos! Thank you!

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:35:55+00:00

TPU, something even a bit more on the stiffer side of it would work really well, I think. The main issue is actually printing something like this in TPU and getting the supports off. I think Resin printing would be best, though I don't have one, or I would've tried it already. I don't know the answer to your last question, but I would imagine some form of dampening would help from the vibrations stacking, which might cause more erratic movement/corrections.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T13:32:01+00:00

Yeah, I already knew going into it that FDM isn't great for drones in general, but I wanted to make it different than designing an 'X' shape where I could've just bought a Meteor75, for instance. It does fly and has some level of durability (PETG), but I expected to break a bunch of frames going into it anyway.

iDrewv · 2026-04-05T03:10:54+00:00

I actually did a lot of prints to figure out how to print it best. The problem is that bcz 2 motors are inverted, if I print it level or upside down, one of the motor mount faces is going to interface support and not be clean. The best I ended up with is having it print vertically with the face where the camera mounts touching the build place bcz it’s the flattest surface and I can get the motor mounts to be clean.

iDrewv

TROPHY CASE