Good day! If you're new to the channel, welcome! I'm TMac and I help FPV pilots like you start and
continue their Journey to Better FPV fun through videos like this one, the Fast Track FPV course,
and my site at TMacFPV.com. Today, I'm going to do something a little bit different. I've been
designing a few of my FPV quadcopter parts for a while now and I'd send them off to RaceDayQuad's
3D printing service for printing. They do an outstanding job and I'll link to their site
below. But with a little encouragement from my son and a tip on a new 3D printer in the market
from one of our fellow FPV pilots, Paul - thanks Paul - I was able to get my first 3D printer. the
Elegoo Neptune 2 for about 160 bucks on Amazon. So, in today's video I thought it might be fun
to let you see how I went about creating one of my first 3D print projects using the Elegoo
Neptune 2 3D printer. I'm sure there's going to be many more to come and if you've got some FPV
3D printing ideas for me you'd like to see, put them down there in the comments below.
Before we get started, now's a great time to hit that thumbs up button below and subscribe to your
TMac FPV channel - your home for your Journey to Better FPV fun, flights, and racing stuff!
This is the Elegoo Neptune 2 printer. It's pretty easy to assemble, comes with good instructions,
has great features, and it works. I like it.
The only thing I've changed on it so far is this flexible build plate (which it comes with)
with this glass one
from Amazon. It's easier to level the bed with it and the 3D prints come off of it much easier
than the original flex plate. This whole idea came from the TMac FPV logo I sketched out a
while ago using Powerpoint. If you've purchased one of my frame designs on the Pilot's Den page
of my website you've probably got at least one of these slap stickers of the logo. I thought
it'd be fun to try and turn it into a 3D logo I could place on a plaque to hang in my work area.
I decided to use Tinkercad for this project and I learned how to import images into it.
I then just went about creating and piecing it all together. Once I was happy with the look of it,
I exported it as an STL file, then I sliced it using Cura
with slicer profile settings from Tom Tullis of Tomb of 3D Printer Horrors channel
linked below. I then placed the g-code file output from the slicer onto the printer's SD card, loaded
it up and started printing it. I used Hatchbox 1.75 millimeter white PLA since most of the
background of the logo is white to begin with so I thought I'd have less to paint after printing.
Once the print was done, I knew I had some painting to do and from my research
it looked as though I should first use some primer as a base coat to get the final color
coats of paint to stick better on the logo. I also thought the primer would fill in some of
the small gaps between the individual filament lines. Turns out the primer didn't fill in all
the gaps that I wanted it to, so I grabbed some Bondo Glazing and Spot putty to fill those in.
I then sanded the putty down to a smooth finish. Now it's time for more primer!
All right, now we're going to apply the top coat of white for the background to the logo and I'll
be using this Krylon Fusion All-In-One Gloss White which is great for adhering to plastics.
Then it was time to apply the TMac FPV logo colors and I found out acrylic paint
is good to use on 3D printed parts. So, I got this 48 pack acrylic paint set for that purpose.
Now I'm going to apply some JB Weld Clear Weld
to the bottom of the quad and the props and arrange them where I want them to go
on the logo. I'll paint the background on the inside of the quadcopter green.
Now I'm going to seal it with this gloss clear coat which is great for plastics.
This was just a quick behind the scenes look at my first 3D print creation with the Elegoo Neptune 2
3D printer. I think it's a great printer to get started with 3D printing. Let me know what you
think about it in the comments below and if you've got more 3D printing stuff you'd like to see
on your TMac FPV channel. Until then, thanks for your time. I'll see you next video. Clear skies
friend.