extended leg for F450 size quadcopter

thingiverse

I have been on the hunt for longer legs for an F450 quadcopter clone. I was converting it for aerial photography, but needed extra space underneath for a camera gimbal. Originally, I printed the legs from Lijbotero's design at this link - http://www.thingiverse.com/make:237142. These worked great, but I needed taller ones, so I modified them to make them longer. Unfortunately, they were quite flimsy, and one of the legs broke on the second flight, so I decided to create my own using Lijbotero's design as inspiration. The result can be seen in the pictures. I didn't intentionally leave an opening in the middle of the legs, but I liked it, so I left it that way. I had planned to add some structure to the gap for extra strength, but it seems unnecessary. As you can see, you can fill this gap with something useful like your name, email address, or phone number. This would be helpful if your quadcopter flies away and you lose it. Whoever finds it could then contact you using the information in the design section. Print Settings: Printer Brand: RepRap Printer: Prusa I3 clone Rafts: Yes Supports: Yes Resolution: 0.2 mm Infill: 35% How I Designed This: I created this in Fusion 360 by taking a picture of a quadcopter arm and loading it as a canvas, then sizing it to the correct size. Next, I used sketch tools to draw the pocket for the arm and the outline of the leg. I then extruded the sketch to match the necessary sizes - 2.5mm thick for the pocket and a 7.5mm gap for the arm to fit in, resulting in an overall thickness of 12.5mm. To add text, I exported the outline of the leg (the dxf file included) and loaded it into Inkscape. I then wrote the text, combined the letters into a path, and used the envelope path effect to match it to the internal shape of the leg. I saved the text path as a svg file and imported it into Fusion 360, where I extruded it by 6.5mm and inserted it into the leg, combining the shapes.