sprung landing gear, front wheel assembly for skyhunter

thingiverse

Hi, check out my other designs at https://www.thingiverse.com/mg_evolution/designs. This project is still a work in progress and isn't finished yet. I designed this for my Micro Skyhunter plane. You can see how it's fitted to the plane here: https://youtu.be/otwbvkb_XnM. The table top test can be seen here: https://youtu.be/cGbfdJWHNn4. My goal is to make this take off and land on wheels, so I don't have to throw it and break the propeller when landing. The spring used in this design is 20mm long x 5mm diameter. It's relatively soft, but may bottom out when landing - that hasn't been tried yet. The front wheel is printed in two halves that are a mirror image of each other. The two bolt holes help line up the wheels when gluing them together. I used gorilla glue for this and haven't cleaned it up for the pictures. As shown with the long bolts, this design weighs 8g. With the suspension fully compressed on a scale, I'm reading 550g. That can be adjusted by using a stiffer spring or extending the pivot point further out from the wheel. The landing gear is secured to the inside with a 10mm long self-tapering bolt suitable for the 3mm hole. The inside support has an 8mm wide square that sits in the cut-out of the balsa wood insert in the plane. I printed the wheels with two walls and 8% zigzag infill using Cura. The frame was printed with two walls, alternative wall settings, and 15% zigzag infill using Cura. All pivot holes are suitable for M3 bolts. Nylocs should be used to prevent vibration from loosening fixings.