Lightweight, Generatively Designed Drone Frame
The problem
The customer needed a drone frame that was extremely light and genuinely strong, inside tight size and weight limits — the kind of organic, load-optimized geometry only 3D printing can produce.
Generative design produces shapes that look grown rather than drawn — thin webs of material exactly where the loads run, and empty space everywhere else. Printing that geometry cleanly is where it gets hard.
The customer supplied the file. We printed it in ASA-CF08, a high carbon-fiber blend of ASA chosen for stiffness, heat resistance and a strong strength-to-weight ratio. The finished frame weighs less than 40 grams but still carries every bit of flight electronics and shrugs off the knocks that come with flying.
With the process dialed in, we ran a batch of ten to the same spec and had them out the door in three business days.
The outcome
A batch of ten frames shipped in three business days — each under 40 grams, holding all the flight electronics and standing up to real abuse.
Private client
Aerial Vehicles
ASA-CF08 (carbon-fiber ASA)
3 business days
Services used: Production 3D Printing , Small-Batch Production