3D Printing Iris+ Drone arms

For some time, I have been experimenting with the idea of 3D printing drone parts to speed up ideas, lower crash costs, and share with others to help create better, more efficient flying vehicles. I experimented with using 16mm Carbon fiber tubing to help reduce printing times and to improve rigidity, lower weight, and improve design.

Here's one example of motor mounts I designed. One of the key important factors for 3D prints is to ensure you have a print-friendly design. I think it's quite a good start for 920kv motor mounting.

Today, 3DR's Chris Anderson decided to release for open-source, his design files for the 3DR Iris drone

It seems 3DR are letting the Iris+ be free, to the public now that they are concentrating upon developing the Solo drone.

This is good news for hobby developers as it gives us a chance to tinker with the design and modify if we wish to. We can now print our own arms, legs, body shells, and frame plates. I'm even considering shrinking it down to a smaller size, something like a 250 size iris would be cool just to send it buzzing on auto-missions.

Anyhow, for me, the full-size iris is a little too big for my printer to handle. So I got to thinking about ways to make it consumer printer friendly. 

I decided to chop the arm into two parts - the motor mount, and the frame mount. In between I figure I could use 16mm carbon tubing

Seems to print just fine, I didn't need to use support material to get a good print, although it would do no harm to.

Finished print, I placed a motor inside, added a leg support too.

I like this idea of reusing or redesigning a classic piece of hardware such as the Iris. I think there are some nice things to learn from it.

I think I will be adding the landing leg adapters to my more print-friendly motor mounts in the future. I will also see if it is possible to print the canopy, which would protect the flight hardware from prop-wind, dust, and sunlight. Time will tell. In the mean time I will upload the carbon-mod arms to my Thingiverse page soon, as always free for everyone to use.