Elevating RC Building with Laser Technology. The integration of lasers and software has significantly impacted the scratch building of RC airplanes. I've noticed that by minimizing the use of hand tools such as Exacto Knives and paper plans, building RC planes from digital plans has become a much more efficient process. Here, I'm excited to share my personal experiences with automating the scratch building process, in hopes that it may inspire and guide you to do the same.
MS Copilot describes it like this... It seems like you’re referring to Lazy Builder RC, which is a channel on RU-vid that focuses on the integration of lasers and software in the scratch building of RC airplanes. The channel shares personal experiences with automating the scratch building process, and it appears to be a resource for those interested in efficient RC plane construction using digital plans.
OK, the one that I have in the video the super sportster 40…I opened outer zone, went to the advanced tab at the top under advanced scroll to the bottom to cad files downloaded and unzipped the super sportster 40 file. It gives you a DXF file which light burn will open. Mine was the right size. Not sure why you’re getting smaller sizes off outerzone …you could verify it by printing it out if you need help with that, I have a printing plans at home video unless you have access to a large scale printer
I just discovered this weekend that Lightburn has a 1.7 version beta that you can download simply google Lightburn 1.7 I’m not gonna use it to operate my laser because I’m already set up in the old version but if you read through the documentation, it’s got some interesting new tools that might make all our lives easier when building airplanes
On this one plane the spirit of pitts I am merely trusting the sizing straight from the plans now that may not work out perfectly. There are a number of things that you can try. First off on the list of tools on the left of Lightbourn is a ruler you can use as measuring. Also check out my video on printing and scaling plans at home and one more thing I do when I suspect something is off is I will cut it out in cardboard or paper or some material that I’m just gonna throw away I can check exact accuracy. One other thing and I may be wrong on this, but I think Inkscape has more of a measuring set up and it’s free to use.
So, if I already have a vector file there's no need for tracing right? My next question is scaling. If it shows the parts laid out on say a 3x12 plank, then adjusting for the correct plank size should give the correct part size right? Or measure off of a full size draft.
Yeah guy Vector files are digital already. You won’t need to trace them. Trace when it’s a pdf bitmap file. Now for sizing. You only need to resize if you’re changing the scale…size…of the model. You can use Lightburns measurement tool to verify things like wingspan or fuselage length to see if the planes you have are going to give you the size you want. Also. Use my printing plans at home vid to see by the printout what size everything will be. Then maybe cut out just one or two pieces to compare to the printed planes to verify size.
There are ways in Lightburn to set the laser to home in other words, go back to a starting position, but as a beginner it’s much quicker to manually set the laser to a home position and you’re gonna wanna do that between each cut or the laser won’t read right and your second cut will be off. Also, if your laser is like mine and doesn’t have limit switches, it may bang hard against the side of the railing and start stripping out the geared belts because it thinks it has more room than it actually does. If you find yourself in that situation, simply turn the laser off manually reset it to its original position like I did in the video then turn the laser back on it will reset itself in Lightbourn.
Also forgot to mention if you enjoyed the song that was in the video I wrote that and many others. check out my other RU-vid page called “one quarter human”
It starter as an XTool D1 standard 10watt. After adding the extension, I had to start using the D1 Pro settings. ( all free from the XTool site) I run Lightburn as a 2d cad and laser controller. Recently added air assist. Actually very basic. I think if I were looking into getting my first laser I'd look at some of these that already have air assist and more powerful lasers straight out of the box. Most I have seen can be extended for less that it cost me on the XTool.
@@lazerbuilderrc1536 Yes it did, I had to reshape one of the weight-saving holes though because there wouldn't be enough "flesh" left but that was a breeze.
Appreciate you tuning in. Please like and subscribe if you haven't already, check out my other page if that interest you and, otherwise hang out and learn. Happy building!!!
I am actually working on setting up a Patreon account where members will be able to download my laser cut files. Stay tuned!! And thank you very much for checking out my videos.
Currently I use an Xtool d1 with a 10watt laser. Works fine for balsa and light ply airplanes. Hopefully going to up the wattage soon. Thanks for checking out my videos.
Thanks for your insight, appreciate it. I have a large E-size roll plotter and can print full size plans. If you have several you would like printed for future projects just reply with your email contact and I will send you mine. I’ll cover shipping if you want them folded in an envelope but if you want them rolled in a hard tube, I would ask for shipping costs only.
Hi ya great to be in contact with you. I’ve flown and built RC all my life the old conventional way when there were no ARTF, so clued up well on building thankfully. Just bought myself a Atomstack A10 pro and loving it. I’m working like you in LightBurn and appreciate your videos so much. I have a question if you can throw any light on it. I’m having trouble when printing my pdf plans to scale regards to how many A4 sheets to print in no poster tile print. I’ve wasted I can’t tell you how much A4 paper and ink guessing, and guessing wrong, thus my plans g C coming out the wrong size and not to scale. I wonder if there’s a magic routine sequence of thumb to get this correct to print to the correct size of the plan. Just to have got me going , I’m building the old school Super 60 originally Ben Buckle build. I’ve filled your knowledge and aquired the vector plan from OZ to start me off but like I say just cannot get the print out size correct. It seems if I go either a way with the number of pages to print, it still doesn’t come out to the correct size. The only thing I haven’t fiddled with is the two options ( fit to scale or scale) Im sorry my post to you is so long, almost as long as the distance between us lol, but I have so many questions and can’t tell you how grateful I am to have come across you sharing the same hobby that we both love. Incidentally where are you located? I’m in central England Notts Sherwood Forest Robin Hood country. Again so great to be in touch my friend, John.
I am located....as they say...Deep in the heart of Texas. Abilene Texas if you wanna look it up on a map. You probably could have guessed that by my southern draw on my vids. LOL I have a solution to your problem. It will be in my video, Printing large plans at home. The only thing I can think of right off hand is...are you loading the digital plan in lightburn before you try printing? cause that is do-able but more difficult. You'll need to watch my video on Scaling and printing in Lightburn for that. Simply download the pdf from Outerzone and open it in so form of Adobe reader, The free kind works well for me. It will offer options to print in Poster format. I would like to hear more about your Atomstack a 10 laser. I've been looking at those and some other brands for a new/more powerful laser setup in my shop. Thinking ahead to large scale light-ply bulkheads. Anyhew,,,we need to find a way to communicate cause I'd love to see pictures from England. If you want you can e-mail me at terrymf532@gmail.com
It’s an Xtool D1 with an extension added. I had to change the software from D1 to D1 pro to get Lightburn to recognize the entire size which is now somewhere around 17 inches wide and 36 inches long of usable space. It’s the standard 10 watt laser, which will hopefully soon have air assist and a camera system for doing overlays in Lightburn. Ooopppss. Spoiler alert!!
Great video. I have just started using my laser to cut plans/parts, but I have run into an issue that I cannot solve. What process did you use to cut your ribs and other balsa parts? I assume the tiled plan pieces you cut with your laser were a PDF file. How were you able to get it into a format lightburn could use? The plans on the blue paper appear to be just copied from a printed set, and are in a raster format, not vector format, which lightburn needs to work.
The paper plans are printed straight from the pdf file from Outerzone using my "Print Plans at Home" video. Also, the same Outerzone file I opened in Lightburn and hand traced the parts for cutting out the High Five on my laser using my video called "My Process" (parts 1 and 2). Lightburn will open pdf plans but if they are PDFbitmap then you'll have to trace them with Lightburn or by hand in Lightburn. Look under the Advance tab on Outerzone for plans in PDFvector that are ready to cut on a laser. Also cad plans will open in Lightburn if they are DXF. DWG plans will need to be converted to DXF. There are several online conversion sites available. My Beginner videos will help with a lot of these practices. Thanks for checking out my vids!!!
I honestly don't remember. It was some off-brand thing from Amazon. Kinda like this: www.amazon.com/SCULPFUN-Ultra-Fine-Compressed-Protection-Fixed-Focus/dp/B09MQMXXGD/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3AV5YP06YY9IE&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.8iz7LHag67hQlLmTtPf4a3_yi3jn-oo0Qa4L3Hyqu0LnZo__rrv1wdHzjsJEuGqtX21ySX5S5kyjKbIAjTbAy5Rb53uOx78rABzMimypgwJ9G1W0TnQG_J9smsduF5txY5zuyDwnUAOayBRz_rmYeDEcSiysjB-XGXQDIYhhAdWj-d-5f3gd83a87_iE9DHM_zuuBpJznJ7J-iE_WYafAVIcH0hnJV2MiR3QFp7O41vq_Xb4tn4kADB52cAhvrm54rrmjCXX1Y1DWudvVZIed5jQrAlz_FctT2yW7Tv6cs4.HCImuYHhLNJ0JcAExnQda4BGmteQ9eBui-_siyCVmIE&dib_tag=se&keywords=laser%2Betcher%2Bmachine&qid=1713152272&sprefix=laser%2Betcher%2Caps%2C164&sr=8-4&th=1
I have the Neje laser but it also came with a plotter pen accessory. Perhaps using a fine point marker would be an option. Then cut with scissors. Seems the covering wants to curl after being cut with the laser. Food for thought
I too, was very surprised that I could dial my laser down, cold enough to make the cut without damaging anything it’s low power, high speed, and the curling you saw in the video was actually from the role being rolled up tight for years. Appreciate you checking out my videos!!!
Okay, a few things about Adam's foam board. While it is next to impossible to cut with an LED it cuts like butter with a C02 laser. Not about power, about wavelength. I'm 65 and use a lot of it. Slowly trying to use more and more Baltic Birch and Balsa though. As to foam board being toxic, it is just paper and polystyrene so no worse than a lot of other things. You need proper ventilation no matter what you cut.
Thank you for the kind words. I hope it opens minds and furthers creativity. As for myself, using a laser has made building balsa, airplanes, fun again
Interesting, I'm a giant scale rc builder and bought a Atzer pro 20 watt to burn parts using Lightburn and thus far not having a great deal of success using the machine/ Lightburn@@lazerbuilderrc1536
I’ve been looking at the Atzer 24watt but wouldn’t think it would be a good beginner laser. Are you looking at building something from Outerzone or Aerofred? I wouldn’t mind at all helping you get the plan set up in Lightburn and then emailing it back to you. Assuming it’s OK with you that I make a video out of the work I did on the plans.
Right now I'm learning all I can , when I'm ready for assistance I ill get back to you, I have not decided what I will select for a plan set.Thanks for your offer to help. Bill@@lazerbuilderrc1536
No problem guy. I would encourage you to stick with it. Once you get past the learning curve you’ll discover things that you wish had been available 20 years ago.
So it would need to be a completely new design but it strikes me that with the laser we should be able to make a plane that simply goes togather like a 3d puzzle, no jigs, just snap togather and then hit with thin CA. Instead of typing I should be experimenting!
Exactly, right!! And in the event of a total destruction of your aircraft, you simply go back to the laser start cutting again That’s why I believe I got the name of this site, correct lol.
First off thank you for the kind words. And consider this, if all you did was cut ribs and bulkheads, you would save yourself hours and hours of time and it really does make the art of scratch building balsa Planes fun again. Now if I could just figure out how to get the laser to do all the finish sanding I would be set for life. lol.
Lightbourn will accept a number of different document types like PDF or DXF. It doesn’t like DWG but there’s lots of places online you can change a DWG to a DXF most everything on Outerzone is in some form of PDF. Thanks for checking out the vid.
You are using the xTool D1 Pro and the extension kit. Would this be correct? Did you upgrade to the 40 watt? Sorry if you covered this in a previous vid, I have watched most of the videos, but my memory is not as it was when I was younger. Go figure!🤔
It’s an original D1 with 10watt laser, extension kit and overpriced honeycomb bed. Payed for an air assist as well but never received it. Almost bare bones system.
Oh. I did have to download and use the D1pro software to get the laser to run the full extension. You may have spotted that and some of the videos I can run it off the original D1 software, but it will only use half the table size. With the 10 W diode laser even without an air assist I can cut quarter inch hardwood in a single pass. It’s just a very slow pass.
What you’re seeing in the video is just the highlights. Nobody wants to go to a rock concert and see all the practice and rehearsals and arguing in the background and all the hard work that goes into it. They just wanna see the show and that’s all this is. Thank you so much for checking on my videos.
I realize this is a video for mostly beginners to the hobby and I have been toying with the idea of getting back to building balsa planes as I did religiously when I was a kid, but I'd like to share some things for everybody. For Tip#1: LightBurn is like salt on eggs. Eggs are great right out of the shell, they're good cooked and broiled, poached, and hard boiled... but adding salt? You can't really imagine having another egg without a little salt. LightBurn is absolutely mandatory and nobody ever says they regret paying the $55 or $110 for the full license. Just get it, you won't regret it. Also.. get an enclosure for your diode laser. I'd recommend, if you have the $$$, to consider a CO2 laser instead but they're significantly more expensive. Two advantages with an enclosure: the exhaust fan is good at removing smoke and any ash you have left over, and air assists. I was a firefighter when I was younger and I always thought it to be counterintuitive to feed a fire with air but when it comes to lasers, having a proper air assist actually completes the combustion process & makes the laser cut far more efficiently & a LOT less dangerously. Your stock catching fire is because you don't have enough air. It's also why you need to be cutting at a higher power & lower speed, which gives you more of a chance to start a fire. You keep a fire extinguisher close by and you watch your cuts: thank you for mentioning that to your viewers! That is a very VERY important aspect. Many, many people have lost their entire homes because they think it wouldn't happen to them. I have a 60W CO2 laser with a 20"x28" cutting bed (usable is about 19.5"x27"), automatic Z-axis autofocus, and I paid about $3,100 including shipping. Aftermarket, I purchased a 6" exhaust fan to upgrade the cheap Chinese loud fan. I purchased a premium lens from American Photonics, and I replaced my air assist from a sad little fishtank aquarium pump with a 6-gallon air compressor and fitted a regulator to my laser cabinet. I use my laser for my business so my upgrades are completely justified, but even if I was just using it as a hobby laser, I'd skip the diode 2-axis laser and go with the CO2. Again, much more costly but if used correctly, you have a very low chance of fire, you'll use a lot less electricity, and far less wasted materials. Even as a hobby laser, trust me, after some time you'll see it saves you time, money and energy.
And you have now set the lazy builder RC record for the longest post. Absolutely lots of good tips there things that I should mention more often in my videos regarding safety such as goggles fire extinguisher plenty of air ventilation all good points I appreciate you taking the time to mention those things.
@@lazerbuilderrc1536 i currently do not have a lazer every time I look at them I end up not sure what to get and the price of some is quite high so I never hit the buy button.
I have seen a couple out there that have extension kits available. It has lowered my stress level a lot once I extended my laser. Especially cutting RC Airplane parts. So far I have not needed more than 10watts of power out of the laser but you really cant go wrong getting more power as well. So consider workspace 1st and then power.
Appreciate that, sir, but the truth is I only started doing these videos because I was having to repeatedly explain myself face-to-face with individuals one at a time who were curious about how I was doing this sort of thing so these videos help me to have more time to fly by simply referring their questions to Lazy Builder RC. lol
Thanks. Metric I found its much easier to use metric instead of converting minute fractions of an inch to make a design after calculating tolerances. While this was outside of RC it was crystal clear how much easier the manufacture was after doing and the design.
Subscribed! Thanks for the info. Just bought my first laser the Neje max 11watt 2weeks ago with the intention to make an RC plane. I’ve modeled up a Sig Kadet Mark 2 in Fusion from my paper plans I still have from my first build in 1987. Plan is to make this electric. Would you mind telling me where you purchased your balsa/ply stock from? And were you satisfied with the quality of wood?
National Balsa, Balsa USA, and Hobby Lobby. I like Hobby Lobby only because I can walk in and hand pick the wood without any additional charge. The online places are good and have an excellent selection but you'll wanna buy in bulk to justify shipping charges. Thats really cool that you can model in Fusion. I have some old plans I'd like to digitize and change a few things. But for now, I got lots of other projects going. Thanks for subscribing.
Thanks for the info ….👍🏻 I went to our hobby lobby and grabbed a few sheets to practice with. They didn’t have much, half of the items were out of stock. nothing bigger than 3” wide. Looks like I’m going all in with Balsa USA.
