Just a random throwback to another obscure thing- when I was working on my university’s senior design project, we had some 3D printed drone arms in what I think was PLA created for us due to a mis-order so we had to improvise while we waited for new ones to be cut. It turns out that this material caused significant instability, wobbling, and inefficiency issues and sometimes could barely take off with full throttle.
We were using a open model that a third-party cutting service would cut for us on demand using this model: https://cncdrones.com/mod-l-3-4-5-inch-modular-ultralight-frame-with-separate-arms.html
The drone ended up looking like this, notice the orange and purple arms the ESCs stood on.
When testing the drone, our takeoff weight was approximately 300g, and was drawing significant power (I don’t remember these numbers but definitely over 3 amps).
However, we were stumped because theoretically the drone should be flying as our professor had a near-identical version that flew just fine and similar weight.
Other group members who got the same arm also encountered takeoff issues, and those who did take off had max throttle to sustain flight.
My theory is that the 3D printed arms are too unstable and when the flight controller or ESC tried to compensate for such vibrations in the frame arms, it lost inefficiency.
When we got our carbon fiber arms, the drone finally flew correctly and without any issues.