How They Build Composite Drones: CEO Shares Process and Hybrid Manufacturing Tips

Welcome to a Pathfinder Interview, where we do deep dives with industry experts to uncover insights from the source. In today's episode, we'll do a deep dive interview with John Selby - CEO of Selby Piper, where we discuss the process, materials, costs and advantages of composite drone manufacturing using Fiberglass (as well as the pitfalls of carbon fiber). Enjoy!

https://www.selbypiper.com/
https://customcarbon.co.uk/

Pathfinder Series:
   • Pathfinder Series  

Pathfinder Interviews:
   • Pathfinder Interviews  

Pathfinder Explained:
   • Pathfinder Explained  

I Built an Autonomous Drone at Home:
   • I Built an Autonomous Drone at Home  

I Built a QuadPlane with my 3D Printer:
   • I Built a QuadPlane with my 3D Printer  

3D Printable Designs:
https://www.thingiverse.com/pathfinde...

Landing Page:
https://www.nomadiumrobotics.com/

Fixed wing drones have 10 times the range of traditional rotor drones, unlocking exciting use cases and business opportunities.

Vertical Take-Off and Landing, enables superior autonomy, additional use-cases and rapid reusability (drone in a box) of fixed wing drones.

Autonomy reduces operational costs with orders of magnitude, making services widely available to businesses and governments, while on-board machine vision enables completely new solutions to their challenging problems.

3D Printing with advanced filaments cuts production costs with orders of magnitude to enable nation--wide coverage with relatively small capital investment.

With Nomadium Robotics, I'm combining all 4 of those requirements to develop aerial robotics for a resilient future | www.nomadiumrobotics.com

Building your own UAV is an incredibly fulfilling and challenging experience, which I am hoping you will embark on.

Link to custom designs: https://www.thingiverse.com/pathfinde...

0:00 - Overview
0:52 - Interview
1:55 - Pre-Preg Manufacturing
3:31 - Moulds
4:32 - Vacuum & Curing Process
5:07 - Fiberglass Reinforced 3D Printed Parts
6:04 - Fiberglass Wing Segment
9:30 - Post-Processing
10:36 - Post-Processing: Wrap
12:20 - Gel-Coat a 3D Printed Part?
13:00 - Design Limitations
14:46 - Fiberglass vs Carbon Fiber
15:46 - Fiberglass Weight
17:25 - CF Blocks/Weakens Radio Signals
18:39 - Cost Comparison
21:40 - 3D Printing a Low-Cost Mould
23:36 - Low-Cost Composite Mould for Startups
27:37 - Cost of Materials: ~$330/sq.m.
31:42 - Weight of Materials
32:58 - Wrapping up