New member here. Thanks Alan for getting me set up with an account.
I have been thinking about building an ultralight for years. I am a retired carpenter with over 40yrs experience with a well set up wood shop and what attracted me the Mini-Max brand it the fact that it's built from wood. A couple of years ago, I built a CNC router and I would like to cut as much of the parts as possible on my CNC. Are there any plans available in .dxf format? I'm not even sure which model, yet. Probably the 1100R. Thanks! Don
No cad files that I am aware of. I've drawn up a few parts in Adobe Inventor just to test the fit but thats all. A Minimax is mostly stick built. The only parts you could really cut on CNC would be the wing rib gussets.
Hey Don, I just started an 1100R and I had all of the gussets fit wing ribs, tail feathers, and ailerons laser cut by a friend of mine. I’m happy to share the dxf files with you. PM me with your email.
I'm glad to see someone is thinking the same way I am. I would love to design some aircraft of CNC cut plywood and epoxy. I've got a lot of expertise with wood and epoxy advanced structures and I also know and teach how to do developed surfaces in plywood which allows you to create surfaces which are more rounded than you would think possible even though you are using sheet materials that at any given point are only bending in one direction. An advantage of developed surfaces is that they can be made much stiffer, and therefore built much lighter, than a piece of plywood which bends only in the longitudinal direction.
Put the whole thing together with filled epoxy fillets taped over with very light glass or carbon tape and then the plywood sealed with epoxy and you have an extremely rigid light structure.
Interesting concept. What are you waiting for, get busy designing! Just watch a Pilot RC factory tour video on youtube to see some advanced ply construction. Of course, these are just models, although very large models, I'm sure some of the same principles apply.
I am building a MiniMax 1600R Sport. In the process I am making a 3D CAD model and I find it very helpful for my build. There are many parts that could be CNC cut, unfortunately I do not have a CNC cutter, but I am always printing templates to help me cut my gussets, nose ribs, leading edge nose rib and much more. My 3D model is not complete yet, but I would be happy to share it once I finish it. Screenshot attached.
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