UAV Engine Component “Puck”
NWUAV Unmanned Vehicle Engine Component “Puck”
Northwest UAV (NWUAV) hit the ground running in 2005 when founder Chris Harris set out to build high-efficiency engines for the fast-growing unmanned aircraft market.
Fast forward to today, and the McMinnville, Oregon crew has expanded to a powerhouse team handling serious volume.
The Bottleneck: Squeezing Complex Geometry into Tight Schedules
Building multi-fuel UAV engines means creating hardware that fits seamlessly across multiple aircraft frames. To streamline their builds, engineers created the Puck, a custom UAV engine housing that slides into various UAV aircraft bays. The design promised to slash assembly times, but testing required a rapid prototype UAV engine puck to verify complex geometric fits on a brutal timeline. To hit their deadline, the engineering team turned to a precision SLS service bureau strategy.
The Solution: Putting SLS 3D Printing Bureaus to the Test
They sent the exact same design file to two providers: a massive corporate outfit and the local experts at Northwest Rapid Manufacturing. The big bureau returned a part that barely scraped by selective laser sintering PA 2201 tolerances. It carried an ugly orange peel texture which indicates a low-quality powder, appeared to have been hand-sanded to improve the finish, and weighed in at a chunky 159 grams. The Northwest Rapid Manufacturing case study tells a completely different story.
The Results: Lighter Parts, Sharp Details, and an Ongoing Partnership
Printing the file using PA 2201 Nylon 12 powder delivered a spot-on rapid prototyping drone engine component Puck with crisp feature definition, perfect flex, and a clean finish. Better yet, the lightweight drone component SLS printing shaved off vital mass, bringing the final weight down to 148 grams. Eleven grams might sound small until you try flying with it, where every fraction of an ounce counts.
That initial test turned a quick prototype run into a long-term partnership. Today, Northwest Rapid Manufacturing handles ongoing production of the Puck alongside other SLS 3D-printed UAV parts for both standard and custom engine lines. When additive manufacturing lightweighting meets tight quality control, high-performance flight hardware works better.
Ready to trim the fat from your next production run? Reach out to our team or request an instant quote by uploading your design files.