I made a compact ultralight slip case to protect my new DJI Mini 3 drone and RC-N1 flight controller when motorcycle camping. It’s as small and lightweight as I could make it. Each of the overlapping side walls are 1.5 mm thick, so the double sides are 3 mm thick and the ends are 2 mm thick. Printed from carbon fiber ABS. the slip case weighs 7.2 ounces or 204 grams. The entire package with the drone, flight controller and a minimal tool kit of spare propellers and mini screwdriver weights 30 ounces or 850 grams.
The drone and controller are each protected by a thick 9"x6" zip closure plastic bag that prevents them from rubbing against each other or the case while vibrating in transit, although the items nest tightly and there isn’t much vibration. A 3"x5" zip closure plastic bag carries spare propellers, a mini screw driver, spare micro-SD cards, short USB cables, etc. The slip case is water resistant but the zip closure bags inside the slip case provide a fairly waterproof storage solution.
The design probably fits other mini drones as is, and can easily be scaled in a slicer to fit as needed. If you’d like to make more extensive remix alterations, I included the FreeCAD file. The RC flight controller with the built-in display is larger so you’d need to scale the width and height to accommodate the RC controller.
The inner slip case is printed and test fitted to ensure that the drone and controller fit properly. Scale as needed in the slicer. Then reprint with the X and Y dimensions increased by 4 mm each to produce the outer slip case that slides over the inner slip case. The fit should zip together with the layer lines very slightly interfering. I made a 30 mm tall test fit by moving the part down 50 mm so it wouldn’t waste filament printing the 2 mm thick bottom and added a 5 mm brim to adhere the 1.5 mm wall to the print bed. Adding 4 mm to the X and Y dimensions of the inner slip case worked perfectly for me, so I eliminated the brim, placed the outer slip cover back on the bed and printed it.
I printed the slip case from carbon fiber ABS but any material should work - PLA, PETG, PET-CF, ABS, ABS-CF, ASA, TPU…. PLA might be a bit brittle but should work for most applications.
I used a 0.6 mm Microswiss CM2 nozzle and when sliced with the Arachne slicer setting, there were two 0.75 mm wall layers. Using a 0.4 mm nozzle with three wall layers should also work well.
I printed this on my Sovol Zero printer but had to cheat and lower the height from 160 mm to 152 mm so it would fit.