RC Yacht "footy"

A number of years back i was contemplating building one of these

[www.footy.rcsailing.net]

Basically a fun and cheap RC yacht class, with a simple largely fit inside the box rule so allows for all sorts of weird derivatives.

Now with a 3d printer i realise I could print the hull as a thin shell and sparse infill, and then finish, strengthen waterproof the hull with epoxy.

All that being said never really been a rc anything person, so the remote stuff has me confused, anyone point me at a cheap bundle of all i would need?

Alternatively, have been thinking about making it autonomous, or semi autonomous, much like some of the quadcopters, and having it controlled via iphone / android device. That would be really cool, outside the class rules as far as racing, but want this more as a toy then a serious racing craft,

So will be designing a hull to print in 2 or more parts, will probably end up designing more then one as having a few to choose from is never a bad thing.

delftship is free hull design software that does export to stl, so this seems pretty easy

Hapopy to collaborate on designs if others are interested, or just post back as I make my way forward from idea to reality, show some interest thjough as it may keep me motivated.

GaZ

i like the idea

Printing a boat hull on a reprap would be very hard as it is thin and quite large. This tends to make the part have internal stresses which make it crack or distort whilst printing. This is why the Tantillus reprap case is so difficult to print. You might need to make it in short 25mm sections and glue it together.

As an alternative, have you considered printing the sections and keel and then assembling it in a traditional manner. Basically you are replacing the balsa parts in a model boat with printed ones

You could use 3mm round filament along the lengths and then cover the structure in material or paper mache. It would make a very strong and light hull. Paper mache is ideal for this and has been a traditional technique used in model boats for years. Its called "gummed paper strip construction". see link below.

Gummed paper strip discussion

Was / am planning on having inner and outer hull shapes 2 to 5 mm apart, 2 to 3 shells and low density Infiill. The 2 walls joined by the sparse infill should be strong. Then a layer of epoxy over the top should provide additional strength.

Have already moceekd one hull up will print at about 150mm length single object print with support.

Gaz

Hi Gaz,
How is it coming along? I'm very curious as to how boat design can meet 3d printing. I think the whole thing has great potential. There are a few challenges to be ironed out but if the topic draws enough interest you'll get plenty of positive input. I've downloaded that Delftship hull design software to check it out. It has some excellent examples with, but looks like a bit of a learning curve. There must be some tutorials around for it.

Best of luck!
NumberSix

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[numbersixreprap.blogspot.com]

Yeah things got a bit busy since i first posted. My first couple of hulls ended up failing for the reasons given above, to keep it thin enough to be useable it then wasnt thick enough to print correctly, havent really gotten back to this as I need to design a hull theat not only works as a sailboat, but can also be printed easily .

FWIW here is my original hull design which is basically just one of delftships tutorial models. I then used netfabb to slice the model near the deckline and printed a top and bottom. Top printed well, but bottom failed when the hull got thin and it couldnt build on th previous layer. Overall ths first test was already a very thick hull, so thickening the hull isnt really an option, could maybe slice the hull down the centre and print a right and left hull piece but never got back to it. Other option was to close the cockpit and turn the model into just a solid object, print as 4 perimeters with very low infill, then cut the cockpit after printing and ream out infill where required for components.

file was to large to attach, heres a thingiverse link [www.thingiverse.com]


GaZ