Scoot - a tiny 3d printed rocket

Hey everybody. Last night I looked at the bad weather rolling in and decided to design a little 3d printed rocket instead of prepping rockets to fly this weekend. I printed a test rocket last night and made a few changes. I'm printing what should be my first flight version now.



If you'd like to print your own, here ya go: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2763166

It flies on the little Estes 13mm motors like the 1/2A3-4T. The body tube is sized so that the motor should be slightly loose, so you'll have to add a little bit of tape on your motor to get the right fit. The body tube thickness should give you just 1 layer, but that will depend on your printer & settings (my printer is set for 0.48mm extrusion width). It's a tumble (or maybe feather weight free fall) recovery rocket, so make sure your launch area is safe for that. The launch rod tube is sized for a 1/8" launch rod. It has a Von Karman nose cone because, well, it looks cool.

I printed mine in PETG with a layer thickness of 0.16mm. I'm using a modified Prusa i3 printer variant with a 0.4mm nozzle. The fins are pretty close to 45 degree overhangs, but there's not much base area for printer bed adhesion. So, I adjusted my support settings to print supports for the fins instead of just the body. Feel free to try your supports with or without supporting the fins. It's tough to print without them though. It might work well with some rafts instead of supports. YMMV.

<The OpenRocket file will go here once I get the weight & balance of the final print>

The recovery is something I'll definitely watch for when I fly it. The pointy nose isn't best if it comes in fast & stable. So, watch out for that.

If anyone makes one, I'd love to hear how it goes. Video & pictures would be great too. I'll fly it as soon as I get a chance, but the lakebeds here have to dry first.

I added a blunt nose version to Thingiverse.

very cool, kind of reminiscent of Swift and Quark:

https://www.estesrockets.com/rockets/kits/skill-1/000810-220-swifttm
https://jonrocket.com/store/products/quark

GlenP said:

kind of reminiscent of Swift and Quark:

Click to expand...

Yeah, definitely. When you go this small, you get driven to similar features. I've been telling my 6 year old daughter about the Mosquito I made as a kid. I haven't found one locally, so I made my own version. Ever since my PML Quicksilver, I've been pretty much in love with 6-finned rockets. Soooo, there ya go.

I added a few more versions to Thingiverse & updated the description. After several test prints, it looks like about 75% infill with PETG is the right amount. According to OpenRocket on the "normal-finned" versions, that should give about 1.3 calibers of stability & the rockets weigh about 14g. I haven't figured out how to make OpenRocket work for the single tube fun plus 6 stubby fins version, but it looks about right.

Here's the link again: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2763166

Here's an OpenRocket file for the easy-printing 6-finned version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tf6vplritq86yaa/GrouchoDuke's 3d printed Scoot.ork?dl=0

Be careful with these, but please share any flight info you have.

I've flown a few of these:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1743408

...and they do tend to come in stable even after motor ejection. Mine all have dirt ground into the noses. I would suggest printing with as little infill as possible in the nose, maybe even hollow.

Very cool. I'll compare that design to mine in OpenRocket to see how different the predicted stability is. With the high drag back end of mine, I'm guessing I can go lower than 1.0 on OpenRocket's stability results.

I haven't flown any of mine yet. Hopefully the lakebed will be dry out here in Vegas by our next launch so I can get some good flights in.