3D Printing Mid - High Power 3d Printed Fins?

[gary7]

I know essentially nothing about 3d printing other than it happens. I have searched but cannot find an answer to the following:
Can any 3d printer, print fins of adequate strength to fly on mid to high power rockets?
Why not?

 

[Dugway]

What I do is print leading and trailing fin edges and then glue and/or fiberglass them to the existing balsa or plywood fins. Saves the time of beveling and actually increases the size of the fins to compensate for the added weight. It's worked great so far.

 

[manixFan]

Short answer: yes. Long answer: it depends on many factors. I've had a 3D printer for several years and have printed a lot of rocket components with it, including 3D fin cans for F-G motors. One thing that a lot of folks don't realize about 3D printers is that they have an extremely wide range of filaments available with varying mechanical properties that require a fair of amount of technical knowledge and experience to use properly. The software that preps the models for printing - 'slicing it' - typically has dozens of parameters that can be adjusted and good knowledge of those settings is useful to create the strongest possible structures. One nice thing about printing a fin can is that the fins should come out perfectly aligned and can be much more aerodynamic in shape than a typical flat fin. However, most home 3D printers do not have a very large print volume which limits the overall size of either a fin can or individual fin.

So with research and experience, you can use a 3D printer for mid and high power rockets, there are several good threads here already showing the process. However, it's not something that you should be able to expect to do your first week with a new printer.


Tony

here's a partial 29mm fin can (about 1/3rd done) that I printed a while ago with PETG filament, I've printed a similar version with fins that were not solid infill that also worked well. The fin can was generated using an OpenSCAD generator found on this site:

 

[kramer714]

Short answer: yes. Long answer: it depends on many factors. I've had a 3D printer for several years and have printed a lot of rocket components with it, including 3D fin cans for F-G motors. One thing that a lot of folks don't realize about 3D printers is that they have an extremely wide range of filaments available with varying mechanical properties that require a fair of amount of technical knowledge and experience to use properly. The software that preps the models for printing - 'slicing it' - typically has dozens of parameters that can be adjusted and good knowledge of those settings is useful to create the strongest possible structures. One nice thing about printing a fin can is that the fins should come out perfectly aligned and can be much more aerodynamic in shape than a typical flat fin. However, most home 3D printers do not have a very large print volume which limits the overall size of either a fin can or individual fin.

So with research and experience, you can use a 3D printer for mid and high power rockets, there have several good threads here already showing the process. However, it's not something that you should be able to expect to do your first week with a new printer.


Tony

here's a partial 29mm fin can (about 1/3rd done) that I printed a while ago with PETG filament, I've printed a similar version with fins that were not solid infill that also worked well. The fin can was generated using an OpenSCAD generator found on this site:
View attachment 480091

 

[kramer714]

yup, and I agree with Manix , solid PETG, proper temperatures and speeds, solid infill or designed infill (not just the infill from the slicer but proper structure designed in). Picture is a fincan for a 29mm J.

 

[Kelly]

Here are HPR rockets up to L3, almost completely 3D printed:

 

[JBoyson]

There are some really cool thing you can try and do with 3d printing!
I tried these detachable rocket boosters and fin cans, lots to learn and so happy to see this hobby growing!