What material did you print the sled with? It turned out awesome! Also, what printer are you working with?
What material did you print the sled with? It turned out awesome! Also, what printer are you working with?
The sled was printed in PLA. I am using a Monoprice Maker Select V2 printer along with the Cura slicing software and I designed the sled using Fusion 360.
I really like the carbon fiber rod idea, I'm gonna definitely have to try PETG now. Thanks for the helpful feedback.PETG is as easy to print as PLA with a strength comparable to ABS, all without the toxic fumes. It is very durable and has a relatively high heat resistance for plastic. My recent L2 scratch build was completely printed from PETG except for the tubes and recovery system. For the fins I designed them with slots for carbon fiber rods to be epoxied into them. It resulted in a very stiff and durable fin. The fins have easily withstood a J250W and two I180Ws.
Esun PETG prints at 250C with no fan at 40-60mm/s for excellent layer adhesion. It prints beautifully and I have not had any issues with it. View attachment 372241
If this is the first thing you've printed, I can't wait to see what comes next. Looks amazing, very professional.
You're using Fusion 360? I actually helped start a club at my school called AggieCAD where we are teaching fellow students about Fusion 360. We are going to host a competition at the end of the semester and the winners will get their designs 3D printed. 3D modeling is a very useful tool to have and the prototyping capabilities that go along with it are incredible.I have printed a few toys and stuff from Thingverse for the kids but this was the first useful thing I have printed. It is also the first thing I designed in Fusion. I have experience with 2D cad programs but the 3D modeling software is all new for me.
Please find attached 9 photos of of a PETG printed "sandwich" sled (3 levels) I utilize in 75 and 98 mm AV-bays. The basic design is for a 75 mm sled with extenders (see pictures 8 and 9) to enable operation in a 98 mm bay. The top surface usually contains 1 or 2 altimeters with up to 3 Lipos in enclosures "sandwiched" between the upper and lower sled layers. The lower layer usually contains a tracking transmitter and/or GPS unit.
Chuck, please consider this as an early 3D printed sled competition entry.
Fred, L2
ICBM, Camden, SC
KG4YGP
Pictures 1-3 below
View attachment 372323
Finished all of the test parts. These are printes designed around BT-60 airframe tubing. The final rocket is an extreme down scaling of the Derrik Deville's QU8K BALLS project from 7-years ago:
View attachment 372610
Printed are the nosecone, fincan, coupler, baffle, two (24mm motor mount) centering rings, and motor retainer:
View attachment 372611
The parts look wet in the camera flash.
I am currently printing the final design in a gray PETG material.
Vectored Thrust Motor Gimbal
The larger diameter ring (98mm) is screwed to the upper section of the rocket, the smaller one with the ball joint (54mm) screws into the motor mount. I plan to gimbal the motor and the fins. The vertical rod ends connect to servos (not shown) the horizontal link prevents rotation.
Hi Kramer 714,
Beautiful Vectored Thrust Motor Gimbal CADS. I appreciate the design and printed products and thank you for this novel addition to this thread. The following is a series of questions for my education and not meant to be critical. Please discuss the computer control/software/ servo control via ?gyros you plan to incorporate. Also, I wonder if your eventual ground testing during motor burn, if the 3D printed parts will be resilient enough to repetitively facilitate the movement required. What back up system do you envision if during flight, the motor or fin movement fail? You state that you will gimbal both the motor and fins. Since most HPR motor burns are less than 5 seconds, most of a flight will be unpowered and I wonder if the maximum effort would be best to rely on gimballed fins rather than the motor. There is a Danish group which plans to reach orbital levels in which "minutes" of powered flight would occur and they do gimbal the motor nozzle (see: ); however, I question the effectiveness of motor movement (to correct an errant flight path) if the powered component of flight is only a few seconds. Again, these questions are asked to acquire more insight into this topic. Thanks again for presenting your interesting designs.
Fred, L2
ICBM, Camden, SC
KG4YGP
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