The “Footy”
The Footy is a class of remote controlled sailing boat, named for its class requirement of having a 1 foot hull length. This makes the first challenge when 3d printing one to either find a big enough printer, or split the model into sections.
1. A Big Enough Printer
Although my Ender gives me far less trouble, the A8 plus has served me well and has been my favourite printer so far. We used it as a print-farm machine, so it needed a little more maintenance, like a hard working pick up truck.
I took the boat model off thingiverse a while ago, since then the footy class people have really embraced 3D Printing and there are many more designs.
2. Dialling In For A 36 Hour Job
I changed the bearings and hot end, oiled the rails, increased the current of the steppers and tightened up everything and anything that may have come loose after a year of running in the print farm. I was also experimenting with the addition of a BLtouch at the time.
To get the thermals running smoothly, even over night, I did a PID tune of the hot end. I was printing in winter, where the day-night temperature changes can cause some trouble.
3. Printing
After three failed attempts, where the forces and twisting moment on top of the part broke it away from the bed, I used a skirt to get the extra bed adhesion
We don’t stock the filament used for this project any more, it may have gone better with our Mad Hornet ST-PLA Filament.
4. Putting The “RC” Into The Boat
The RC servo protocol is well built, and the wiring was pretty simple.
The rudder and pin in the hull still needed some refining after this iteration.
5. Sink It And Ruining The RC Transceiver (Optional)
Not an essential step, and not a recommended one either, but unfortunately one that I took.
Do not do this. As you can see from the thingiverse link, there were some issue with the hull and electronics not having a “dry box” in the boat.
6. Refine The Model
It was a fun little project, and although there is still some room to improve the design, it should be fine, as long as I don’t capsize.
7. Repeat Until Functional
Hopefully with less sinking.
If you would like us to print one ofthese:
1. hulls
2. servo brackets
3. rudder
4. and keel
for you. Please contact us.
Signed
Peter