1/20 Project дельфин, 3D printed

[eckloss]

Some of you have been following this over the past week on Facebook. But for those of you not there, I wanted to share with you a project I'm currently working on.

The boat is a 1/20 scale Russian Project дельфин, or "Delfin". Turn of the century small sub.



This boat will be entirely printed in PLA using a Sindoh 3DWOX 3D printer. I will need to fabricate a few minor metal parts, but the majority of the pats will be printed.

The pictures below represent 78 hours of continuous printing so far. I estimate another 7-10 days of print time will be needed.

Thanks to Bob Martin of NDD for producing the 3D files based on photos and very rough plans found online. My CAD skills are just not up to something this complex (yet lol).

The print will consist of over 30 separate printed parts, joined together to form the final shell and upper decking of the sub. The LOA will be apx. 39".

[crueby]

Quite an interesting sub, will be watching along!

[salmon]

Very cool subject and it will be a unique sub. I too will be watching. Thank you for posting this!

[bob the builder]

That is turning out really great, Erich!

If you give the hull a quick sand with rough grit paper and then "paint" it with epoxy, you'll net a nice, smooth finish on the hull and get rid of all of the striations from the printer.

I also find with 3D printing larger models that if the assembled parts end up not lining up perfectly, you can use your heat gun to (gently) warm up the parts, clamp them in place and let them cool. The files align perfectly, in theory the parts aligned perfectly out of the printer, so they'll align perfectly with a bit of massaging (if needed).


Bob

[eckloss]

Bob,

Not shown in the pictures is the underside of the stern cone where I had sanded it down to a smooth finish. I figured I'd experiment there where nobody would really see it. Seems to be working perfectly so far.

[eckloss]

Lower hull has completed printing. Now on to the upper hull and deck.

[ccontrol]

Really interesting subject! Will the parts or print files be available for sale?

[eckloss]

...slowly taking shape

[bob the builder]

That is looking darned spanky! Can't wait to see the upper deck details!

Great work, Erich!

[dono]

Great job Erich. Looks like you will have the boat ready to show at Carmel this year for your tech talk. Can’t wait to see it.

[Rick Teskey]

A submarine?
I thought it was buck rogers space ship!

[eckloss]

I lost almost two days printing time because of print failures. I'm coming to find that the filament spools used for this particular printer tend to jam when they are about 90% empty. I can hear a repeated knocking noise as the spool jams up and no longer unwinds. My assumption is that the filament is wound too tight near its end. This has happened to multiple spools over the past year of use. The filament is proprietary so I have no choice in what spools I use, only a choice of colors. This year's model has eliminated this limitation and opened it up to aftermarket ones.

But, it seems to be back on track. Another section is almost complete, leaving only one more hull section to do. Then I can begin printing the deck, dive planes, etc.

To get a sense of how large this boat will be, the larger upright sections in the photo below are 9" tall/long.

[scott t]

Could you wind the new spool of filament onto a empty spool to make sure it is not to tight?

[eckloss]

Main hull sections done. Now to move on to the deck and other parts.

[crueby]

How thick are the hull sections? Are you happy with the rigidity and strength?