3D printing

[Cap'n Wannabe]

What program are you using there, Les?

Rhino, UP3D, Meshlab, 3DBuilder, Paint3D, Sketchup & Photo2Mesh. All have pros & cons.
hth.

Thanks for that....further question, though...are any of those parametric? I'm using Inventor, which is OK, but not great. Thinking of switching to Solidworks as it has far better surface creation, but there's a bit of a learning curve (although not much..)

[Cap'n Wannabe]

After scouring the webz for some decent BN-2 drawings, I came up empty. I did, however, find a reasonable Trislander drawing, complete with [some] dimensions. Unfortunately, it's only a profile view, but it's a start. I imported the drawing into Autocad, and found that the X and Y scales on the drawing were different. After a bit of faffing about, I scaled it properly, and started tracing it. Once I'd done that, I copied what I'd done, made an edumacated guess or two, and began to convert it back to an Islander.

Here's a photo of what I've done so far, with the Airfix fuselage underneath...


....and on top..


Well, my guesses were pretty much spot on. There are three areas that still need work - the nose, the windscreen, and the end of the fuselage. You may notice my drawing is slightly longer than the kit piece, and I'm not sure whether to ignore it and assume the drawing is correct, or tweak it to fit...

[hrtpaul]

very clever mate

[modelbear]

...are any of those parametric? I'm using Inventor, which is OK, but not great. Thinking of switching to Solidworks as it has far better surface creation, but there's a bit of a learning curve (although not much..)

Have you tried Onshape (http://www.onshape.com). It is a parametric cad program similar to solidworks, is free to use if your models are public and is also web based and will work on phones and tablets.

Peter

[Cap'n Wannabe]

I'll check it out, Peter.....thanks!

[Cap'n Wannabe]

Here's an image of where I'm at so far....just running some tests at the moment, however..
It's the first fuselage section - given my printer only has a 220 x 220 bed, I'll have to do the fuselage in 3 sections, I think!

[Cap'n Wannabe]

Having a look at the CAD model this morning, I noticed something was wrong. Turns out I'd misread my verniers when I measured the Airfix kit, and so the fuselage was too wide. And the windows are wrong. Still, it was just a test, so it doesn't really matter.

I also did a google search for Britten-Norman (I thought Pilatus had taken them over or something, but they have their own website) and found a brochure for the Islander complete with a dimensioned 3-view. Again, not all dimensions are present, but I can work with them. I also emailed their design department asking for more info....we'll see how that goes.

[modelbear]

Nice find on the Islander brochure. It is always good to have some actual dimensions, even if it does not have everything you want.

[hrtpaul]

Hey mate. When I go back to work tomorrow I'll see if we have any Islander maintenance manuals. They'll have a lot of dimensions that you're chasing

[Cap'n Wannabe]

After a bit more faffing around, I've got to the point where I kind of know what I'm doing...
The [incomplete] front section of the BN-2 (It's 1/32 scale, but you can't really tell..)