Building/printing Falcon / Dragon / Fairing

[Chriske]

Hi,

HST almost done now and already planning a new project, again for our local observatory.
This time I'm going to build/print a Falcon9, together with a Dragon or Fairy, and most probably a Heavy too.
It'll be build at the same scale as the SaturnV that I'm still printing right now. It'll take some time to print all these SaturnV's parts, especially Saturn's LUT, and crawler.
That SaturnV I'm printing is at scale 1:33, so Falcon at the same scale will be 'only' 2.1meter high.
Because of Falcon's shape there aren't to many parts that needs to be printed. It's in fact nothing more then a long tube with a few smaller parts sticking out of it's hull and also 9 small thrusters/booster. In my scale model that tube at scale 1:33 is only 110mm diameter and 1.6m high. The rest, up to 2.1m, is 'cargo'.

[Ags]

I'd like to see a pic of your local observatory, it sounds like an interesting place!

[Chriske]

It is...

[Ags]

I didn't expect Belgium somehow - not too far from me!

[Gina]

I'll browse your site Chris.

[Chriske]

My site..? how so...?

[Gina]

Urania - where you go.  Maybe I used the wrong terminology...

[Chriske]

No no not at all, but I use to have a site of my own. I thought you were referring to that one.
It's still on line but nobody knows about it anymore. It has not been updated since 2000(or so) due to lack of time.

[Gina]

I see.

[Chriske]

Together with Falcon I'd like to build a Starlink satellite to scale.
Anybody have a link to more info to these Starlinks.
The only info I could find so far is a few drawings.

This is how these satellites are stacked in the Fairing during launching.

 

And this is what I made of it, so far. It's an estimate, I need to copy this from drawing in perspective. Details and smaller parts will be added later.

[Chriske]

Now that HST is finished and 'floating' around it's time to continue building on Falcon9/Dragon. Plans were already made.
Fairing parts are already printed.
As I said before it will be a fast build. Michel(my colleague model builder) will take care of the Falcon's LUT.
One Falcon will hang somewhere on the ceiling and a second Falcon, only first stage + intersection will be standing on the ground landing-feet wide open, covered in soot.
Once more Turbosquid will guide us to find out what external parts hang around Falcon9. Although these are good drawings, we don't know how accurate they are.

[Chriske]

First parts, needs a bit cleaning-up before assembling, there's a small burr at the bottom of each part.

[Chriske]

From now on there's a second friend(Peter) helping us drawing all these parts.
I'm doing Falcon9, the two other guys started drawing the(tilting) launch tower.

Just finished the grid. These are used when the first stage is busy landing on one of the boats.
When landing is almost at it's end, these 4 grids are activated. Purpose is stabilize that first stage and correct when needed to have it landing perfectly vertically.

The real these things are 1.2x1.5meter wide. At scale 1:33 they're just 36x39mm.

The thinnest parts(vertical walls) of the grids itself are 0.32mm thick. So I can't print that with my 0.4mm nozzle.
But I pull a trick out of my sleeve. I tell my printer there's a 0.25mm nozzle and raise EM to1.2. Already tested it, works just fine.
The curve in the grid(see photo) I apply later, after it is printed. The curve is to shallow to print. So after print I heat these parts and bend them over a tube. For that to do I throw them in 80°C water for just a few seconds and bend them over the rocket itself.

[Gina]

Brilliant!!

[Chriske]

First print, have to tune the slice just a little bit because to most upper layer is not completely closed. But not only that, I need to reduce the layer height a bit. These small pieces need a layer height no more then 0.15 I think.
The part at far left has a curved bottom. That is the part in contact with the rocket(diameter 110mm)
As matter of fact I'm not used to work with thin layer heights. I do love more the BIG nozzles projects...!
These small parts prints is something completely new to me. I need to improve this.

[Chriske]

This is the result printing with a 0.4mm nozzle, telling my slicer it is only a 0.25mm.
Not perfect but it will do.
I need to clean it up a bit with a small file.
Not bad for a liar isn’t it...🤭

[Gina]

I don't like printing very small stuff either.  I shall have to finish my "GinaRep UltiPrinter" to print really small stuff.  Might get round to it soon...

Edited July 4, 2020 by Gina

[Chriske]

My pal Michel is also printing parts for this project
He's busy printing thrusters. 8 of those are needed.

[Chriske]

Did some printing myself too today.

Question for the print-nerds..🤔

What is the difference between these two part, beside the used nozzle diameter.?  What happened..?
Both parts started from the same STL file.

 

[Mognet]

On the sloping parts it looks like they were sliced with two different layer heights. Having never printed with anything other than a 0.4mm nozzle I can't think of any other reason for the differences

[Chriske]

Nope...!

[Gina]

Don't know...

[Mognet]

Were they printed on the same printer or on different printers? My next thought is that one printer has less detailed stepping

Edited July 6, 2020 by Mognet
Typo

[Chriske]

View from another angle.
How is this possible, what happened..?
And at the same time while posting this, I notice my cuppa is getting cold...🙄

 

[Chriske]

It's NOT a slingshot...😁