@Robajohn wrote:
I have to say I am pretty proud of myself but I also think this is a great SketchUp testimonial!
Two months ago I decided to learn CAD. I wanted to 3D print and not other peoples creations. For the first two weekends I tried several CAD Packages. The first weekend I started with the Free ones- LibreCad and Blender. I think the brain hemorrhages are almost cleared up now because they seriously made my head hurt.
The Second weekend I tried the TurboCAD free trial because if liked it the home version was $99. It was not too at first bad and I got a grip on 2D pretty quick with only minor bleeding! When it was time to go 3D though it simply befuddled me and I could not generate a STL file.
The third weekend I tried SketchUp. I did the four tutorials and holy ■■■■ that was easy! I whipped right through the four 'included' tutorials totally intuitively! So I went on to more tutorials on Youtube. I have had to get help here on the forums a couple of times on some sticking points but the help here was so good, so fast and so friendly it was unreal! It's more like your buddies helping you out.
So 6 weekends after touching SketchUp for the first time I sat down yesterday and did my first totally from scratch design!
I took most of Sunday putting this together (well all of Sunday less mowing the yard) but I think it says a lot about this product that a guy after a few weekends of You tube videos could pull this off in a single day...
So my 3d Printer will print at max 10.8 inches by 10.8 inches. I want to build planes larger than that. So I designed 5 basic parts. The max length of any given piece is 10.5 inches.
The parts all interlock and will therefore self-align... Here is an exploded view...
The shot shows a completed assembly of 7 parts (had to print two sets of rib "rings") So I now have a 10 inch section of wing (minus the control surfaces at the rear of course.)
Now to the magic part... this shot shows you how the the 10 inch sections are modular. You can 'snap-on' 10 inch modules to make the wing span you want. This pic shows 3 modules for a 30 inch span wing.
Yeah, this is what I do for fun on weekends! Shut up! My mom says I am too cool!
Posts: 3
Participants: 3