3d Printing and Amateur Rocketry

Over the last phew years there has been an explosion in FDM 3d printing and with it we are seeing it used more and more in Amateur rocketry. When i started regularly attending my local rocketry club about 2 years ago 3d printed rocket parts were very experimental with just a phew people experimenting with it. Today 3d printing is much more mainstream in amateur rocketry with an ever increasing number of people using it.

Anyone here using 3d printing in there rocketry?

Here in the UK/Europe where there are very phew rocketry suppliers, 3d printing is a great tool for building parts that otherwise would be very expensive or require prolonged lead times to get hold of. This is one of the reasons that it has been embraced by the community.

Having said that 3d printing in amateur rocketry is still a relatively new technology and we are still very much exploring the limits of what is achievable, from detailing, custom nosecones to fully 3d printed rockets. I have started to become increasingly aware that right now most of that knowledge is fragmented and spread across multiple forums, facebook and though word of mouth. As 3d printing increases in popularity and new people join the hobby the fragmented nature of where that information is currently held could make it hard/intimidating for people to get the relevant information. I am beginning to think that we are getting to the point where a comprehensive guide to model rocketry and 3d printing needs to be put together in one easy to access resource.

Thoughts?

I would also like to challenge those that are already designing and 3d printing rocket parts for amateur rocketry to where they can open source their designs and make them available for the community.

This is a link to my thingivere where i currently upload my rocketry designs. https://www.thingiverse.com/wardy89/designs

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I love those electronics bays you have posted and I should probably print some of your cases for the eggtimer stuff as I have a quark and a quantum. I have used 3d printing for nosecones mainly and for some things like boat tails etc on low power stuff. I use openSCAD and also am slooooowly learning freecad so the only bits I have online are some openscad files for generating ellipsoid nosecones and bits to any dimensions.

> They are here

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I am really happy with the new design for the BT-60 av bay, it is much nicer to print than the original and fits together really nicely!

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I’ve been a fan of 3D printing since the first of them appeared. Now we are printing some toys for kids at home :slight_smile:

This is a great example of the technology leap.

This might be possible for the project realization. Good possibility, that some of the participants have the opportunity of using 3D printers.

Encouraging and inspiring - real rocket technology at home.

3D printed rocket can be done by any teenager (NASA’s Space Exploration Educators Conference (SEEC) made it possible as an event attendees a few months ago.