Fully Customizable Configurable Model Rocket Fin Guide by jordanjacob

Last crawled date: 2 years, 11 months ago

Based on the original SCAD file by garyacrowellsr at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4292667.
All drop-down menus and slider controls (except Tube Clearance mm) have been removed and replaced with open-ended fields to customize as you please.
Note: If your fin guides are not showing up on a larger outer diameter tube, increase the Guide Span mm until they begin showing again.
Original documentation remains below this line.
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This is a configurable and printable guide for positioning and gluing fins to the body tube of a model rocket. Configuration options include the number of fins, body size, fin thickness, and other options for adjusting the size and strength of the print.
Fin positioning guides like this are not new, but it was done in a nice printed implementation by Dave Juliano in this thread on The Rocketry Forum. I liked the idea, so I stole it, turning it into the OpenSCAD Customizer implementation here.
This item, and other configurable model rocket tools I have written are posted and discussed in this thread on TRF.
All of my Thingiverse model rocketry-related designs are collected in this [Thingiverse collection](https://www.thingiverse.com/garyacrowellsr/collections/model-rockets-vcp}.
The photo of the printed fin guide used here is courtesy of markg on TRF.
Note that this is NOT intended for use with the Thingiverse Customizer - it requires the download and installation of the OpenSCAD CAD tool. The OpenSCAD Customizer works within the tool. Fear not, it installs easily and who knows? You might find it a useful tool.
USAGE DETAILS
Usage is pretty much self-explanatory, and the best way to figure it out is just to play around with the slider controls a bit. See the blurb below, if you haven't used the Customizer before.
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===================== OpenSCAD Customizer ===========================
This file has been created with the intention to use the OpenSCAD 'Customizer', on an
installed version of OpenSCAD, which allows the use of Windows-style selection tools to set parameters of the component. The use of this feature requires the following steps:
You must be using a recent OpenScad version, at least later than 2019.05 OpenSCAD is available at: http://www.openscad.org/downloads.html
Open the Fin_Guide.scad file with OpenSCAD.
In the OpenSCAD [View] menu, uncheck the option [Hide Customizer]. The Customizer window should open at the right side of the screen.
At the top of the Customizer window, check 'Automatic Preview' and select 'Show Details' in the dropdown box.
If you are comfortable with the instructions above, then also in the [View] menu, you can check the option [Hide editor], which will allow the full screen to view the model. You can also check to [Hide Console].