The same was the case for the Polycarbonate part, as you can see. “It looks as good as when we put it on,” the makers remarked. The ABS propeller, however, did just fine.
If you were stuck at sea, and needed a prop to get you home, you’d get home,” Hayden said of the failure. Though carbon fiber is known for being harder than many metals, it actually showed significant damage during the dry land test. So how did they do? Rather surprisingly, the Carbon fiber PLA didn’t make it past the first hurdle. The results were first strapped to an engine on dry land, as you can see in the clip, with the survivors actually being launched in the harbor.
Four versions of the prop were 3D printed with a solid fill at 0.25mm layers by Hayden, who has extensively worked with the marine industry in the past. The results were excellent: a perfectly compatible propeller. Though this caught a perfect image of the outside of the propeller, the insides had to be CAD engineered by Sarah of Idea Beans. Before 3D printing, they first made a 3D scan of a 15HP Yamaha outboard motor using the EinScan-S 3D scanner (also known as the ScanMaster Plus). “Com'on really, a wooden boat propeller!” they said. The Wood/PLA composite was added for a laugh, and both didn’t expect it would add anything. On that machine, they 3D printed four well-regarded filaments: ABS, Wood/PLA, Polycarbonate and Carbon Fiber PLA.
Though this did limit their material choices, it still proves that you can achieve a lot on a regular machine.
Carefully mimicking the hobbyist environment, they ignored the industrial strength 3D printers they have available, and instead turned to the well regarded UP BOX desktop FDM 3D printer. “The huge array of materials and myths that float around them is definitely a minefield, not to mention the environment some materials require to printed in, heated bed, heated chamber and separate support materials are in some cases a necessity for a successful print,” they say. Drawing on past experiences and contacts in the marine industry, they set out to look at the strength of various materials when used for boat propellers: very thin, technical components exposed to the motor’s great power and the ocean’s harsh, salty environment.Īs they explain to, they were trying to get to terms with the misconceptions that surround the wide variety of 3D printable filaments currently available. This interesting, if slightly unscientific test was carried about by veteran 3D printers Bruce, from 3D Printing Systems, a major 3D printer reseller in Australia and New Zealand, and Hayden from 3D printing service provider Clone3D. To illustrate that point and show that there are genuine differences between various materials, two makers decided to set up a challenging test: can you 3D print boat propellers? And if so, what material works best? The results might surprise you. But the truth is that those are only guidelines and real results depend completely on what you use it for and what geometric shapes you’ve designed. When looking at new filaments to use for a particularly challenging 3D printing project, you’ll often read about certain qualities, such as durability, high strength and so on.