Benchy is that cute little boat that everyone uses to calibrate their 3D printer. [Emily The Engineer] asked the obvious question—why isn’t it a real working boat? Then she followed through on the execution. Bravo, [Emily]. Bravo.
The full concept is straightforward, but that doesn’t make it any less fun. [Emily] starts by trying to get small Benchys to float, and then steadily steps up the size, solving problems along the way. By the end of it, the big Benchy is printed out of lots of smaller sections that were then assembled into a larger whole. This was achieved with glue and simply using a soldering iron to melt parts together. It’s a common technique used to build giant parts on smaller 3D printers, and it works pretty well.
The basic hull did okay at first, save for some stability problems. Amazingly, though, it was remarkably well sealed against water ingress. It then got a trolling motor, survived a capsizing, and eventually took to the open water with the aid of some additional floatation.
We’ve seen big Benchys before, and we’ve seen fully functional 3D-printed boats before, too. It was about time the two concepts met in reality. Video after the break.
smashing a 3D-printed bottle of champagne over the hull * Benchy McBenchface
That’s a lot of filament on those shelves!
Maybe Flex Seal could’ve sponsored the video…
Benchy McBenchface
Just a note: it’s “BravA”, Emily :-)
Eeeeh, that’s correct when in italian, but in this context it is an English loanword. We don’t use it that way.
(yay descriptivism)
It’s a loan in the same way the Elgin Marbles are a loan, if they really wanted the word they wouldn’t have just left it lying around for anyone to pick up; but they’re always welcome to come and look at it, but we’re never giving it back :-)
“I really don’t want to have to fibreglass this thing”. Can’t help but think that a layer of fibreglass would have been far easier and quicker than the fastidious use of superglue in each crack though.
Or you could just make a fiberglass hull the way you would in the 1970s and it would be far easier, faster, better, less expensive, etc etc (but wouldn’t have as good engagement)
Plastic toys on HaD? Not a hack.
Printing a model scaled much larger than the printer, and making a boat with a 3d printer? A bit of a hack…
I assume the printer is calibrated now
in that case, I wouldn’t read the article, if I was you.
oh. shall we number this Standard Hackaday Comment (SHC) #2, after SHC #1 “could have done that with a 555”?
so just post a comment like
SHC#2. saves time and everybody knows what you mean.
SHC #1, then
Did you forget about the Hackaday Bingo Card?
Wish i had the modified stl files to build one. I would build from recycle 2 liter soda bottles.
Now for a plastic Bruce the shark to eat the transom