Drive Away Awning Widgets

thingiverse

I've got a drive-away awning for my little campervan. Driveaway is okay, but driveback to exactly the same position is not in my skill set. So I hit openSCAD. The main widget is a thing that slots into a standard figure 8 awning rod, leaving a mechanism to connect a cord to hang out. I printed it in flexible filament so I could wrap the connector around a cord or pole as needed. Tested with a set of stretchy shoe laces to connect awning to van and decided to print some longer simple loops to go between the sections of figure 8 rod. But it appears to work. The rods can also be rolled up with the awning and clipped to the top of the tent in stand-alone mode, so I shouldn't have to re-thread the rods to the awning when I drive back. I also wanted a better awning attachment to the van; got very wet (and broke a fingernail) threading the figure 8 rods onto the awning tape on the van. Being loathe to drill more holes in the van roof, I printed a set of connectors to dangle from the same screw. Small holes in the connecting bar allowed me to sew all the connectors to a tape which replaced the awning tape; then used universal fixing tape to secure between the screws. Serenity prevailed as my van is a very similar grey to standard duct tape, so it doesn't look too much of a bodge. Instructions are in the OpenSCAD file where you can change lengths, diameters, and other stuff. You also need these files in the same directory: Thread_calc & printer_settings give you the ability to make things a set number of threads wide using the standard rectangle+2semicircle model for thread_width and build_width calculations. You should combine this with setting the thread_width in your Slicer (print settings/Advanced in Sic3r). Rodsandholes - a set of functions to set the diameter and number of sides of a cylinder to be the correct internal or external diamiter for a rod or a hole