Prototype Propeller for kayak

thingiverse

I knocked together a simple little attraction. Use an 8mm threaded rod to create the drive shaft, or get long hexhead bolts if you can manage that. I printed mine with 20% square infill. It's in the public domain because it's still alpha, and I haven't tested it on water yet. Your results may be awesome, but they might also suck. When testing experimental stuff on the water, make sure to wear a life jacket. Printer Settings Printer Brand: Printer: Prusa i3 (sintron made) Rafts: No Supports: No Resolution: 0.2mm Infill: 20% square Notes: The Prusa i3 has rocking block bearings with a metal alloy base, which is an upgrade from the stock 3D printed bearing holders with acrylic Y carriages. I'm still using the stock hot end but have a new one on order because it shakes my desk violently. Post-Printing I drilled out the center hole with an 8mm drill bit and had to adjust the dimensions slightly, but the hex head fit perfectly. I removed any stray bits of filament that were left behind. How I Designed This I started by creating a cylinder and then rotating the rectangular fins around its axis. I was lucky because the dimensions worked out perfectly. To make printing easier, I did a difference on top and bottom to flush off the edges of the fins. Test Results First Test Results tl;dr It works! And it works really well! Longer write up: I took it out onto the lake and got my Glide Reflection kayak up to 6km/h (approximately 3.2 knots) with a 1.2 meter (about 4 ft) of M8 (approximately 0.31 inch) threaded rod and a Ryobi cordless drill (max free spin RPM is approximately 1200 RPM). I would have gone faster, but driving the kayak off balance with a really flexible drive shaft and a slightly warped kayak meant it did a big circle. More coming soon... Next time, I'll test the other design to see how it works.