Hi to all, I’m building my small cnc for milling fins. Which is the most common profile used in fin design? Naca? I searched on the web but not so many info about it. I’m going to built quad fin sets with all the fins with 100/0 profile because it’s easyer and because I love them.
Hi,
The NACA 4-digit profile is a very good start!
Any low-Reynolds profile will work great. But don’t over engineer it, just going with the 4-digit one will result in a very well foiled fin.
Have you tried finFoil to model your fin? http://hrobeers.github.io/finFoil/
On the homepage you find a description of how you can export to STL (3D) files.
Happy finbuilding!
Hans
Hi Hans,
I already installed your finfoil 0.3 and 0.4, and for sure I’ll install even the version 1, I designed my fins with MOI3d and i can export them in STL too and process them with freemill. Can I add the fcs tabs even on Finfoil or I have to design the fins on finfoil and then import them in MOI and add the tabs?
By the way thanks for your software.
Version 1 is a great improvement over 0.3 or 0.4.
I’m sure you’ll like it more, as you can easily trace images of fins or foil profiles. And you can see how the surface area changes while editing the outline.
I don’t know MOI3D, but I hope that finFoil is better suited for designing surf fins.
Check the following airfoil databases, you can import images from these pages into the profile editor and trace them:
http://m-selig.ae.illinois.edu/ads/coord_database.html
The exported STL files do not have fin tabs, so you’ll have to add these using another 3D modelling tool.
Hans
