Great news!
The first commit to finfoil in about a year: https://github.com/hrobeers/finFoil/commits/master
Some exciting stuff is coming 
Just a heads up as it will take a while before a new version get’s released, but it’s moving again!
Hans, this is great news.
I appreciate all the work you put in on this, and look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Bumping this for Sk8ment, latest rev is 1.1.1
https://sourceforge.net/projects/finfoil/files/?source=navbar
The online version has the nifty 3-D viewer
http://www.finfoil.io/
twitter feed
https://twitter.com/finfoil
thanks Randy
You’re welcome Sk8. I know you were asking about 3D printing on some other threads. I would talk to MrMik for some recent experience with 3D printing. I do not have a 3D print machine but sometimes my co-workers will run files for me.
If you are just goofing around and don’t want to go too deep into design, these guys have STL files ready to send to your 3D printer’s ‘slicing’ software. They also have a little video and some notes about infill density:
http://westkustsurf.nl/?page_id=19153
Otherwise, the basic process for me is:
- design foil in finFoil, export to STL
- design or load base in OpenSCAD ( finbases/scad at master · hrobeers/finbases · GitHub )
- Import foil STL into OpenSCAD file of base (see OpenSCAD cheat sheet for import STL command)
- Output final merged fin+base STL. Scale to inches or mm if needed (files start in meters)
- Send final STL to 3D printer or machining software (for me it’s machining) and process the fin into into NC code. This is where things become specific to the printer or CNC. If you are downloading a completed STL file you start here.
- Feed processed NC code to machine, push the start button
Enclosing a pic of the same finFoil design done as hand foiled, CNC cut, 3D printed, and molded from a CNC cut mold.
Also enclosing a pic of 2 ways of 3D printing, flat to the world and fin standing up.
I like the thoroughness of your experimentation jrandy.
Any insight as to pros/cons of each method and which method you personally preferred?
I really like speed and ease of hand-foiling wood fins, but getting bases on them cleanly (in my context, Futures specifically) it’s the area I struggle the most with.
It seems 3D printing materials aren’t really up to the task quite yet from a materials standpoint without being extremely cost prohibitive, ie: carbon.
From your photo, it seems the CNC cut mold produced the best usable results, but that’s only good if you want to make a bunch of the same fin, not prototyping new fins. Unless you have the means to make a new mold for each prototype which seems labor/process intensive.
I’m trying to fin the sweet spot of how to leverage how easy FinFoil makes it to output digital files, but I’m still coming back to hand foiling being the quickest/easiest route, although arguably the least precise.
Thanks Lawless.
My preferred method is CNC milled as I have the machine and it allows me to combine different materials. The example shown is wood from a packing crate with a carbon fiber backside. The downside of this method is that it takes time to prep files and prep materials and that I end up having to glass them afterwards.
The home-style ABS 3D prints are too flexible for daily use and I do not own a printer so that is my least preferred method.
Molding is awesome for making the same thing over and over and nice that you only machine the project once instead of machining or printing each repeat. Since my mill is lo-fi as far as CNC goes, you can see the chatter marks from the cutter and various places I scratched the HDPE mold.
I just ordered some Futures stuff so I will be going down that rabbit hole soon too.
By hand is still the fastest. The black fin above is FR-4 was cut as an outline on the mill and then foiled by hand. It’d be nice to find a material somewhere between plywood and FR-4 that could be foiled by hand, hold its shape, and go right into the water without finishing.
For fins I’d take finFoil over pretty much any other CAD program for its ease of use. After the initial STL file or print off the screen it’s just hooking things up and making it happen.
I found a way to run finFoil in Ubuntu: Wine
Now I can just double-click on the finFoil.exe file, and finFoil starts in Ubuntu. Jippieee!
Hello
Im new in this world.
Could anybody help me giving me some advices about to mix a fin with its USBOX head in one STL file in order to print?
Regards,
Paco
Using OpenSCAD it is easy to combine and position 2 STL files then go File>Export>STL after rendering in OpenSCAD
Code used to make picture is below, comments are after the //'s
usbox_m.txt is the stl file for the base, rename the extention to .stl to try it
//data is meters
import (“c:/users/jim/bc_ed_finfoil.stl”);//edit path and file name for your foil stl
translate([-.01,0,0])//to slide base change first number
rotate([0,180,90])//to flip base stl to match foil
import (“c:/users/jim/usbox_m.stl”);//edit path and file name for your base stl
//usbox_m.stl generated 21.03.2017 from usbox.scad with lib chinook.scad
PS: forgot to give Sways credit: the us box base was designed by Hans and the fin template is from JJlam.
https://swaylocks7stage.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/usbox_m.txt
I use OpenScad for this (and other) purposes. It’s free and fully functional.
You need to either make the fin base in OpenScad yourself, or use one that someone else has designed, either using OpenScad code or an STL file.
Then you need to also import your finFoil STL file into OpenScad and move the two parts together correctly, then render and export them as a single STL file.
Then, slice it and export it as a .gcode file for the printer.
You can also print a fin without the base, make it hollow, and then insert a plug made from something much tougher than the currently available printing materials.
Hi all!
I’m usen MeshMixer to glue the box and the foil together, but surprisinly, it is making a downgrade scale about 1/1000 for the finbox and much more for the foil (created with finfoil)
So then I forced to re-scale both pieces to the original size, but I’m not sure if I loosing quality in this process.
Which software to combine this 2 pieces with precision and quality?
Regads,
Paco
Hi Paco-
My guess is that you specified the wrong design unit in finFoil so the STL from finFoil was at the wrong size in meters.
That would explain two different scales in Meshmixer.
Scaling is not a big deal with STL files. It is more common to make an error lining up the base to foil than to have problems with the precision of the files.
Using OpenSCAD is precise and once you do one, the second one is a copy of the first with a small change to call in the new foil STL file.
You can also add scale commands into OpenSCAD so your design ends up at your desired units.
To do this in Meshmixer:
-Read in each STL separately, confirm or fix the size/units, and export a corrected STL for each
-Read the corrected foil STL in first, confirm units, append the base STL, adjust base to foil (do not move foil, bottom front is 0,0,0)
-Combine, export combined STL.
I hope this helps.
Hi JRandi
Really I use in finfoil in “cm” unit and the binbox taken from Open SCAD comes in “m” unit, so then, meshmixer take the values as “mm” and thats why it appears so tiny.
I’ll try directly with Open SCAD
Regards
Paco
Hi Paco,
finfoil will always export in meters. The reason is simple, STL files do not have any notion of unit system therefore finfoil uses the SI standard for length, which is meters.
Kind Regards,
Hans
Hi all
Thanks for you patient. Thanks for the help.
Finfoil is great! maybe, unit system in mm would be a great upgrade in next versions.
Best Regards,
Paco
Hi Hans,
could you please make me a high resolution file of http://finfoil.io/s/3D/mz45guzq6u1dg3bwesqy3ucggest7baq ?
I made a few more tweaks to it, not sure how that will work out.
More details (already a little outdated again) here: http://shop.prusa3d.com/forum/print-tips-slic3r-settings-kisslicer-model-repair--f12/printing-a-large-surfboard-fin-t2675-s40.html#p28652
Hi Mik,
I’ll try to make one this week.
It’s quite busy over here, so please be patient.
Hans
Thanks Hans, no rush, I’m still busy printing low resolution versions of the fin, to fine tune the structure.
Current goal is to print an accurate outer shell from PLA, then fill it with stainless steel rods and epoxy resin. The challenge is to prevent the thin walls from warping, without using ‘infill’ in the slic3r software, so the resin can form a solid strong body inside the fin .
I’ve printed an almost perfect shell with just 2 perimeter layers, now I have added more internal stabilisers and will try to print with a single perimeter layer.
The holes in the fin screenshots are enlarged so I can see them while editing their positions. They are only 0.1mm radius in the final version, forcing the Slic3r software to insert small stabilising cylinders around the holes.
Ooops, only one photo is showing instead of 4.
The holes will be 0.1mm when editing is done.
