Concept 32ft RC flybridge Yacht

This is a 3-cabin 32 foot flybridge motor yacht in scale 1:24. The purpose of the project was to create a twin motor flybridge yacht to experiment with printed teak decks.

The decks are made for dual-material print where the wood part can be printed with actual wood fiber filament and the caulking is always exactly 0,4mm wide which corresponds to a nozzle width and can be printed preferably with black PLA (or white as I've done on the interior).

There is a 22 page PDF building instruction included, but I will give you a brief description of the project here.

My prototype was printed early on in the project so I have developed the project further since printing and made some improvements here and there.

If you don't have a multi material capable printer, don't worry! I have printed this on my Prusa MK3 which does not have an MMU and only one nozzle. You can create a machine profile with dual print heads but where the switch head code is replaced with a switch material code. Print the decks with 0,2mm layer height and you will not have that many filament swaps to complete the decks. Just make sure you get the materials in the right order!

To power the yacht you can use 2pcs of 130-size DC-motors from ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/173640013306 if this link isn't working when you read this, search eBay for "rc boat 130 motor set + coupling + shaft". The set contains shaft tubes that you glue in place in the yacht. Depending on the length of the shafts you get you might need to cut the shafts, but easiest is to install everything and check when the rudders are in place to see how much you need to cut.

For speed controllers you can use car-ESC for DC-motor, so that you get both forward and reverse. If you put the speed controllers on individual RC-channels, you can spin one in forward and the other in reverse to make the boat turn on a dime just like full scale!

Like all my projects, LED's are what brings them really to life. This yacht is no exception and is prepared for installation of SMD-leds. There are lots of vendors on eBay selling pre-wired SMD LED's and the smallest package is 0402 which can be used as both lanterns, deck lights and interior lighting. Just make sure you have the right resistors so that you don't burn them!

The layout of the interior of this yacht is carefully thought out to be removable, but it will require a bit of sanding and cutting away pieces of the interior walls to accommodate for your LED wiring. Easiest is to first install and wire all the LED's and then try fitting the interior modules so that you see where you need to cut/sand.

This project is specifically designed for 0,4mm nozzle width. Smaller might work, but larger will not since the teak deck caulking is exactly 0,4mm in order to be one nozzle width.

PLA works fine for boats! just apply a couple of coats of paint to protect the hull.

Use low infill to keep weight down. I usually go with 5-10%, and if I need more strength I will add perimeters instead of increasing infill. Only reason I increase infill is if there is a top surface that needs the infill underneath to print well.

My rule of thumb:
Increased infill = increased stiffness
Increased perimeters = increased strength

I use 0,2mm layer height for most prints.