What-If USN Frigate, 3D-printed

[PFJN]

Hi,

Over the last several years I've been messing around with trying to put together some spreadsheets to help assist in doing 'concept' designs for modern Corvettes, Frigates, Destroyers and Cruisers which I have put at the following link - http://www.mnvdet.com/ . (And I also have some similar spreadsheets for modern carrier designs there that I am also working on).

Anyway, recently I bought a used 3D printer off eBay and I decided to try and use my spreadsheets to develop a 3D model of my designs. Right now I've broken the models into separate parts for the hull and superstructure, and then glue the two parts together because that seems to work out best right now.

Anyway, here are some images of a notional medium/light frigate what-if that I've put together to kind of reflect a potential concept for a modern Canadian vessel, to be fitted with a 76mm gun, a small Mk41 VLS, the APAR and SMART-L radars and some sort of CIWS system.

Anyway, here are the CAD images of the hull and superstructure and I'll try and post an image of the printed out model tomorrow.

PF

[PFJN]

Hi,

Here is an image of the printed file, and another showing it in comparison to a printout of a DDG, a small corvette and a styrene model that I bought of the LCS 1 (all to the same 1/700 scale).

PF

[MAJOR-B]

WoW..... Very Cool any chance of you selling these beauties in 1/350?
Major-B

[PFJN]

Hi,

Maybe. Right now I started @ 1/700 scale since it fit well on the 200mm x 200mm printing platform in the printer. (Actually for the DDG I had to rotate the model 45 degrees to just get it to fit on). In addition, since I already had a model of the LCS in 1/700 scale, which came with some spare pieces, I figured that I could maybe use one of the spare guns and helicopter models from that kit on the Frigate model I printed. For larger scale I could probably print a ship in pieces though.

Below is some additional data for the current Frigate model, base on information and spreadsheets at my website. the 1st shows a summary of the design and an estimate of its attainable speed and powering requirements. The next shows the ship's hullform/bodyplan. The next shows an estimate of the ship's acquisition costs, based on methods outlined in a couple theses on the MIT D-Space website and the final one shows an estimate of the life cycle costs for a fleet of eight such ships, also based on the methods from those theses.

I'm hoping to try and clean up my model, and maybe start adding some of the additional pieces like the gun, radar and other such stuff.

Pat

[jasonfreeland]

Thanks for doing this, it will help out my own modeling considerably. I'm hoping to do a CG replacement and a European fire support DDG and this is just what I'm looking for.

[PFJN]

Hi,

I'm hoping to try and upload some new files to my website this weekend or next that might have more data that you can use.

PF

[Xanthar]

I'd love to know how you transformed the hull lines in your spreadsheet into an stl file that you could print.
I would like to do something similar to create a model of my Dad's ship, a Knox class DE/FF.

[PFJN]

Hi,

I looked up STL files on the internet and it turned out that there are two formats. One is just a text file and the other is in binary. And t here are alot of freeware prgrams that you can use to convert between the two.

The text file appears to just be a header, followed by a collection of data points, followed by triplet groups of numbers for the points that form the corners of a triangle. So, in my spreadsheet I defined a set of points on a bunch of stations/sections along the hull and then set up the cells in my spreadsheet to group them properly.

For example, say I have a ship that I divide into 20 sections. If I list ten points along the section at the ship's transom and ten points at the next section forward, and ten points for the next section ahead of that, then I'd end up with a string of 20 x 10 = 200 pts (with the 1st 10 would be on the 1st section (the transom), the next ten on the next section, and so on.)

For the list of triplet points then, for the 1st triangle I'd call out pt1, pt2, and pt21 as defining this triangle (ie the 1st and 2nd pts on the 1st station and the 1st point on the next station). The next set of triplets would then include pt21, pt22, and pt2 (ie the 1st and 2nd pts on the 2nd section and the 2nd pt on the 1st section). The 3rd triplet would then be pt2, pt3, and pt22, etc.

Once you do all that you can export/temporarily save the Excel file as a CSV file, then use NotePad to clean out any unnecessary commas and such, then use a free 3D file converter to convert from text to a binary format.

I know that this may seem a little vague and confusing and you may have to mess around a little with the ordering of the points to make sure that they all point in the correct direction, so it may be a little trial and error. If I can find my old spreadsheet I can try and send it to you if it is of any help.

Pat

[Xanthar]

That would be a big help : )

Hi,

I looked up STL files on the internet and it turned out that there are two formats. One is just a text file and the other is in binary. And t here are alot of freeware prgrams that you can use to convert between the two.

The text file appears to just be a header, followed by a collection of data points, followed by triplet groups of numbers for the points that form the corners of a triangle. So, in my spreadsheet I defined a set of points on a bunch of stations/sections along the hull and then set up the cells in my spreadsheet to group them properly.

For example, say I have a ship that I divide into 20 sections. If I list ten points along the section at the ship's transom and ten points at the next section forward, and ten points for the next section ahead of that, then I'd end up with a string of 20 x 10 = 200 pts (with the 1st 10 would be on the 1st section (the transom), the next ten on the next section, and so on.)

For the list of triplet points then, for the 1st triangle I'd call out pt1, pt2, and pt21 as defining this triangle (ie the 1st and 2nd pts on the 1st station and the 1st point on the next station). The next set of triplets would then include pt21, pt22, and pt2 (ie the 1st and 2nd pts on the 2nd section and the 2nd pt on the 1st section). The 3rd triplet would then be pt2, pt3, and pt22, etc.

Once you do all that you can export/temporarily save the Excel file as a CSV file, then use NotePad to clean out any unnecessary commas and such, then use a free 3D file converter to convert from text to a binary format.

I know that this may seem a little vague and confusing and you may have to mess around a little with the ordering of the points to make sure that they all point in the correct direction, so it may be a little trial and error. If I can find my old spreadsheet I can try and send it to you if it is of any help.

Pat