August 18, 2024
Description
If you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments or open an issue on GitHub
Simple yet effective fletching jig that will adjust to all your needs. Intended to provide new archers with access to 3D printer cheap way to fix broken arrows without a need for expensive off-the-shelf jig. Hopefully, even skilled shooters may find utility in this design.
First you have to download latest version (2019.05 or newer) of OpenSCAD. It's free and open source software available for all major desktop platforms. Nothing else is needed for editing and rendering.
Additional software required will vary depending on your 3D printer.
Although I provide several pre-rendered files as an example, it is very likely that you will not like something about them. If some of the parameters do not fit your setup or you simply want to enable some special features mentioned above, you will have to change the relevant parameters in the OpenSCAD customizer and render a new, unique jig yourself. Don't worry though, it is very simple!
moucha19Window in the top menu and select Customizer.View in the top menu, then select Customizer.F6) and export it to your desired format with File > Export > ....part_select parameter, you can isolate individual parts in their correct orientation for 3D printing. This way you can split the jig into multiple files.| Parameter | Description | Thresholds |
|---|---|---|
| base_style | choose the base shape | "polygon" or "star" |
| lid_style | choose the outer lid shape | "polygon" or "star" |
| joint_style | either snap-in ball joints or pin joints | "ball" or "pin" |
| arrow_diameter | slightly bigger than the arrow itself (may vary depending on your printer) | 2 < ■ |
| arrow_offset | distance between the bottom of the base and arrow | 0 < ■ < base_height |
| base_height | height of the base | 5 < ■ |
| hinge_width | width of the hinge cutout on the base | 2.1 < ■ < depends on arrow_diameter |
| hinge_thickness | thickness of the hinge extension attached to the bottom of the arm | 1 < ■ < depends on hinge_width and joint_diameter |
| hinge_diameter | diameter of the circular part of the hinge that revolves around a joint | 2 < ■ < hinge_depth |
| hinge_depth | how deep into the base is the hinge cutout | 5 < ■ < base_height |
| joint_diameter | diameter of the joint that connects two halves of the hinge together | 0 < ■ < depends on joint_style |
| arm_gap | gap for the vane foot, so that tension during clamping is distributed evenly and the vane fits in the closed jig | 0 < ■ < 1.5 |
| arm_offset | distance between the top of the base and bottom of the arm | 0 < ■ < 1.5 |
| vane_count | number of vanes, typically 3 or 4 | 2 < ■ |
| vane_style | changes shape of the vane | "straight" or "helical" |
| vane_length | length of the vane | 0 < ■ |
| vane_width | width of the vane | 0 < ■ < in the console |
| vane_offset | how far from the end of the arrow will the vane be | in the console < ■ |
| vane_turn | sets rotation of the fletching in degrees, negative values flip the direction | ■ < in the console |
| nock | choose whether to add a nock alignment guide and if so, how you want to rotate it | "none", "static" or "optimal" |
| nock_width | width of the nock guide, smallest point of the arrow nock | 0 < arrow_diameter |
| nock_height | depth of nock in your arrow, this will be the height of the nock guide | 0 < (base_height - arrow_offset) |
| nock_diameter | if the nock alignment guide is enabled, this value takes precedence over arrow_diameter for the base hole when the nocked arrow is wider than bare shaft | 0 < ■ |
Like I already mentioned, I've take some precautions to ensure a valid outputs.
First are constrained sliders in customizer. These are set to accommodate even extreme values and should be sufficient for everyone. They're nothing more than recommendations though and even values beyond their range may work just fine. If - for any reason - you'd want to allow values outside of default range, you can do so in main.scad by editing lines just like this one:
//distance between the bottom of the base and arrow arrow_offset = 3;//[0:0.1:100]
where comment behind the assignment means [min:precision:max]. Go to customizer documentation for more information.
Second are thresholds in the module itself that are actually checking if desired parameters make sense or not. For example, if you have small jig for 6mm arrows, you can't have 10 centimeter wide hinge. So even if you're able to set something like this in the customizer, invalid parameters will be truncated in the module to a closest valid value. If this happens, you'll be informed about it in the console window with similar line:
hinge_thickness threshold (max = 5.25) reached!
List of some thresholds is in the table above. Some extreme values may still produce invalid results. That could either be because fixing it is more trouble than it's worth or because calculation of thresholds is impossible. Or it can simply be an oversight on my part. If you think something can be improved or you discover a bug, raise an issue or submit PR.
Also, not all parameters are available in the customizer. Some of them do not change and should not have an effect on the validity of the generated output. However, if you did some testing and think some of these default values could be adjusted to generate better results, let me know.
These settings were tested on Prusa MK2S. You might need to adjust them slightly.
| Part | Layer height | Infill | Supports | Bed placement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arm | 0.15mm or better | 15% | none / 3mm brim | |
| Base | 0.2mm or better | 15% | none | |
| Lid | 0.35mm | solid | none |
hull and minkowski - this means faster rendering and better compatibility with OpenSCAD workbench in FreeCAD.vane_count! This means that you can now generate a four fletch version (and ever more vanes work 🚀)helical, helical_adjust and helical_direction - helical is now specified in degrees with vane_turn and it is enabled by setting vane_style to "helical"nock_diameter to allow arrows with nocks wider than arrow shaft (@fgietzen)vane_count the nock can be rotated for better clearanceecho messages is no longer used with latest OpenSCAD version, as the HTML support was removed in 2021.01
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial — Share Alike
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