Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Fabrication Lab: Designing & Printing HAM Radio Accessories

When I first began printing I was happy to download and print existing 3D models, but my ultimate goal was always to design my own. The problem was, I didn't have any idea what I wanted to design. But that changed this summer when my HAM radio station (KD9ZDY) started growing bigger and more sophisticated. Suddenly, I needed storage for radio equipment, brackets for radios, cable management devices, antenna structures, temperature management devices and other little things all unique to my own set-up. My two seemingly different hobbies began to merge and dovetailed to great effect!

For many HAM radio enthusiasts, part of the fun is designing and building rigs and kits; whether it's a mobile transceiver perfectly tucked under the dash of their car, a weather-proof travel box for POTA (Parks On The Air) excursions or the perfect low-profile antenna for a basement apartment with a stingy landlord, HAM operators are nothing if not creative and resourceful. I discovered my first opportunity for design work while looking for a mounting bracket online for my ICOM-2730 radio. The accessories available online were just too expensive, so I decided to design my own bracket to neatly connect the head and control panel to the radio body, and mount to put the radio neatly in place on my shelf.

Before this past year my only experience was using SelfCad Pro to add detailing to a mostly-created 3D image. The process was difficult and time consuming, and for the most part I didn't have many ideas for what to design on my own. Most of the things I enjoyed printing, ancient landmarks, Star Trek ships, car and aircraft models were already designed and available to print -often for free. So paying for SelfCad Pro at $14.99 per month just wasn't worth investment. Though the free trial was useful in learning a bit more about pre-slice design work. 

My design on Rhino 8
When I ventured back into CAD design, I decided rather than paying a monthly fee for SelfCad Pro, I wanted to go with software I could buy once and use forever. I settled on trying Rhinoceros' Rhino 8 software, since it had good reviews online from 3D print designers and offered a 90 day full trial with all features available. I watched some YouTube videos, and got started making my radio brackets. The multi-part Rhino Essentials videos are particularly helpful. While slow at first, they do a wonderful job explaining basic layout and terminology for someone with absolutely zero experience in CAD. After the end of video 2, I had basically all the knowledge I needed to make the basic shapes of my bracket and shelf, and printed my design. In total, from start to finish, it took about 4-6 hours measuring, watching and re-watching the 15-minute videos, and drafting the design on Rhino 8 to get the hang of the software. While I still had a lot to learn, this experience was enough to convince me to purchase the full license for Rhino 8. The free online learning content, and common CAD terminology offered by Rhino were also selling points. As a novice designer it was good to know I had a wealth of instructions as well as an interface that uses similar logic as other CAD programs. I felt Rhino 8 was worth the investment, should I
need to use another program or even go into the design or manufacturing field professionally one day.  

So far, my investment has paid off. Not only do I have a bracket and mount for my ICOM radio, I also have a storage box perfectly sized for my NanoVNA network analyzer, a dummy load, and various coaxial adapters and a mini ARRL logbook -all must-have HAM accessories.  

Custom cooling tray in-use
Most notably, I created a cooling tray for my RTL-SDR USB dongle, featured in this article. This design serves two purposes: 1.) it keeps the dongle plugged into my laptop (because it always fell out), and 2.) I has a fan to cool it down (because it got so darn hot while running). Since the cooling tray design may be useful for others with the RTL-SDR or similar devices, I decided to make it my first publicly available print. You can find it today on Cults 3D or Creality Cloud. It's free, and available to all, to download or adapt as desired.  

As I continue with both my amateur radio and CAD/3D printing hobbies, I should have plenty more opportunities to design new and useful tools and devices. While I can always use more storage and cable management in the HAM shack, I may venture into mobile radio and take part in POTA events as well as field days in future, and I can already think of different shapes and designs that will help in packing equipment, and setting up a mobile HF station/antenna. HAM equipment is expensive as it is, and accessories, even for storage, can be an additional financial burden and may not fit my set-up exactly how I want it. So, I'll absolutely continue working with Rhino 8 and my Creality printers to create and test new equipment as the need arises. I may even create something others will find useful as well!

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