Friday 11 October 2024
Inkscape Path Effect: Offset
Tuesday 8 October 2024
Inkscape Path Effect: Corner
The Corner path effect can be added to reasonably complex paths to create radius corners. It’s a relatively straightforward path effect to use. As an example lets create a shape with a pair of rectangles and then apply the Corner path effect.
To begin click the Rectangle Tool icon and then left click and hold on the canvas to start drawing a rectangle, drag the tool across the canvas to create a rectangle. Create a second rectangle and roughly arrange them as seen in the image.
Quicktip: If we just want to add rounded corners to a single rectangle or square we can select the item with the Node Tool and then either drag a circular node or type a radius into the Rx or Ry dialogue boxes.
Next press “Control A” to select both rectangles and then Path – Union to make a single object from the two rectangles as shown in the image.
To add the Corner path effect first select the union shape we just created and then click Path – Path Effects to open the Path Effects tab on the right hand side of the screen. You should see in the tab that the object, named “rect1” is listed below a search input box which has a dropdown menu. Left click on the arrow at the right side of the input box and you should see the available path effects as shown in the image.
Left click to select the Corners path effect and you should see the dialogue with the parameters for the corners path effect in the right hand tab. As a simple example of applying a corner effect let’s set the Units selection to “mm” and then type “5” into the Radius input box.
You should now see that the corner path effect is added to both the internal and external corners of our shape, you can see this in the header image at the top of this post. To remove the corner path effect at any time you can click the dustbin logo in the corners path effects dialogue.
Sunday 8 September 2024
The Fauxtrino Pt2!
Friday 26 July 2024
HEXA Open Source Hexagonal Rocket
It's been a busy couple of weeks in the Concretedog lair! Numerous items have been restocked over on the Tindie store and a couple of new products have been released. The most notable though has been HEXA, my opensource hexagonal model rocket.
A while ago I made some flat pack rockets for Hackspace magazine which had no tubes used in their construction. Whilst that was an interesting engineering experiment and produced some interesting rockets, it struck me that rocket kits without tubes are easier to mail!
HEXA is made from 3D printed parts and the hexagonal tubes are made up from 220gsm card stock using a cut and score technique which I have a small vinyl cutter machine doing so they turn out really crisp! 3D printing is obviously great for making parts but what's really useful here is you can print the nosecone with different amounts of infill to vary the weight to adjust the centre of gravity and stability of the rocket. At 20% infill the nosecone design prints to be around 10 grams in PLA and sets the CG perfectly, then, if you want to fly a payload in the upper section, like an altimeter you could print a second lighter nosecone to keep stability and weight optimised. Cool!
Over on the project repository I've put together a 14 page PDF of documentation which covers building from the HEXA kit I am selling on Tindie, as well as tips and tricks for people creating their own HEXA from scratch. I've already seen some brilliant parts being printed where people are using a filament swap to make the nosecones look even more like pencils! The kits are complete with launch lugs and even a parachute kit for recovery, so, like many commercial model rocket kits, all you have to add is motors, wadding and launch gear. It flies really nicely on a B6-4 with plenty of altitude.
Finally, I'm proud to say that I applied for and received OSHW certification for this project. In fact, it's the first OSHWA rocket ever to be certified! Hope to see more in the future.
Friday 5 July 2024
My EDC Hand Sewing Kit