Bracket for Solar Panel
The solar panel came with little to no options for securing it to a boat. The way I went about connecting the panel to the vessel was to 3D print a bracket for the solar panel. A common place to secure a solar panel is to the aft end of the boat, which is challenging since it’s a round railing, and the solar panel is a flat plat.
Design and fabricating a bracket that would allow the solar panel to be attached was a great way to show how 3D printing can be used to solve design challenges.
Determine where on the vessel the solar panel it makes the most sense to put the bracket. In this case, it was the aft of the vessel on the rear hand railing. This railing is a standard size, 1 inch round
The next step is to measure for the holes to place the hardware to mount the solar panels. The part is drawn up in CAD using the measurements that were taken. With the freedom of 3D printing, the best engineering practices can be used with little to no negative impact on fabrication time or cost.
This trigonometric design took advantage of the flexibility afforded by this 3D printing technology and used multiple equilateral triangles throughout. This meant that the part could be made with less plastic and be made just as robust.
Measured
