Trying something useful

[tom10122]

Well hopefully I can sort out the skew problem, in the mean time I'm gonna work on designing a part . The anchor hatch on our boat has a broken ''latch'' that holds it from opening and that broke some time ago , We have half of the part , the other half, who knows. I'm gonna try to design it based off of that and I'll document my progress here. It seems like PLA should be hard enough but I'm worried about the water, I've read that PLA dissolves in water, will it dissolve alot with just drops of saltwater on it? I know autocad but not 123d is it that different?

[johnoly99]

Hey tom, good idea! Try the PLA, and let us konw how it works. As for 123D, i found it was pretty easy to learn myself.

[tom10122]

Finally got something drawn up, had to look around for the part which took forever since the boat is about 150 miles from my printer, hope to have something designed tommorrow.

[Eric]

PLA biodegrades in high temperature and humidity, and is probably not a great choice for marine applications, especially if exposed to direct sunlight. That doesn't mean it won't work....for a while. Good for prototyping, anyway.
ABS plastic is used in marine applications all the time.

[tom10122]

Okay, It will never be in really any light at all so that should help it But I'll see how long it will last