Drive Away Awning Widgets

Got a drive-away awning for my little campervan. Driveaway is OK but driveback to exactly the same position is not in my skill set. So I what does a girl do but hit openSCAD.

The main widget is a thing that slots into a standard figure 8 awning rod leaving a mechanism to connect a cord to hanging out.

I printed in flexible filament so I could wrap the connector around a cord or pole as needed. Tested with a set of stretchy shoe laces to connect awning to van and decided to print some longer simple loops to go beween the sections of figure 8 rod. But it appears to work. The rods can also be rolled up with the awning and clipped top the tent in stand-alone mode so I should not have to re-thread the rods to the awning when I drive back.

I also wanted a better awning attachment to the van, got very wet (and broke a fingernail) threading the figure 8 rods onto the awning tape on the van. Being loathe to drill more holes in the van roof I printed a set of connectors to dangle from the same screw. Small holes in the connecting bar allowed me to sew all the connectors to a tape which replaced the awning tape. I then used universal fixing tape to secure between the screws. Senendipity prevailed as my van is a very similar grey to standard DUCT tape so it does not look too much of a bodge.

Instructions are in the OpenSCAD file where you can change lengths diameters and other stuff.

You also need these files in the same directory: thread_calc & printer_settings give you the ability to make things a set number of threads wide using the standard rectangle+2semicircle model for thread_width and build_width calculations. You should combine this with setting the thread_width in your Slicer (print settings/Advanced in Sic3r) rodsandholes - a set of functions to set the diameter and number of sides of a cylinder to be the correct internal or external diamiter for a rod or a hole

Category: Automotive