Foil-Design-Tool

B-Series Propeller for Onshape

Parametric marine propellers and the molds to make them in carbon, as five custom features in one Onshape Feature Studio. Give it a diameter, a pitch, a blade area and a blade count and it builds a fixed or folding propeller on Wageningen B-series blades with its hub and mount, checks it against your motor and battery, and makes the printable mold, the hub core, the ply templates and a press for forging the core.

By JB69. Build 115.

Read this first. Every number the operating check prints is an open-water estimate from the B-series polynomials, about ±20 %, from diameter, pitch, blade area, blade count and the hub alone. Use it to compare designs and to catch a mis-sized drive before a print; trust your own logs over it.

What’s here

Folder / file	What it is
bseries_propeller.fs	The Feature Studio source. Only needed for your own copy; the published features are added in Onshape by searching custom features for B-Series Propeller.
docs/BSeries_Propeller_Guide.pdf	The user guide: every feature and field, the operating check, the folder, the molds, warnings and fixes
docs/guide.md	The guide’s source, readable here on GitHub, with its images
docs/parameters.md	Every dialog field with its limits, default and tooltip
assistant/	An AI assistant skill that reads the features’ logs and suggests what to change next, for Claude, ChatGPT and others
LICENSE	CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

The five features

1. B-Series Propeller: a complete fixed or folding propeller with its hub, mount (bore, keyway or bolt circle), nose or tail cap, dish and pocket, and an optional printed hub core for a carbon layup. The folder has pins or captive bolts, bosses, tongues, stops, tail relief and a fold check.
2. Universal B-Series Blade Engine: one blade for a hub of your own.
3. Propeller mold: a printable matched mold for laying a fixed propeller up as one carbon part: two halves parted on the blades, hub sectors for the undercuts beside the roots, keys, a rod for the bore, pinch-off, clamps or a vacuum bag, release checks, the layup and cut templates.
4. Propeller model from part: measures a propeller drawn in any other CAD, imported as a STEP, so the mold can take it.
5. Core forging mold: a printed piston press for forging the hub core in chopped carbon, with the charge, the closing torque and a strength check.

Both propeller features carry an operating check: static thrust at the current limit, full throttle and steady cruise against a drag, the cavitation number, and for a folder the pin moment and stop bearing.

Getting started

1. In a Part Studio, open Add custom features, search for B-Series Propeller and add the one by Jason Bird: the features appear in the toolbar. Right-click any of them and choose Open linked document for the public Onshape document with the guide. Or create your own Feature Studio and paste in bseries_propeller.fs.
2. Add B-Series Propeller and follow the guide’s quick start. Fill in the Operating check with your motor and battery and turn on Print to notices.
3. Read the guide’s operating check and folder sections before tuning anything.

The AI assistant

assistant/ holds a skill for AI assistants. Paste a log and it explains the results, checks them against rules of thumb, and recommends a few changes in the dialog’s own labels, with the expected effect and the cost.

• Claude: add assistant/propeller-design-assistant.skill.
• ChatGPT: use assistant/propeller-design-assistant-portable.md as a custom GPT’s instructions, with docs/parameters.md and assistant/scripts/ as knowledge.
• Others: attach the portable file and parameters.md at the start of a chat.

Licence

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: use it, copy it, change it, not commercially, and share changes alike.

Feedback

This repository: https://github.com/jb69/Foil-Design-Tool.