3D file RC Cruise Ship / Car Ferry

At last! after a very long delay I’ve finally reached a level with this project where I feel comfortable to publish it.

In the download is a 73 page PDF building instruction, which is why this text is more an overview of the project.

What is it? A working RC scale model of M/S Viking Lines cruise-ferry Cinderella, in N-scale (1:160), roughly 1,2 meters long.
Wikipedia on the full scale

Dimensions
Length: 1189mm
Beam (max at bridge): 222mm
Height: 328mm
Displacement: ca 5500g
Scale: 1/160 (although will probably work well scaled up to H0 (1/87)

Designed with Prusa MK3 print volume in mind.:
250×210×210 mm (9.84″×8.3″×8.3″)
Main hull segments require ca 202x190mm XY and the highest segment is 188mm Z.

If you have a smaller printer I cannot guarantee that parts will fit.

Designed to use the 4mm stainless propeller shafts available from eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/183777850404?var=691384049432

Use any slow DC-motor with CAR speed controller (in order to get reverse) to get scale-like driving characteristics. 540-size is suitable.

Why this particular ship? There are two main reasons I chose this ship, the first is that I was contacted by a staff member onboard who was interested in building a model of it, who could provide me with technical details and pictures, invaluable for a project like this. The second reason was that the size is perfect. With that I mean that in a commercially available model scale (N-scale in this case) it is just the right size to be practical to print on a regular FDM-printer. Ships like the Icon Of The Seas are tempting for sure, but would either become ridiculously large or the scale would be so small so that there are no commercially available accessories to make it look detailed. But at its 1189mm length in N-scale, Cinderella comes in at a sweet spot.

With N-scale (1:160) chosen, there are lots of accessories available on eBay from bags of small figures (50-100pcs/bag) to small cars that you could use to build a car deck!

*Main features: *
– Main hull drawn as accurately as possible to scale
– Working bow doors and car ramp
– Working transom doors/car ramp doors
– Hose-connection for bow thruster to use water pump
– Lots of interior modules ready to print with details
– Lots of deck details
– Rudders with steering mechanism
– Most small items arranged in build plates to simplify printing (The project contains almost 400 STL-files!).

Design philosophy
There are lots of ways to design a project like this. A tempting idea is to mimic the full scale process where “mega blocks”, hull segments containing bulkheads, floors etc are pre-built and then joined together to form the ship. It would for sure be possible to print these blocks with all the interior already fitted. So why not?

It would be impossible to:
– Decorate the interior.
– Reinforce the hull from the inside.
– Glue window plastic from the inside.
– Manage weight by choosing what parts of the interior to install.

Finally, I want to give you, the builder, the possibility to choose what you do with this. If you want to build a working RC-ferry as quick as possible, then don’t bother with the interior. It will look awesome anyway. In the picture you see of me holding the completed model, there is no interior installed.

You also get the choice to do your own custom interior if you want. You can go completely nuts and do every little detail, as I have only decorated some of the internal modules: the ones I thought were most important.

I have made rows of cabins where you can choose if you print them with integrated beds or without, and then printing loose beds. That way you can glue in beds in folded or un-folded positions and glue in figures and the whole ship will sprawl with details.

Why not stage a murder scene in one of the cabins? Or stage a conference with your own co-workers in one of the conference rooms on deck 9?

The night club is detailed, with a large module containing the dance floor and stage being removable. Why not mount a small LCD screen on stage and run some concerts there? and a couple of RGB-LED’s pumping disco vibes over the stage? Then add a couple of hundred or so party-figures and you will steal the show at the next local RC-boat meet!

The possibilities are endless!

My goal has not been to draw every little detail, but for those I do draw to be as close to scale as possible, while still being possible to print on a regular FDM using a 0,4mm nozzle.

This gives you the possibility to continue adding details and if you put enough work into this model, there should be no major aspect of it that does not conform to scale.

But as so often, this does have drawbacks. The displacement of this ship is just around 5,5kg which can be tricky to maintain if you were to install all interior modules and add thick reinforcement to the bottom, so try to be conscious of weight and keep reinforcement to a minimum (one layer of fiberglass on the inside is probably more than enough to prevent the hull from cracking). And don’t work on all interior modules at the same time, choose the most important ones and keep track of the weight if your goal is RC.

There is a way though…. if you scale it up to H0 (1:87) you don’t have to worry about weight anymore…

The space in the hull is obviously large so the size of the motors is not critical. I have included a motor mount block that can handle motors up to 42mm diameter.

The bow thruster is worth mentioning. In previous projects like the Nordhavn 52, I tried making an impeller-based bow thruster but that turned out to be very tricky to get to work well, so for this project I decided to try something completely different. The ducts for the bow thruster are curved up and aft to a garden hose connector on each side. This means you can install a bi-directional water pump as bow thruster. For 3S lipo you can just buy a 12V pump and use a RC car ESC to control it, or a servo with connector plates. There are lots of possibilities here and you can of course design your own pump if you want as well.

There are things you will need to sort out yourself, like where to mount steering servo, the bow thruster pump and where to place the motors. For the motors it will be given by the size of the motors, shaft length etc so mount the propeller shafts first (described in the instruction) and after that you will see where the motors should be installed to line up with the shafts.

If you want to make the bow-ramp and the transom ramp RC-controlled, you need to figure out where to place servos for those and how to run the servo arms, this is not something I have done on mine, nor planned in detail, but with a little bit of experimenting that should not be hard.

There is no car deck included as of now. You will need to build one yourself if you want it, but since it’s just a flat surface that shouldn’t be so hard. I have included tabs along the entire hull for the car deck to rest on. You need to plan your car deck so that you can lift up sections over he area where you install the RC-equipment.

Finally, I have sorted through 500 STL’s and there are probably some things that are confusing or even missing that are supposed to be included. I apologize for this in advance, leave me a commend and I’ll sort it out.
when I add or change something, I will write a note here below.

Change log:
21-08-2024 Project uploaded
22-08-2024 Adjusted orientation of elevator parts and created buildplates for those parts.
24-08-2024 Hull section 7 was missing, added it and changed orientation on one of the other hull segments that was wrong.
31-10-2024 Bow door frame was missing, now added.