Tag Archives: filament

3D Printing Projects 202507 – 1-2-3 Block and Fasteners

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I wanted a simple but not trivial visual aid for the Onshape class and stumbled upon the 123 block as a nice prismatic practice piece. Pattering the holes got to be more involved than anyone imagined. Very good exercise for Oshape.

Utilizing an internet seach a drawing of a 123 block was found.

It would be nice to have fasteners to connect blocks together. To make stong threads the thread forms are printed in the XY orientation. The head was separated from the whole screw to form a T handle on the threaded portion and part of the hex socket for maximum torque. The head was then relocated for better printing orientation and a tree was added to hold them together until assembled. Configurations were established to make length selection easy.

1-2-3 blocks in holders in the Grid Finity system. Various fasterners and T-wrenches of the style described.
A body and head as it would be in the printed orientation. The threads in the x-y plane offer the best strength. the knurled part of the head is also strong in this orientation. The flats on the threaded body allow for no supports needed to print. THe head is attached via some small strips to keep the two pieces as one until needed.
A close-up of the nests and the grid finity base
grid.

Parts were printed in PLA on the Ender3 V3 KE, Speedy-G and Tres (the 1st and 3rd refurbed KE in the lineup). The nests were printed in two color layers on the FF AD5X.Gridfinity base grids where printed on the Lost Cuz.

3D Printing Projects 202411 – Snowman Container

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Bob wanted a snowman container similar to the teddy bears with the screw on head. We had done some conversion on another project going from threads to a quarter turn key. Having no luck finding a hollow snowman we proceeded to design it from scratch.

Onshape to the rescue:

Using the bear as a guide for size the 100% snowman ended up with a 2 inch opening at the top and about 7 inches tall. Once in the slicer it was scaled to 50% and because the original wall thickness was 3mm the scaling worked for a stable print. First test pieces were sliced with Creality slicer and printed in a V3 KE.

Parts were printed in PLA on the Ender3 V3 KE, Tres (the 3rd refurbed KE in the lineup). 

3D Printing Projects 202204 – Walker Skis & BobBootSki

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Bob needed some walker skis. I had printed some many times as the abrasiveness of the pavement and friction wear them out. I dug up the file and printed some that I had many times before.

This design was printed to fit some rubber boots that slipped over the walker leg pipes. The unit was held on by a screw, nut and washers.

Bob took these home only to realize that his system was slightly different. The pipe ends were a molded cup with a screw holding an insert for the internal diameter of the pipe. My first thought was to print some boots in Nylon that would adapt the the skis. I started that design project in Onshape sketching and revolving the shape without detailed dimensions. I called the file, BobBoot. When finished I thought, “why not just print the whole thing and use his inserts?” Here’s the result. Hidden is the fancy boss on the bottom of the cup that locks the insert from rotating and accepts a screw to hold it in place.

“BobBootSki”

I added detailed dimensions and developed the boss to receive the insert. When finished I thought, “might as well add the ski!” With a quick rectangle and ski profile I swept the ski attached to the boot. Now the device is called the “BobBootSki.”

Details of the boot, screw hole and anti-rotate square pocket of the “BobBootSki.”
Cutaway view of “BobBootSki”

Parts were printed in ABS on Cat’sPaw (FF Creator). 

3D Printing Projects 202201 – Speedy Spool Spinner

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Bruce from the E3 club introduced the sleeve adapter for the spool holder he found on Thingiverse. It was tweaked in a number of ways.

  1. The design fits the Ender 3 post but was too big for the Killer class machines we have so  a thickness ring was added. The original design stl was imported into Onshape and the ring was added.
  2. The thread form was traditional 60 degrees. When printing this sags in one direction.This didn’t make it super easy to spin. The sleeve was redrawn in Onshape with a round semicircle thread form. All parts were adapted with a semicircle thread form.  A lot of turning is required when you have a large opening in the spool hub.
  3. The “spikes” on the wedge portions of the bolt and nut were hard on the fingers. A more relaxed ergonomic design was developed.
  4. To minimize the amount of turning a split thread was developed borrowing from wood vices of the past.

The four parts are shown here.

1/2 spool holder with original threads and spacers inserted
1/2 spool holder with round thread form and nut that holds the two halves to the spool holder.
The rounded threads and rounded spokes
Modified thread form,rounded spokes and split threads

Note the semicircular thread form in the section view here.

Parts were printed in PLA on various Ender3’s. 

3D Printing Projects 202101 – Orrery

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Orrery. One rotation of the dial is 14 days.

My friend Dave is an astronomer and was intrigued by mechanical Orrery’s and especially one that could be 3D printed. This one was found on the internet. The idler gears in the original design were two separate gears with a pin to connect them. The pin was made as part of the print on one gear. The pin is a crossed boss into crossed slots on the other gear. Various other tweaks for smooth operation. 

Parts were printed in PLA on various Ender3’s. 

3D Printing Projects 202102 – Ender 3 Enhancements

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TPM Technologies Ender3 fan covers and nameplates for Build Your Own workshop.

Our Ender 3 club has developed a number of enhancements for the Ender 3 beyond the offset square.  The Makerspace at Cumberland Business Incubator sponsors a Build Your Own class for the Ender 3. Eleven embellishments are included in the class. Here is a shot of a few of them. The fan covers started with a monochrome stl downloaded from Thingiverse. The stl file was imported into TinkerCAD. Then, converted to two stl files by taking a thin slice at the start of the lettering to allow the letters to be printed in a different color. Using the dual extrusion wizard in Simplify3D the files were processed into one build file and printed on Killer, a Flashforge Creator Pro machine. The nameplates were developed in Solidworks and two stl files extracted to follow the same workflow for printing.

Parts were printed in ABS on Killer class (FlashForge Creator Pro) machines. 

3D Printing Projects 202011 – Smart Phone to eyepiece adapters

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TPM Technologies Smart Phone to eyepiece adapters. Test fit on binoculars.

Buddy Bob wanted some smart phone adapters for a telescope. Searched on Thingiverse and found many to choose from. Here is a couple of the choices selected.  

 

TPM Technologies Test fit for smart phone.

Some parts were remixed. Thumbnut and Thumbscrew pieces were fit for 4mm Hex head screws. These were applied to the phone locking mechanism. A more traditional thumbscrew knob was used for the eyepiece clamp. The original eyepiece diameter was 1.35 inch and was redesigned for a 1.25 inch diameter using SolidWorks.  The phone clamps on the open ocular unit were modified to be even with the smart phone surface using TinkerCAD.

Parts were printed in ABS on Killer class (FlashForge Creator Pro) and Makerbot Replicator  and in PLA on Ender 3’s. 

3D Printing Projects 202002 – TUSH on TRON

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Remixed TUSH rollers for TRONzilla. Outside fins to hold spool intact, clips for 40×40 extrusion, and 3 mm assembly screws with nut indent for wrench-less tightening.

The Ultimate Spool Holder (TUSH) was adapted for supporting the direct drive conversion of TRONzilla. The project started by printing a superstructure mounted on TRONzilla using the 40×40 extrusion profile (These large 40×40 sections were printed on TRONzilla). Clips were added to hold the roller assembly in place. The friction is enough so the top needs no teeth like the original TUSH. The rollers can be slid easily along the extrusion and the weight of the spool and friction of the clips keep them to the proper spacing. Screws were added to the bearing spindles to keep the halves together and made symmetrical with a hex indent to hold the nut so only a hex driver is required for tightening. The spool rolls so easily it was necessary to add larger flanges to the outside half to keep the spool on top of the rollers as it wanted to spin out of its cradle. The extrusion profile was imported in to SolidWorks and then using the sweep function developed in the bracket you see. The TUSH model was adapted with engagement fingers in to the grooves of the extrusion profile. The original TUSH has a flat gear for setting the spacing of the spool rims. By adding a captive nut pocket the bearings are trapped more securely with a 3mm screw and nut and then the TUSH can just be slid along the profile to adjust for differing spool spacing. The extrusions were sliced in Simplify3D and printed in PLA on TRONzilla. The TUSH components were sliced in Simplify3D and printed in PLA on “Groot”, an Ender3.