Tag Archives: TinkerCAD

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 202011 – Squaring up the Ender 3 X-axis – PostScript – Tire tread depth gage turned digital dial indicator

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Tire checker turned Depth Gage…

A nice bracket to hold the tire check gage was found for Ender 3. (Thingiverse #3732166 ) This simple bracket holds the tire gage clipping around the extruder fan casing. It is a nice concept but we found there needs to be a shim to make it fit tight enough that the readings are accurate. Either printed with spring tensioning slots or some kind of clamp would be an improvement. A future project! Having tested many levels with a piece of paper for a shim stock looking at numbers is sort of a soothing relief. As we want to check the tram when everything is to temperature the bracket was printed in ABS.

After a while it was a bit tedious to position the table and extruder by hand so time for some programming.

The autoleveling routine found on Thingiverse (# 2987803 ) was modified to remove the printing code and just go from location to location to check with the depth gage. The routine has stops at each position and waits for the operator to push the button to proceed to the next position.

THE RESULT:

Because you don’t want the nozzle to drag on the table a clearance offset of 40 mm was used to move from measurement spot to measurement spot and then 30 mm for the measurement point in Z.

The tire gage plunger is not spring loaded and has to be applied manually but this is OK once the bracket is secure on the extruder housing.

As the bracket attaches to the extruder fan box it is not tight and easy to bump out of place. To make the bracket “clip” tighter some modifications were added via TinkerCAD. A couple of slots and an extra bump made the bracket nice and tight and give more consistent measurements.

Note the negative material slots and the extra bump in orange to provide a “spring” to pressure the clamp on the extruder fan.

The original bracket was uploaded into TinkerCAD and the modifications shown grouped and then downloaded. The part was sliced in Simplify3D and printed on and Ender 3 in PLA.