So last weekend my wife and daughter went out of town - which usually means I have time to get some projects done! Except this time they were gone for less than 24 hours...so I didn't have enough time for the projects I had lined up.
I went to work on doing a bed upgrade on my 3d printer...but the light I use over it (one of those magnifiers on an adjustable arm with a fluorescent tube around it) burned out a few weeks ago and it was kind of dark to work on. I went to the store to get a new bulb...but they only had "warm white" bulbs not daylight. I saw a LED strip light for $12 that looked promising...but it's lumen rating was about 1/3rd the fluorescent bulbs. Alas, the store didn't have another item I was looking for so I had to go to another store...where I also struck out on daylight bulbs but found a different LED strip for $2 less that was rated for twice the lumens of the first one. I'd been meaning to move the magnifier light out to my office anyway since that's where I use a magnifier the most - so the new LED light seemed perfect for the printer.
I got home and tried the warm white bulb...it was terrible. It's going right back to the store. But the 2nd LED strip was great! In fact despite it's lower lumen rating it seemed WAY brighter than the old light. But how to mount it?
Hmm....I've got a bunch of 1/2" square wood dowels left over from when I was learning to fly my knuckle quad and had to keep making new arms. Maybe a few 3D printed pieces can whip something up....
Yep, that works!
The light was supposed to come with 2 mounting clips...but even though the package was sealed mine was missing one. No biggie, I'm drawing and printing parts already! I redrew the original clip and then added a sleeve so it would be a tight slip fit over a 1/2" dowel:
That one is broken...I had the design a bit off. But...you get the idea. After a minor correction it works perfectly. You may notice that the corners of the square opening are circular...I did this on purpose. On these clips it doesn't matter, but on the blind holes in the other parts I wanted a tight fit so needed a way for air to get out. I originally planned on holes in the end...but that was tricky to print well and weakened the teeth on the hinges. Then it hit me that I just had to put some relief in the corners and it would still hold tight but give a way for air to escape!
The table mount still uses a hole in the bottom - I didn't bother to redraw it and only thought of the modification after I had already printed it:
The pivots are matched pairs - one side has 2 teeth the other has 3. They use #6 or 3mm screws...I still want to draw up a knob to replace the wingnut and would like to get some bolts instead so I could embed the heads making them easier to tighten/loosen without tools...but it works:
I drew it all up in onshape: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/9...0ae53102ad08a555bc/e/5aca0b5a93a0198430daf0c4
But haven't shared the STL's on thingiverse yet because it still has some issues:
1) The tines are a little too short...so they bottom out a tiny bit.
2) The tines have only 0.4mm clearance between them...this works OK in PLA...but PLA is kind of weak for this, i've broken a few connectors in assembly already. I tried printing in Nylon but I'm still having issues getting reliable prints out of Nylon (again.) I also tried PETG but they're too tight to be usable in PETG even though I seem to be getting other parts to print accurately in PETG...so not sure what's going on there. But I want to make the gaps a little bigger before I share it.
The hinges also got changed a bit...originally I made them longer and relied solely on friction to hold them together...but then revised them to be shorter and have a hole that can be used to pin the dowel in place if desired. I haven't actually done that to any of mine though as the short pieces seem to work just fine with a friction fit as well. You can see the lower pivot on mine is the original style while the upper pivot is the new style.
I'd kind of like to come up with a universal joint that can bend in both directions...but doing on that can also lock is kind of tricky and I haven't come up with a great idea on how to do it yet. I thought about a ball and socket type of setup as well...but ran into issues there also.
So...for now it works. It's a little wobbly just since it's only supported on one side...I may make something that mounts off the steppers instead...we'll see.
I'm also in the process of adding a relay board to my printer that will let me turn the printer on and off from octoprint, since it's a 2 channel relay I figure I may as well use the second channel to enable turning the light on and off. But...that's a bit of a bigger project as I'm also planning on re-organizing all of the wiring for the printer and cleaning it up when I do that.
So, fun quick little project that only took an hour or two of CAD time and an hour or two of printing time but has made my printer far more enjoyable to use!
I went to work on doing a bed upgrade on my 3d printer...but the light I use over it (one of those magnifiers on an adjustable arm with a fluorescent tube around it) burned out a few weeks ago and it was kind of dark to work on. I went to the store to get a new bulb...but they only had "warm white" bulbs not daylight. I saw a LED strip light for $12 that looked promising...but it's lumen rating was about 1/3rd the fluorescent bulbs. Alas, the store didn't have another item I was looking for so I had to go to another store...where I also struck out on daylight bulbs but found a different LED strip for $2 less that was rated for twice the lumens of the first one. I'd been meaning to move the magnifier light out to my office anyway since that's where I use a magnifier the most - so the new LED light seemed perfect for the printer.
I got home and tried the warm white bulb...it was terrible. It's going right back to the store. But the 2nd LED strip was great! In fact despite it's lower lumen rating it seemed WAY brighter than the old light. But how to mount it?
Hmm....I've got a bunch of 1/2" square wood dowels left over from when I was learning to fly my knuckle quad and had to keep making new arms. Maybe a few 3D printed pieces can whip something up....
Yep, that works!
The light was supposed to come with 2 mounting clips...but even though the package was sealed mine was missing one. No biggie, I'm drawing and printing parts already! I redrew the original clip and then added a sleeve so it would be a tight slip fit over a 1/2" dowel:
That one is broken...I had the design a bit off. But...you get the idea. After a minor correction it works perfectly. You may notice that the corners of the square opening are circular...I did this on purpose. On these clips it doesn't matter, but on the blind holes in the other parts I wanted a tight fit so needed a way for air to get out. I originally planned on holes in the end...but that was tricky to print well and weakened the teeth on the hinges. Then it hit me that I just had to put some relief in the corners and it would still hold tight but give a way for air to escape!
The table mount still uses a hole in the bottom - I didn't bother to redraw it and only thought of the modification after I had already printed it:
The pivots are matched pairs - one side has 2 teeth the other has 3. They use #6 or 3mm screws...I still want to draw up a knob to replace the wingnut and would like to get some bolts instead so I could embed the heads making them easier to tighten/loosen without tools...but it works:
I drew it all up in onshape: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/9...0ae53102ad08a555bc/e/5aca0b5a93a0198430daf0c4
But haven't shared the STL's on thingiverse yet because it still has some issues:
1) The tines are a little too short...so they bottom out a tiny bit.
2) The tines have only 0.4mm clearance between them...this works OK in PLA...but PLA is kind of weak for this, i've broken a few connectors in assembly already. I tried printing in Nylon but I'm still having issues getting reliable prints out of Nylon (again.) I also tried PETG but they're too tight to be usable in PETG even though I seem to be getting other parts to print accurately in PETG...so not sure what's going on there. But I want to make the gaps a little bigger before I share it.
The hinges also got changed a bit...originally I made them longer and relied solely on friction to hold them together...but then revised them to be shorter and have a hole that can be used to pin the dowel in place if desired. I haven't actually done that to any of mine though as the short pieces seem to work just fine with a friction fit as well. You can see the lower pivot on mine is the original style while the upper pivot is the new style.
I'd kind of like to come up with a universal joint that can bend in both directions...but doing on that can also lock is kind of tricky and I haven't come up with a great idea on how to do it yet. I thought about a ball and socket type of setup as well...but ran into issues there also.
So...for now it works. It's a little wobbly just since it's only supported on one side...I may make something that mounts off the steppers instead...we'll see.
I'm also in the process of adding a relay board to my printer that will let me turn the printer on and off from octoprint, since it's a 2 channel relay I figure I may as well use the second channel to enable turning the light on and off. But...that's a bit of a bigger project as I'm also planning on re-organizing all of the wiring for the printer and cleaning it up when I do that.
So, fun quick little project that only took an hour or two of CAD time and an hour or two of printing time but has made my printer far more enjoyable to use!
