After half a dozen iterations, this was the first reasonably working, acceptable feeling, and good-sounding ratchet mechanism.
allows clockwise rotation blocks counterclockwise rotation
design features:
- allows for a large inner bore (e.g. rotary encoder shaft or 5.2mm screwdriver bit)
- printable with 0.4mm nozzle
- 2cm diameter
- no assembly required. Print in place.
To get a full ratchet: mirror the assembly and add a mechanism/part that pushes one of the springs out. In neutral both leavers are engaged and the ratchet is completely locked.
Btw. Good luck copying it without going through half a dozen of iterations. Going from it barely works to this isn’t easy. For my part: Version 5 was working and close to the final design. It took another 10 rounds to get it usable and from there some more to fine-tune it.
Sweet! 3d printing is a lot of trial and error, which is why I always hesitated with bigger designs.
That’s exactly why it is a partial model/design to rapidly iterate on it: 1g, 10-minute print time. The full version with all the print-in-place parts takes 16 minutes.
Another aspect is collecting designs for a library. From now on I can copy past this subassembly into bigger designs and know it will just work. If I need to modify it I know how and where to change it to get the desired outcome.