I remember seeing a lot about activeX controls as a kid but not understanding them much. As an adult reading this I was like “were they a way to run arbitrary code on a user’s computer?”
Yes, they were a way to run arbitrary code on a user’s computer.
Just to add on to this, if OP is printing this standing then it really should be laid on iits side, so that the hole in the handle is facing up & down, not sideways. Looking at this print that’s definitely how it should be printed. Vertical not only runs into layer time issues, but it’s a tall, thin object with loads of layer seams in the middle. It will be extremely weak. Lying down the layers run along the length of it, making it stronger. If the hole is sideways, then one side of the handle makes a giant bridge, which could fail the print entirely or need lots of supports.
I imagine the designer very intentionally made it to print on its side.
Oh and put the embossed arrow facing up, assuming the other side is flat.
WaTCh YoUr aTTItude
Lol, you got told your attitude was the problem and you just had to offload that onto me, didn’t you?
Then post the parametrised step file so people can tinker themselves.
That said, if you did all this work and went through all these iterations to make a single ratchet that nobody else can copy then it sounds like you massively wasted your time. I would far prefer something with a tiny bit of assembly to a print-in-place gimmick that takes far more effort. The only way this makes any sense is if you’re making a lot of them.
I guess keep it to yourself in that case.
I appreciate you not being defensive and just explaining your process in so much detail. I learned something about how finnicky some of these parts can be. I wonder if another strategy would be to trace the part onto paper and scan it, to get an undistorted shape?
And I don’t mind explaining things, it’s someting I sort of can’t help to be honest. I hope it’s useful to someone.
Oh wow, that is very strange. I checked if 23.22mm was anything in inches, and it’s 0.914 and change, so it’s not an imperial thing. I wonder if it just comes from people eyeballing it with no real dimensions or something?
Well, as you were I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So are you saying you traced a photo, then printed multiple parts to get a trial-and-error fit? And you’re trying to fit the blue part around the black part?
That seems extremely time consuming and wasteful. 3d printing lets you work this way but you’ll get better results by planning out the part more carefully from the start.
The way I would do it is to identify the key measurements. This looks like a complex shape but it can be easily broken down into a few numbers.
First you obviously need the height, width and depth of the main rectangle. Then you need the screw hole diameter. From there, you can measure the distance from the screw hole border to the edge of the tabs that surround the screw hole, and use that to calculate the radius of that whole tab piece. These are all easy with calipers.
From there, there are tricks you can use to measure the corner fillet radius and the internal fillet radius where the screw tabs meet the main body, but also they look like they could be the same as the screw tab radius.
An important piece of info here is that those compound curves are usually just simple circular radii. They’re easy to work with so designers will stick with them.
Try that and see if it looks right. If not, try whole-millimeter adjustments in the numbers till they look the same as your reference part. If you can’t get it right that way, go to half-millimeter increments. People working in CAD software very rarely go to finer adjustments than that for superficial details like this, so it’s usually easy to find the numbers they used.
Then you add a margin between the inner part and the part you’re making, like say 1mm or even 0.5mm, and see if that looks right.
Then all that’s left is to decide whatever measurements you need out of the piece you’re making and go for it.
If you learn to set these parameters up in your CAD software you can easily adjust them until the part looks right.
Yup, assuming the solar panels will be in the wind, potentially at highway speeds, absolutely do not rely on TPU threads for that. Threads rely on stiff material to transmit the forces from the angled faces of the thread into linear forces. Anything flexible will rip out very easily. It’s shocking how fast a rubber material - even a firm rubber - gives up when real force is put onto it. It’s like it’s not even there.
The through bolt idea is pretty good. It should be easy enough to make a spool shape out of the TPU that will work as a shock absorber. Honestly even then I’d keep an eye on it to make sure it’s not getting ripped up.
EDIT: I was curious how to quantify the difference, so I found this datasheet which shows the difference between the stiffness of rubbers, particularly polyurethane, which is what TPU is, and steel:
You’re looking for Young’s modulus, which is 1.3 - 2.1 GPa for polyurethane, and 190-220 GPa for the various steels. Steel is hundreds of times stiffer. And for the threads to fail, they don’t need to be damaged, just shift out of the way enough to slip past each other.
Interesting, if you’re using it for the cooler part of the heat break then it should be a lot cooler since that’s what the heat break does.
It might not hurt, but if I had to imagine a scenario, I’d say it could break down and create carbon deposits that could act like graphite powder and lubricate the screws. I guess time will tell ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Is threadlocker usually resistant to hugh temperatures? If not that would explain why it doesn’t come from the factory.
Nah, there’s no shame in it, there’s a reason it’s a phenomenon with a name. At least you posted the solution so now your question might help someone else with a similar problem.
Literally 1 second after I pressed the post button I got an idea and thats what it was. Why does that always happen? xD
You were rubber ducking.
I appreciate all the effort you went to, and I can do this as it turns out. Now that I’ve researched what problem I was having, it turns out the issue was that I couldn’t do a parametric offset line in a sketch, which was crucial to what I was doing at the time, so I had to give up on it.
I was using 0.19 at the time, because that’s what I’ve got installed.
I honestly forget, it was such a terrible experience I didn’t give it any more time. I think that the problem was that I couldn’t make it parametric.
I got stuck on googling how to make a fillet in freecad, to which the answer appeared to be, “yeah, nah, you sort of can’t”. Oh okay, this program is not for me.
Edit: if people want to help/criticise, I recall the problem was that I couldn’t do it parametrically, which is the only way I like to model any engineering parts. So far the only thing that information has gotten me is a downvote. If freecad is as full featured as you say, then this should be easy to do. Feel free to tell me how.
EDIT 2: after the info I got, I looked into it more and discovered my problem was a bit different - I couldn’t do a parametric offset line in a sketch, because I needed to make a particular pattern. I ended up doing it with OpenSCAD if I recall. I apologise for saying freecad couldn’t do fillets, that would’ve been extremely basic. It was still a very painful experience just to figure out that it couldn’t do what I needed.
A blanket rule against certain keywords sounds pretty silly to me. Break and continue are useful tools in the right situation. Sounds like it’s her preference that she’s decided to impose on the rest of you.
You could ask her what she expects as an alternative. You could show her code that uses it and ask how she expects you to rewrite it to satisfy her standards. Ask nicely because unfortunately just being right isn’t enough for some teachers, they have to like you too.
If she has a good answer, then do it that way as long as you’re in her class. If not well… sorry that’s just a terrible teacher.
Oh, well sounds like it was a slicer issue then. I assume it must’ve been retracting too much between layers. I’d be interested to understand why, but if you’ve fixed it I don’t feel any need to investigate. Congrats on fixing it.
Okay, thanks. I’m afraid I don’t have any further insight here, there’s obviously either a problem with the G-code or how the printer is executing that G-code, I suspect your idea about retraction might have something to it. Could you provide the G-code file? I don’t know if I will be able to get much out of it, but there are a number of G-code viewers and simulators that can help you understand better what’s going on.
In the second photo of the fully printed part it’s hard to see the issue.
Looking at that first layer, the first tooth looks very similar to the internal perimeters of the teeth that have had two perimeters printed.
Is it possible the first pass on the first tooth is printing an interior perimeter whereas the first path on the other teeth is printing a different perimeter? What does the first layer look like when you let it finish the layer?
And could you please provide a picture of the first layer as rendered in the slicer?
And electronics hobbyists!