3D Printable Parametric Slew Bearings

Christoph Laimer published  another very useful project. He developed a fully 3D printable and working parametric slew bearings. Since they are developed to be sturdy they can be used in many different project where a simpler 3D printed ball bearing would fail.

Since the design is parametric, you can adapt it to fit your needs. One version even has conical bearings.

Project description:

Ball-bearings are very popular for 3d-printing. However they often fail for real applications. Using Fusion 360 I've created a parametric design of a "Crossed Roller Slew Bearing". The result is a pretty accurate and robust bearing. The bearing including the rollers is 3d-printed in separate parts. There are a few screws needed to clamp the two halves of the inner race together.

Here is the full video:





Thingiverse page:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2375124

A360 download page:

http://a360.co/2r9MFf5

http://a360.co/2r9JnZf

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3D Printed DIY 1/16 Ratio Gearbox for DC Motors

Tomi Malkki made a 1/16 ratio 3d printed gearbox that he uses to modify torque and RPM of salvaged DC motors.

Project description with gearbox specs:

This gearbox has the ratio of 1/16. With this 12v motor it can lift around 3,5kg (straight from the shaft.) 2 washers should place between each gear (see details in video). It reduces heat between plastic parts when 2 washers are rubbing each other. Adding lots of bearing grease between everything is essential. Depending on your printer tolerances you might need drill out some holes bigger. Motor mount should be standard size.

Gears:

• layer 0.2
• infill 25%
• perimeters 3
• bottom layer 2, top 3

Covers:

• Layer 0.3
• infill 20%
• perimeters 2
• bottom layer 2, top 3

Here is the assembly video:



He also cleaned all the surfaces with oil and dirt cleaner, then added a layer of primer, 2 layers of surface paint and 2 layers of clear lacquer, he is using acrylic spray paints.

This is a very useful DIY project that can power many small projects like RC vehicles or robots.

All the files and instructions can be found at:

http://www.instructables.com/id/3d-Printed-Gearbox-for-Small-Dc-Motors/

Thingiverse page:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2227131

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DIY 3D Printed 30W Generator

Even Erichsen developed a 30W DIY electricity generator which you can 3d print name "The Beest". 

The Beest is powered up by hand (or other mechanica source) via the series of gears: ‘1:2 + 1:4 + 1:3, so one turn rotates the rotor 24 times. The rotor is set up like a 3 phase axial flux generator, with three stators and six rotor plates with a total of 96 neodymium magnets.

Very cool project, but full instructions are not released yet. If you have some knowledge of electric generators, you will be able to recreate this.

Here is the project description by the creator:

This is a working hand cranked power generator.
The rotor, in the picture, spins up to 1500 rpm, and produce about 30 watts.
I recommend building the rotor as seen in the fbx-file, for more power.
Needless to say – this is a huge print! Minimum 200+ hours....

On the hardware side you need 96 neodymium magnets (25mm diameter x 10mm),
about 1,3kg of enameled copper wire, preferably six steel plates, a pile of nuts & bolts, electronics - including an Arduino nano, display, bridge rectifier(s), diodes, capacitors, resistors, voltage regulators etc.
If you want to etch the PCB yourself, you will need a blank 160mm x 100mm copper board and your preferred chemicals.

Generator in action:




Thingiverse page with all the files:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1119241

There is also a much simpler 15W version at: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:145186

Project homepage:

http://www.justpressprint.no/3d-models/generator-v2/


Here is the Beest fully assembled:

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Great Tutorial on Design and 3D Printing of Gears

Michael aka. "MechEngineerMike" published a very detailed tutorial on how to design and 3d print gears. It's a must-read if you want to print any kind of a gear used in a mechanical movement.

Here is a video of his gear light switch cover:




Full tutorial can be found at:

http://www.instructables.com/id/A-Practical-Guide-to-FDM-3D-Printing-Gears/

Here is his collection of customizable gears on Thingiverse:

http://www.thingiverse.com/MechEngineerMike/collections/gears-customizable

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How To Design a Chainring Using Open Source Tools

Rich Olson has another great tutorial on how to design and make chainrings using open source software and low cost CNC.





Here is the link to original post with all the tools and scripts needed:

http://www.nothinglabs.com/chainringgen-making-a-chainring-with-open-source-software/


Rich makes a chainring for his bicycle but they have different uses in power transmission. Beside metal they can be also made on a small CNC from other materials like carbon fiber.




Finished carbon plate chainring for a custom bicycle:

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Massive collection of animated mechanical movements and devices

While I was looking for a design of an automatic windows opening mechanism that I could use on my workshop I found this little jam on the YouTube.
The channel is just named "thang010146" and contains big number of video animations which show various mechanical movements and internal working mechanics of different devices in many areas like construction, engineering, hydraulics, gears, cams, robotics and many more. There are new videos coming up frequently.
If you are hobbyist, maker, engineer or just curious this is very useful reference base for finding solutions or inspiration.

Here are some examples:







You can find many MANY more mechanism schematics here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/thang010146/videos

One of the windmill / wind generators designs from the channel  

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Presentation on design of 3D printed mathematical art by Henry Segerman

If you are mathematics geek, love advanced geometry, four dimensional space, fractals, knots and art you will enjoy this presentation. One hour worth watching of Henry Segerman from Oklahoma State University giving presentation on design of 3D printed mathematical art during Symposium on Computational Geometry 2014.




The presentation in PDF format can be found here:

https://www.math.okstate.edu/~segerman/talks/design_of_3d_printed_math_art.pdf

You can see Henrys four dimensional puzzles in action here:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2012/11/3d-printing-4th-dimension.html

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BYQ 3d printer and extruder made from plywood by Pawel Dobrowolski

Pawel Dobrowolski is working on extruder made from plywood. He made first progress by making plywood gears.
Pawel later commented on this post that this extruder is based on yruds/yegah design which is popular in Poland  and it is a part of bigger open source project called BYQ 3d printer made fully in plywood .

Here is video of the extruder made fully from 8mm plywood in action:



BYQ plywood 3d printer has no 3d printed parts:

Here is the GitHub for the BYQ with all the files to cut plywood parts:

https://github.com/syntetyczny/BYQ

BYQ page in Polish where you can buy pre-cut kits:

http://www.byq3d.eu/index.php?id_product=16&controller=product&id_lang=7

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Tutorial on how to design gears for 3d printing

Tutorial from youtube user Sidnmd on how to design 3d printable gears.

From video description:

Here is one of the many approaches to designing gears for 3D printing.
1) use Gear template maker to design a gear
2) export to a jpg file
3) use freeware wintopo to vectorize and save vector as a 3D dxf file
4) use a CAD program to import the 3D dxf and extrude surfaces
5) clean up with free netfab or send directly to 3D printer 

Notes:
This project explains how I go about making different types of gear profiles (different sizes, tooth number, addendum etc...).
The Gear Template Maker (GTM) shareware is a program that was designed for CNC or laser cutting of gear outlines but only generates a 2D dxf file. I wanted to get to a 3D dxf file that could be 3D printed on an Up!3D printer.
The steps that I use apply to sprocket gears, involute gears,rack and pinion gears.
The basic idea is to get from a jpeg image generated in GTM through freeware version of Wintopo to generate a 3D dxf file that you can extrude using any basic CAD program, then print on a 3D printer. The entire process should take under 3 minutes.

This video shows how to configure a sprocket gear that can be used with a Tamiya belt kit. See www/thingiverse.com project "Making gears".

Update (5.10.2014.):

Here is a different gear designing tutorial that was published on Instructables by user revrekad

http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-models-of-gears-for-3D-printing/

From tutorial description:

3D models for gears can be created different ways - each way has pros and cons
Calculate parameters for gears manually - diameters of gear wheels, angles of teeth, etc. Create a 3D model in CAD software. Print models, test, correct, repeat...

• Measure existing gears and use these parameters to create 3D model in CAD in the way as above. It's not easy to find gears similar to needed (even when they can be scaled)

• Take the photo of existing gears (e.g from a toy car), print it scaled, put on the display and draw the 2D geometry in CAD - to reproduce gear's shape. This is more easy than in previous steps, but also required to find similar gears (or at least their picture)

• Use graphics software with build in gear-generation features. E.g Inkscape (graphics editor with extension which renders a gears), FreeCAD (free CAD software), etc.

• Use a program which generates geometry of gears by specified parameters - this way is describes in this video instruction.

Software used in this instruction:

• Gear Generator - this is not free software. It allows to generate 2D geometry of gears and export it to dxf-file

• PTC Creo Elements/Direct Modeling Express 6 - this is free software which allows to create quick and easy mechanical models for prototypes. This product allows to create models the way similar to solid modeling - but more simple. Version 6 has a great new feature - export 2D geometry on a workplane, this feature is used in the instruction.

• Netfabb Basic - this is free software which allows to fix STL-geometry or rotate parts.

• KISSliser - this is free software (with additional features available in purchased version). Prepare STL-geometry for 3D printing - slices and translates to G-codes.

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Cycloidal Gyro printed with a Mojo 3D printer

Youtube user Landon Smith printed this complex gear system downloaded from Grab CAD. From his video description:

This one took some working to get it to break free. The mojo is capable of printing +\- .007 of an inch so as long as I keep my gaps larger than that it should be fine, however a brain gear I printed had gaps at .009 and I never got it to spin. We were going to print some gears at varying gaps and see what worked but never got to it

BTW: It is interesting that there are almost no review videos of Mojo printer, or most of the other high end desktop printers. Why?

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