- Joined
- Oct 31, 2014
- Messages
- 444
Messing about with some Metric parts recently and quickly figured out that Imperial 5C collets in 1/16" increments wouldn't squeeze down enough for the project at hand so I ordered a set of Metric collets from an eBay seller.
OK, now that I have the collets, how to store them? Any excuse to do 3D design and printing, right?
Fired up SolveSpace 3D cad, twiddled with a design for a while - trying to make it generic enough to also do one or two for Imperial collets eventually.
3D screen shot:
Sliced it up and sent it to the Prusa
9 hours and 4 minutes later - voila!
The Metric collet set from eBay goes from 3 to 25 mm - and the extra spots are for using the same configuration eventually for the fractional ones. I can put some oddball collets into the unmarked spaces in this one to get them organized a bit.
Spacing was empirically determined to be able to get my fat fingers in there to retrieve the desired part. The original plan was to just make this a floating platform on some 1/4-20 machine screws in the 4 mounting holes, but it looks like it might be a better option to build an enclosed wood case with slots to allow the 3D parts to be 'shelves' that slide in and out as needed. Time will tell.
Only snag in the whole process was that the 3D cad/cam process makes polygons instead of true circles, so the holes in the design ended up a smidgen too small. Rather than re-printing (another 9 hours and 4 minutes!) I got out the adjustable reamers and took a skosh off the hole walls.
I'm still a newbie at this 3D stuff so this was an excellent learning exercise plus I got something useful out of the deal! Win Win!
Stu
OK, now that I have the collets, how to store them? Any excuse to do 3D design and printing, right?
Fired up SolveSpace 3D cad, twiddled with a design for a while - trying to make it generic enough to also do one or two for Imperial collets eventually.
3D screen shot:
Sliced it up and sent it to the Prusa
9 hours and 4 minutes later - voila!
The Metric collet set from eBay goes from 3 to 25 mm - and the extra spots are for using the same configuration eventually for the fractional ones. I can put some oddball collets into the unmarked spaces in this one to get them organized a bit.
Spacing was empirically determined to be able to get my fat fingers in there to retrieve the desired part. The original plan was to just make this a floating platform on some 1/4-20 machine screws in the 4 mounting holes, but it looks like it might be a better option to build an enclosed wood case with slots to allow the 3D parts to be 'shelves' that slide in and out as needed. Time will tell.
Only snag in the whole process was that the 3D cad/cam process makes polygons instead of true circles, so the holes in the design ended up a smidgen too small. Rather than re-printing (another 9 hours and 4 minutes!) I got out the adjustable reamers and took a skosh off the hole walls.
I'm still a newbie at this 3D stuff so this was an excellent learning exercise plus I got something useful out of the deal! Win Win!
Stu
