Modular 5C Collet Trays

[GreatOldOne]

My project this week was to organise the draw of loose collets under my lathe (in-between conference video calls with my colleagues at work, troubleshooting iffy server environments and trying to get UNIX box access for myself to monitor stuff)

I came up with this - modular, print as many as you like, with label slots to allow identification of the collet. I thought the tolerances on the bowties that keep the trays together might have been too sloppy, but they seem to be spot on - tight enough that they don't need glue, loose enough that you can easily assemble or disassemble the trays into larger or smaller units.

Modular Machinists Organiser Tray System by GreatOldOne

UPDATED 22/06/20 Trays to hold standard 5C & ER32 collets plus plain trays of various lengths - modular, print as many as you need and keep them together with the bowties. Each rack has a label slot so you can put a size label in for easy collet finding (so long as you put the collets back where...

www.thingiverse.com

 

[SLK001]

Neat idea, but these take up twice as much space lying down as they do standing up. Do the same, but make a modular vertical rack. With a vertical rack, you can at least see the size of the collet.

 

[GreatOldOne]

The draw my collets reside in isn’t deep enough for the collet to stand up. Hence the orientation.

 

[Buffalo21]

I know little or nothing about 3D printing, how durable are the trays?? Is it like they were molded when your done??


I store my 5C collets in a rack I bought from ENCO yrs ago

 

[4ssss]

Neat idea, but these take up twice as much space lying down as they do standing up. Do the same, but make a modular vertical rack. With a vertical rack, you can at least see the size of the collet.

Nice job, but as stated above.

 

[GreatOldOne]

Nice job, but as stated above.

The draw my collets reside in isn’t deep enough for the collet to stand up. Hence the orientation.

 

[GreatOldOne]

I know little or nothing about 3D printing, how durable are the trays?? Is it like they were molded when your done??

Sort of. The part is made up of layers extruded one atop each other. Each layer is only 0.2mm thick. Durability is probably down to a combination of material and infil settings. This is 15%, meaning 85% is empty space inside the part - but the infill is like a spiralling lattice which makes it very strong.

 

[Be_Zero_Be]

I bought a 5C rack and put it on slides.
They are out of the way, and easily accessible.

 

[GreatOldOne]

I've updated my design to include ER32 collets and a variety of plain trays of various lengths. Pleased with how it's all come out. It's a bit of a rainbow in there as I've been using up rolls of PLA I had on hand. The 5Cs I've made it mean something - Red is whole numbers, Blue is .5 increments and then the Green is 5mm increments.



Files are all on the thingiverse link in the first post.

 

[Buffalo21]

Damn!! That’s very neat and orderly!!