Here’s a chance to learn a bit about the process of milling a filament pulley, from captain-slow.dk:
After last batch of filament pulleys, I decided to try and use another technique to make the teeth. So far I have just used a tap to make them, but the result of that is the teeth being a bit slanted.
Instead I used a mill to make the teeth instead, and the result is spectacular. As you can see here, the teeth are more clean looking than before, almost shiny too, and what is even better, they are perfectly straight.
If you still think “ah, they still aren’t perfectly straight” then the picture must be fooling your eyes. Measured over 100mm the lathe is 0.01mm out of alignment, this groove is about 4.4mm wide.
But what is different? The difference is that before all the teeth was all made in one go with the tool and pulley both spinning at the same time. With the new ones each tooth is milled on its own, then the pulley is rotated a bit before the next one is milled, and here is how that looks…
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!