Pvc pipe, Fender washers, Paper clips, Ball bearings, Skateboard bearings, Dollar store cutting boards, Finishing nails, Insulation supports, Kickboards, All of these work great with 3d printed parts to achieve precision, toughness, and ease of manufacture.
'Dollar store cutting boards,' The small plastic ones are great for just a general plastic board. I just used one to mount a camera over a door sill, so I wouldn't have to drill holes everywhere. Camera weight sits on the door sill, mounting screwed into the cutting board, and then the edge of the cutting board slid into the J channel and behind the door sill. Camera is secure at the correct angle and doesn't move, without having to be drilled into the wall.
imo a design goal more people should try to attain when designing something that uses 3d printing is to _minimize_ the usage of 3d printing, e.g. can that flat plane be a sheet of plywood cut to size? 3d printing is convenient, but plastic is often not the right material. plywood, fibreboard, and metal sheets are all likely cheaper, stronger, easier to find/lower barrier of entry, and last longer. people are often too focused on making a "good 3d printed design" than "a good design that uses 3d printing to some extent" the main advantage of 3d printing is being able to make things that can't just be bought, in most cases, if it is a readily available thing, 3d printing is _the wrong tool_
I've been in the trades as a welder and fabricator for about 16 years now. I have worked in all sorts of sectors like oil and gas, construction, manufacturing, etc. I am working to leave the trades and go back to school as an engineer in mechatronics. A common complaint i run into regardless of where I'm working or what industry I'm working in, is about engineers not designing things to be manufactured, repaired or worked on. I think the problem is the lack of practical experience a lot of engineers have. It's great that 3d printing is becoming more and more mainstream because it will expose some of these problems that the people actually building the designs have to deal with on a regular basis.
Well, as you well know, machinists have a lot of practical experience and familiarity with achieving things like proper fit and are the first ones to be handling precision made parts (because they made them precisely). I'm not sure what familiarity mechanical engineers have with machining and how far they are educated in the trade, but I can say this: machining is tough and demanding and often it is the machinist that is the better engineer overall.
@@OceanusHeliosi cant speak to how well a machinist or welder would perform as an engineer because i have never been an engineer. I suspect that mindset is the same as an engineer not having any practical experience, except reversed. People seem to forget that engineers, and the tradesmen that execute the engineers design, are two sides of the same coin.
Practical experience installing stuff like the engineer in the video when he installed his under sink filter in an awkward location, with no regard for the proper bend radius / length between his isolation and prefilter, or working length boxed in between 90s after the prefilter to his main filter? @27:13 His isolation valve is shut; is there a leak?
@@OceanusHelios Disagree on a machinist being the better engineer. They have valuable knowledge that should be borrowed and consulted when it comes to making a part easy to manufacture and maintain, but theres more to engineering than that. Considerations like strength, failure modes, alternate possibilities, optimization and even getting to a point where you understand whats actually required from a part/ assembly have a lot more nuance behind it than it might seem at first. Unfortunately engineers cant do all of that perfectly, but thats why you're supposed to consult with others, like machinists, maintenance crews, end users, the lists goes on.
As a mechanical engineer, I can say some. Paradigms such as design for assembly, design for service or design for manufacturing are parts of mechanical engineering education (Design for X is the common name). However today’s industry limits the design space with cost, industrial design and safety. More and more companies want unmaintainable/irreparable systems so that the customer will come back. Even at such cases some very smart solutions may be possible but project managers do not want to spend time there. They allocate their limited resources on where the customer will interact with rather than the guys at the factory or service. This approach is killing the artistic part of mechanical design and I hope the new sustainability wave will force companies to manufacture long lasting, serviceable products. i.e. Problem is real but the root cause is not the inability of the engineers but the competition out there
I taught GD&T (Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing) in ITT (No longer around). It is odd that college engineering majors don't get into GD&T. This is so crucial to assemblies and the reason for GD&T. At minimum, engineers need to speak this language (in drawings with GD&T callouts) so machininst can properly fabricate the part.
Well machinists like me can still machine using the old standards, but there is a caveat. GD&T lets us have more wiggle room because GD&T calls out where we have that wiggle room and where we don't. It is a better indication to have GD&T callouts on the blueprints so that we know what is going to be critical and what is not going to be critical and can better understand what the design intent is.
A big part of my job at the moment is remediating issues that our industrial designers caused by not considering the manufacturing capabilities of our vendor, the order of operations, and not indicating critical dimensions. It's frustrating because a lot of this work should have been done at the start.
@@dittilio I couldn't agree more. ID and other engineering majors should have GD&T in at least one core class. In my comment, I totally forgot about ID, but that may be one of the most important fields for this subject.
We do here in the UK, as long as the course is IMECHE certified that is, others may also, but it's a requirement for IMECHE, which is why I specified that.
@@dittiliowhen I worked for the old Hewlett-Packard they assigned me, a manufacturing engineer, to sit in the engineering design area, and provide input during design reviews. It was called “concurrent engineering.” Yes. It did decrease time to market and reduced product costs.
Awesome video! 100% practical design information. You included useful examples of cheap things for improving tolerances when designing a part for 3d printing. Haters gonna hate no matter how good a video you make. As a degreed ME I can confirm we didn’t put these ideas together in the context of assemblies. This helps regular people and companies with crappy consumer 3d printers make higher quality functional parts on the cheap. Don’t mind the haters… They don’t know how to contribute knowledge to the world in an effort to make it better.
Using a toothed belt upside down as gear teeth is a good example of this. My favorite example of borrowing precision is a design for a turntable I saw that used a Harley valve and valve guide as a radial bearing, sitting on top of a ball bearing in a hole as the thrust bearing. I've also seen ball point pens used as bearings. The ball tips have absolutely insane tolerances and until a year ago there was only a single manufacturer of them.
@@VaughnRhinehart pretty much anything works better than 3d printed gears, unless you're making very large tooth low load systems out of tpu. Although I've never used the belt tooth trick, I just end up using a belt conventionally or a chain for force transfer.
I think another term that could be used is "Design for Manufacture." Essentially we must know the limitations of a manufacturing process, including 3D printing, which has many positives, but can often fall short if off-the-shelf components are not integrated into an assembly or project. As you have demonstrated, the simple addition of off-the-shelf hardware can drastically increase the capabilities of 3D Printed components and their integration with more "traditional" manufacturing methods. My main piece of advice as a fellow engineering major is to try to address an audience more consistently. You clearly have a great understanding and knowledge of your field, but if you are going to address an audience that may not have expertise in your field be careful with how complex the terminology that you use is. Sometimes surface level terminology is all that is needed to accurately describe a concept, and you seemed to swap from expert level terminology to very simple descriptions of a problem throughout the video. Great video and keep up the great work!
One of the most important things I learned early when I started getting into designing with my 3d printer was the important of stress tests. Know your overhang angles, know your tolerances between 2 printed parts and know your tolerances between a printed part and a manufactured part, know the exact spacing for heat set inserts, screws, etc, and the exact minimum distance you need for a wall to not be too thin. All of these things will make designing for the printer so much easier. I understand this is basic knowledge for anyone who's already in manufacturing, but I came from a software background and had to learn it all as a hobby. It seems so obvious now, but it's kind of a blind spot going into your designs at the start.
I disagree in one comment. It is good for anyone learning design engineering as a hobby or professionally to learn the proper language. As long as a brief educational explanation as to the meaning of engineering terminology is given at some point early in the video as was done here, I would not discourage the continuance of such language.
@@RexAnothership Yep I totally agree with you! I could just see it being a bit of whiplash for less technical viewers if not explaining is done and both simple and complex terms are being thrown around.
Man, you've got some hateful people in your audience. Don't let the stupid closed minded remarks diminish the value you add here on youtube. Thanks for all you do to teach people about these amazing passions!
@@VEC7ORlt I really don't see it? there is no "over-explaining" in the context of learning. if you already know stuff, good for you, but thorough explainations are exactly the goal in an explainer video.
@@TacticalFluke09 maybe, maybe not, but it sure reminds me of a uni lecturer we had at one moment - tells same thing in 3 different ways, and not the most important stuff, and there is no remote control to fast forward, unlike YT.
Not sure if you asked us to subscribe in the video, but I subscribed immediately after this video because this is the exact type of channel that I’m looking for. I love taking deep dives into engineering topics, especially the ones that don’t get talked about that often. Keep up the great work, I look forward to seeing what you make in the future!
Tolerance is a function of design, precision is a function of manufacture. A good engineer designs for the largest possible tolerances that still allow manufacturing precision ti achieve a functiinal product, while still practical and cost-efficient. That's why an engineer with actual productiin experience is preferable to a pure theorist.
YES! It annoys me no end when I watch 3d printer channels misuse the word tolerance as some kind of function of the machine. Clearance is another word I would like them to add to their vocabulary.
@@carneeki Printers do have tolerance limitations but they mostly make repeatable mistakes which the model can be adjusted for to achieve decent accuracy. I agree that clearance is a needed addition to their vocabulary. Making a log book for your machine to achieve proper clearance for the design intent is a wise move. Also printing with exterior first with slower travel speeds and or smaller road/pass width makes a huge difference to tolerance and surface quality. Some slicers allow for different perimeter layer heights than infill. This is good for great surface quality and decent print speeds. I often use 0.4mm wide 0.07mm layer height perimeters with 0.7mm wide 0.2mm layer height inner walls and infill.
This is great. Often times trying to figure out "how an engineer would do it" is difficult to look up. Don't know the lingo, don't know the techniques, so I end up just trying things that don't work. Knowing basics like this from you just talking through it I think is a great tool for "quasi" engineers that like to just play with 3d prints and cad while trying to make something that works.
I like the concept of "borrowing" characteristics for your assembly by choosing your included parts. It sounds weird but I think it makes alot of sense for 3D printing where you are limited with the characteristics that you mentioned.
Refered here by a short and stayed for the full video. Well done nailing what is missing from the typical engineering coursework that profs expect you to discover in the lab portion (or when thrust into the real world). Assembly concepts also apply to electronics design! Diodes, digital latches and precision rectifiers and other techniques for example to get precise voltages.
Same here. I don’t know why it was so intriguing but stayed for the whole video. It’s interesting to supplement the imperfect additive process with classic more precise items. The spring steel is a good example. Borrowing the tolerance from those industries to improve a print makes a lot of sense.
As an amateur maker on a budget (I'm both poor and raised not to spend money on stuff that I don't absolutely need... it gets in the way more than anything honestly) I kind of learned that on my own. Any time you overthink something, check if there are ready made solutions. Nearly every time you can save yourself money, time and hassle this way. I'm slowly becoming a prop maker and my mind is SO primed to just keep thinking of solutions when I think up a project. 3D printing really made me get into it even more. Few things that absolutely ruin me: Overthinking the details and doing a stupidly simple mistake with the very basic part of the project... This happens constantly. And another one is screw ups... I hate myself every time I screw something up, especially when I can't easily fix it. Today I was cutting up a mirror to fit the irregular hexagonal frame for the first time and I screw up all of them (first one was slightly too large and the tiny piece to make it fit didn't snap well and the other one I somehow cut up to wrong dimensions... yeah) and getting more is a hassle because shipping will end up being more than the mirror.
Mistakes are inevitable, don’t be too hard on yourself. If you still need a mirror, I’d highly recommend checking local thrift stores/second hand stores or similar, usually you can find some great bargains in those kind of stores.
This is a great follow-up to your short video on this topic. I feel like I am able to understand when a part needs to "borrow a tolerance", but determining which pre-existing part is most optimal is the hard part. I will definitely try to keep these examples in mind for when I design models in the future!
I don't have a 3d printer or am an engeneer, but I found all topics very interesting, especially the concept to design parts so that you can reley on proporties from other materials like precicion or "springiness". thank you!
Your short video on Borrowing a Tolerance led me here. The full video did not disappoint, and it expanded the discussion into directions only hinted at in the short. Thanks! I am not a design or manufacturing professional but am 3D-print-curious, and this video is enlightening. Regarding your specific questions at the end of this video, category 5 was most interesting to me but others appeal as well.
This was a wonderful talk on the subject of the necessities and limits of design tolerance. Your words emphasize the importance of using tools and materials for their distinct advantages. Utilizing off-the-shelf parts in key areas is superior to single-component manufacturing, as many readily available components have acceptable tolerances imbued from the manufacturing method. I also appreciate the notes on how high tolerance can be achieved with redundant and feedback loops.
Another thing that is possible is borrowing a clearance. This actually often makes precision fits work interestingly when 3d printing. I unintentionally made a gearbox that only worked when not completely screwed together. If screwed together it bound up. Turns out the play in the self-threading M2 socket head screws was allowing the gearbox to work.
I am going to enjoy mentally digesting all this in the coming weeks/months until I have that "AHA!" moment where it applies to what I'm doing. Fascinating video, thank you!
I love the premise of this video, I feel like the topic discussed heavily relates to the general idea of reverse engineering! It is true that this is a concept and approach that many engineers use to learn and develop intuition and perspective into the world of engineering, but what you are doing is putting it to words in way that can incite passion and curiosity into newcomers to the wonderful world of manufacturing and design. :)
I admit the explanation needed to be a bit clearer, but the concepts are actually smart, i enjoyed the video and was shocked to notice its 32min after i finished it, didnt feel like 32 min, thanks for sharing your thoughts, and for the new term "borrowing a tolerance" i will borrow it from you 😅
Great video, thanks. Some good stuff in the comments too - most good videos (and, equally, most bad videos) often attract lots of valuable comments. As for the key subject, speaking as a programmer with decades of experience (and hacker, hobbyist engineer etc with interests and experience in electronics, metal work, woodwork, 3d printing/design etc etc) it really chimes with me. It's about the mindset rather than specific techniques. Few, if any, good or great programmers keep everything in their heads, exactly the same as lawyers and doctors etc. It's about knowing what you need to do, how - roughly - to do it, how you've tried, failed, and succeeded in the past in similar issues, and - crucially - how to find and understand more detailed information from others when/if you need it. Theory alone is useless. Application/self-learning without theory is limiting. Combine the two - even to a small extent - and, especially, adopt the type of mindset shown here and you're set up for an enjoyable hobby or enhanced career. When the shit hits the fan, no one wants theory alone if it fails at the first lack of practical experience, and vice-versa. Subscribed. Thanks for the content and the mental reminder.
Fascinating subject! This reminds me of my small myford lathe, which has gears for setting the feed rate. By removing the cover and installing a simple plunger you can use these gears as dividing heads without purchasing the very expensive dividing heads. Using Matthias Wandel's calculator and combining gears you could probably divide to any number you might ever need. Borrowing useful qualities from a material might come up when talking about composites too. Old woodworking chosels were often make mostly of soft Iron welded to a small piece of high barbon steel while forging, giving you a very hard ans durable edge on a tool that's much less brittle and easier to sharpen. Wood is a good example of a natural composite with anisotropic properties, the cellulose fibers give it high strength in tension while the lignin binder gives it ridgidity and toughness.
You make this world a better place my friend! Sub'd! First of all, set up a patreon account and promote it in you videos. You reall need to get paid for being this awesome. Second, I love to learn things you can't learn in 6 years of grad/post grad in anyfield. It is usually when you're in the workforce the true learning begins. There are so many tips and tricks out there that need to be exposed in order for forward progess.
I'm always amazed at assemblies too. Each individual component down to the nuts and bolts have some statistical variation. All of that variation sums into a very dimensionally "blurry" assembly that may have to be accounted for.
I'm starting my mechanical engineering study next year, and I am super interested in the tolerances I could get from my 3d printer! I love this video and I can't wait for some more! I'm going online and buying some ball bearings for some hinges! I love designing parts and have created my own electric motorcycle with one of my friends and all the power transition parts are 3d printed (excluding motor and chain and the base of a bicycle) our designs are far from accurate and having such inaccuracies in mind can help tremendously in our next design or project. Thank you so much and I'm looking forward to the next video!!
Great video, I saw your other videos thumbnails and am definitely interested. When I clicked on your video iPod this was a bigger youtube channel with many many views and subscribers. Great content you definitely deserve more. Definitely got my support, even inspires me to start a channel again about my Hobby (Mechatronics engineer here) Keep up the great work! 💪
loved this video, subscribed. what got me, personally, was 'will be open source'.. which is a great hook. and the other major thing is 'thinking outside the box' which are the best examples ever. if you show someone 10 examples of how to do things differently, they'll come up with at least 3 ways on their own in different situations. examples of functional variety open up peoples ability to think wider. replacing a belt on an engine? you need the same belt. but.. if you're out in the middle of nowhere, maybe a belt, pantyhose, duct tape, water hose, or something else might be tried (won't necessarily work, but it might).. I use things 'not for their intended purpose' all the time. and it's interesting to see how many people are stuck in the "why would that work?" thought process as opposed to, "well, I supposed grinding a nut shape into a metal ruler might just work in this case"... or ratcheting 2 pieces of hard wood together around a nut... the more people can think like this, the more their minds become like the inventors of old... bicycle mechanics made an airplane, not by thinking of how they don't have airplane parts or that planes might not work, but by thinking that, y'know, with enough gearing, light weight materials, or wings.... this might just do the trick".... and these are great people to be surrounded by. the can-do'ers. and the ones willing to try. so.. I see your approach as very inspirational, and also useful to myself, as there's never enough examples of a different way to do something, which might translate to a completely different solution years later in a completely different situation. kudos. :-) Mind, I'd rather not see you turn into the 'Look, a bottle cap and a drill = a new way to wing string!" sort of thing.. you're way better than that. like a skateboard compared to a motorcycle. looking forward to learning more from you. :-)
Awesome stuff man! I only work with wood and concete (high tolerances) but have considered engineering tools for some time. This channel is really cool. Dont mind all the hate over the wording, i totally understand what you mean because we use things that expand and contract in heat, all of this needs to be accounted for in the beginning. And your ball bearing needing to be "broken in" concept made perfect sense. Oh and im a skater too... so thats a real thing wel alllll know about as skaters...Even with all steel bearings. Subbed for sure!
Great work! I have been back on a 3D printing kick and tried my first printed spring a week ago. It works great, but applying it to something that will hold significant weight, like holding a monitor is a joke. I really like your idea of stealing the strength and spring properties from the binder clips!
I've been thinking about this a lot lately.. The algorithm brought me here for a reason.. Thank you for this video.. Still figuring out all the ins and outs of FreeCad,, not sure if paying for a good CAD is worth yet but I have too many ideas and not enough knowledge to bring them into existence.. Thank you for teaching me so many useful engineering tricks to think about while I build my first projects.. I'm almost 33 and I feel like I'm really far behind because I haven't built anything useful yet.. Learning,, Understanding,, before Building and Tinkering.. Maybe I should find some videos on the engineering process.. But I kind of want to figure it out myself with some 1st principals thinking but it's the more difficult process.. (probably)
Solid work, a YT recommendation success story. Subscribed. I guess if I were to go out of my way to find things to improve, perhaps the edit could be different such that there's less jumping around and backtracking in topics or something. I also didn't come away with the clearest idea of what "borrowing a tolerance" is supposed to mean exactly, but you did say that it's kind of a nebulous concept so I think that's par for the course. Anyway, lots of food for thought, thanks.
This was great. Yes he gave a name to "macgyvering", but it is such a fundamental part of rigid manufacturing that it deserves discussion. The metalworking example showing the flattened contact point needed to create another flat contact for a joint was not something I considered as someone that has only worked with 3D printing. I incorrectly assumed metal parts just had better tolerances, but no instead a precision design will include a step to ensure precision. The sloped shape edges for the sake metal part release are another nice detail that makes sense but I hadnt considered. Mass production 3D printing has similar tricks, such minimizing bed contact area so an impact from the printer tool head can be used to release the part. This is a great topic, something the average printer user wouldn't consider, despite affordable 3D printer design being rooted in this concept (rigid 20x20 bars, rods, and other non-plastic parts being used harmoniously with plastic ones).
While all the haters with low self esteem are getting triggered by the most insignificant details, the rest of us just had a ton of fun and learned something. Since the haters seemed to dislike the term "Borrowing Tollerance", I will start using it as much as I can 😉 BORROWING TOLERANCE
Generally helpful, but the last topic (examples) was best for me. Very keen to understand how 3d printing can be merged with generally available precision components to achieve accruate, strong and repeatable parts. The spring steel from bulldog clips is great example as well as the hdpe tubing.
This is an excellent review, probably especially for folks just getting into the hobby aspects of mechanical engineering through 3D printing. There are some things where it's probably important to emphasize that "very precise" in some of these contexts - when actually quantified - may mean something very different. The example I'll use is your post-processing of the print with a handheld size-O twist drill; if you're chasing the difference between a metric 8mm and an ANSI Size O, a two-flute twist drill is going to be very disappointing to use, even in a lathe. But if you're designing in metric and living in the US, the size-O is a very nice alternative to trying to source an 8mm six flute reamer - especially if the size, roundness, and perpendicularity over the length of the hole are more critical than what you can get from FDM but less critical than those last fifty microns.
I tear down lots of thrown out stuff - like tear it way down - and that is a great way to learn fastening and fabrication techniques - as you are showing - my Twin brother had his daughtesr (goggles and headphones) - tear down anything that was throw out - vacuum cleaners - tools - etc - the brain has endless hard drive visually
Thank you. Interesting video and important/useful topic. Though, on occasion, had it's ambiguities or could've been shorter. For me, it would help to point out and VISUALIZE/animate/show the fundamental principle / the mechanism; for example (was a bit distracted though), with the DIN rail and the spring steel clip, I need to see the movement of the spring in or related to its installed position. After that, all is clear, and all else is superfluous :) I need to visualize the mechanism to understand it and model it in my head. Understood the importance of low tolerance with bearings. Of course! Thanks! Glad to see, plastic balls exist. 3D printed bearing could be such, that it one would tighten it after the running-in period. The balls even out everything. Also, I now understand: cylinder (instead of ball) type of bearings rolling have a much smaller contact surface area than with balls.
I just found your channel and really like it. Keep up the good work. On this topic I would add bronze bushings to add precision and strength to a 3d print. A flanged bushing with a shoulder bolt for rotation of parts.
I believe you are really on to a good topic here. There is much to be learned from this video and likely this is just the start of the topic. Also, I see you are using SolidWorks and likely either professional or premium because you spoke of simulation. I use it as well, what a wonderful resource for us!!! One item (possibly a strange one) is PEX crimp rings. I wanted to strengthen the boss on a part that kept splitting. So, we fashioned the boss just so the copper crimp ring would compress the PLA and strengthen it. I suppose a PEX Pinch Ring would be ok too but we have the crimping tool so I think that worked better. I have repaired wooden handles on wood chisels this way, by crimping a copper PES ring on the wood after turning it to a correct size. Good luck with this concept. Thanks for the video.
thanks for mentioning those copper rings, I was unaware they existed as they aren't used at all around here, and they look like a good solution to many things like preventing ropes from fraying, making custom bushings, i'm even tempted to see if I could crimp a metal hard enough to machine good threads into, that would be interesting. Also apparently looking on google, there exists a 'pex pocket crimper' used with locking pliers to provide the force, much more compact than the huge pliers crimping usually requires. I'm happy i found it as I've been looking for an existing tool like this for a while, i really don't have the space to carry large tools, the closest i found were pipe flaring dies which have their cool uses but for crimping bleh not practical.
I never thought of ball bearings as a force mitigators. I'm a 79y/o Fusion & 3D print tinkerer. I really enjoyed the video. I liked and subbed up. I hope I can contribute something.
This reminded me of that hot debate of having absolutely precise jigs to do welding. They are trying to sell their gears to do precise cutting and welding by deliberately not talking about how to design things to be easier to put together or borrowing tolerance like you're doing here. People need to know more about this, it's just easier to get higher consistency and cost effectiveness this way than trying to perfect machining of every parts, that's just unnecessary cost.
I recommend certain reamers and end mills for opening holes in 3d printed parts. I've just had very bad luck using drill bits, even when I'm only slightly opening or sizing the hole. I've tried several feeds and speeds, but drill bit just don't seem to be the best tool for holes on plastic. It can be hard to find good tools for the job though. Some won't cut and just slip off the surface, some will cause too much pressure and will break the part, some will work on one plastic, but not another... etc... etc... The thing I've always seemed to have trouble with though... is drill bits.
as amateur designer, these types of discussions are very helpful in 3d printing, I think going over common issues that come to assemblies on cad to 3d print would be something I would be interested in. Thank you for your time… subscribed and liked.
In post processing parts tolerances can be borrowed from hand tools and other odd objects. For instance at a big box store like Home depot you can pick up reasonably flat to high tolerances marble tiles. With sandpaper taped to it, surfaces of parts can be quickly flattened, and it can also be used to create a reference surface to push up against a square and then another flat perpendicular surface can be applied. In this way, if the intitial design gives maybe a +.001 overage over the final design, more precision parts can be achieved. Yes, a bit of extra work, but depending on the application it can be much quicker than repeatedly printing parts to achieve the most ideal dimension.
You're not just borrowing a tolerance. That seems to be one case of a more generic concept. Borrowing a property. You might be borrowing tolerance, or borrowing smoothness, or borrowing plastic deformation, or hardness, or heat resistance, etc. Etc. Many other topics to explore here
In your example of the hex chuck vs. 3 jaw chuck, the precision of the 3 jaw comes from being able to make afirmative contact with the tool being chucked, whereas the hex chuck is non adjustable. If one jaw in a 3 jaw chuck is displaced 1mm radially, the contact point with the tool also displaces that same 1mm, and as such the center line of that tool displaces that same 1mm. Hex chucks wobble because they favor rapid interchangability and utilize flank contact to drive a tool. To facilitate rapit interchangability, they need to be loose. Even if your hex chuck is perfectly centered, there will still be room for the tool to move within the chuck. 3 jaw chucks on the other hand are not favoring rapid changability as much as a hex chuck, and have adjustability built in to facilitate positive contact with the tool, hopefully eliminating wobble of the tool within its chucking contacts
You're the only other person I've ever seen except one of my best friends that has a thumb that bends backwards like that. I always thought he would have some kind of problem, but he never has. It may be weird and freaky, but it still works fine. lol.
Balls in bearings are not supposed to contact all the race, just two points. Otherwise there will be not rolling friction, but sliding, excess heat and wear. If you need more load bearing capacity, you need to use roller bearings.
The golf cart I have at work has urethane bushings in the steering column. In the summer, turning the steering wheel causes a honking noise and the wheel just stays wherever you last pointed it. As soon as the cooler fall temperatures hit, it becomes quieter and steers easily. No amount of graphite, Moly or teflon changes this. Need to print an ABS replacement.
Loved the video! It really sparked some ideas and solutions for certain problems. My only complaint is how monotone your delivery is. Kind of ironic being an engineering topic where you do everything to help minimize or eliminate variance. In the case of your vocal delivery some, variance would be helpful 😉
Interesting! I already used staples to face the metal claws of some ancient video connector I wanted to make replacement mating parts for, which works quite well for the test I made but I still have to finish the design.
Pvc pipe,
Fender washers,
Paper clips,
Ball bearings,
Skateboard bearings,
Dollar store cutting boards,
Finishing nails,
Insulation supports,
Kickboards,
All of these work great with 3d printed parts to achieve precision, toughness, and ease of manufacture.
Now do you mean ball bearings, or ball bearings
And whilst we're here, fork handles or four candles?
'Dollar store cutting boards,' The small plastic ones are great for just a general plastic board. I just used one to mount a camera over a door sill, so I wouldn't have to drill holes everywhere. Camera weight sits on the door sill, mounting screwed into the cutting board, and then the edge of the cutting board slid into the J channel and behind the door sill. Camera is secure at the correct angle and doesn't move, without having to be drilled into the wall.
imo a design goal more people should try to attain when designing something that uses 3d printing is to _minimize_ the usage of 3d printing, e.g. can that flat plane be a sheet of plywood cut to size?
3d printing is convenient, but plastic is often not the right material. plywood, fibreboard, and metal sheets are all likely cheaper, stronger, easier to find/lower barrier of entry, and last longer. people are often too focused on making a "good 3d printed design" than "a good design that uses 3d printing to some extent"
the main advantage of 3d printing is being able to make things that can't just be bought, in most cases, if it is a readily available thing, 3d printing is _the wrong tool_
I've been in the trades as a welder and fabricator for about 16 years now. I have worked in all sorts of sectors like oil and gas, construction, manufacturing, etc. I am working to leave the trades and go back to school as an engineer in mechatronics. A common complaint i run into regardless of where I'm working or what industry I'm working in, is about engineers not designing things to be manufactured, repaired or worked on. I think the problem is the lack of practical experience a lot of engineers have. It's great that 3d printing is becoming more and more mainstream because it will expose some of these problems that the people actually building the designs have to deal with on a regular basis.
Well, as you well know, machinists have a lot of practical experience and familiarity with achieving things like proper fit and are the first ones to be handling precision made parts (because they made them precisely). I'm not sure what familiarity mechanical engineers have with machining and how far they are educated in the trade, but I can say this: machining is tough and demanding and often it is the machinist that is the better engineer overall.
@@OceanusHeliosi cant speak to how well a machinist or welder would perform as an engineer because i have never been an engineer. I suspect that mindset is the same as an engineer not having any practical experience, except reversed. People seem to forget that engineers, and the tradesmen that execute the engineers design, are two sides of the same coin.
Practical experience installing stuff like the engineer in the video when he installed his under sink filter in an awkward location, with no regard for the proper bend radius / length between his isolation and prefilter, or working length boxed in between 90s after the prefilter to his main filter? @27:13 His isolation valve is shut; is there a leak?
@@OceanusHelios Disagree on a machinist being the better engineer. They have valuable knowledge that should be borrowed and consulted when it comes to making a part easy to manufacture and maintain, but theres more to engineering than that. Considerations like strength, failure modes, alternate possibilities, optimization and even getting to a point where you understand whats actually required from a part/ assembly have a lot more nuance behind it than it might seem at first. Unfortunately engineers cant do all of that perfectly, but thats why you're supposed to consult with others, like machinists, maintenance crews, end users, the lists goes on.
As a mechanical engineer, I can say some. Paradigms such as design for assembly, design for service or design for manufacturing are parts of mechanical engineering education (Design for X is the common name). However today’s industry limits the design space with cost, industrial design and safety. More and more companies want unmaintainable/irreparable systems so that the customer will come back. Even at such cases some very smart solutions may be possible but project managers do not want to spend time there. They allocate their limited resources on where the customer will interact with rather than the guys at the factory or service. This approach is killing the artistic part of mechanical design and I hope the new sustainability wave will force companies to manufacture long lasting, serviceable products.
i.e. Problem is real but the root cause is not the inability of the engineers but the competition out there
I taught GD&T (Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing) in ITT (No longer around). It is odd that college engineering majors don't get into GD&T. This is so crucial to assemblies and the reason for GD&T. At minimum, engineers need to speak this language (in drawings with GD&T callouts) so machininst can properly fabricate the part.
Well machinists like me can still machine using the old standards, but there is a caveat. GD&T lets us have more wiggle room because GD&T calls out where we have that wiggle room and where we don't. It is a better indication to have GD&T callouts on the blueprints so that we know what is going to be critical and what is not going to be critical and can better understand what the design intent is.
A big part of my job at the moment is remediating issues that our industrial designers caused by not considering the manufacturing capabilities of our vendor, the order of operations, and not indicating critical dimensions.
It's frustrating because a lot of this work should have been done at the start.
@@dittilio I couldn't agree more. ID and other engineering majors should have GD&T in at least one core class. In my comment, I totally forgot about ID, but that may be one of the most important fields for this subject.
We do here in the UK, as long as the course is IMECHE certified that is, others may also, but it's a requirement for IMECHE, which is why I specified that.
@@dittiliowhen I worked for the old Hewlett-Packard they assigned me, a manufacturing engineer, to sit in the engineering design area, and provide input during design reviews. It was called “concurrent engineering.” Yes. It did decrease time to market and reduced product costs.
Awesome video! 100% practical design information. You included useful examples of cheap things for improving tolerances when designing a part for 3d printing. Haters gonna hate no matter how good a video you make. As a degreed ME I can confirm we didn’t put these ideas together in the context of assemblies. This helps regular people and companies with crappy consumer 3d printers make higher quality functional parts on the cheap. Don’t mind the haters… They don’t know how to contribute knowledge to the world in an effort to make it better.
Using a toothed belt upside down as gear teeth is a good example of this.
My favorite example of borrowing precision is a design for a turntable I saw that used a Harley valve and valve guide as a radial bearing, sitting on top of a ball bearing in a hole as the thrust bearing.
I've also seen ball point pens used as bearings. The ball tips have absolutely insane tolerances and until a year ago there was only a single manufacturer of them.
A toothed belt is totally not gear teeth! It’s the wrong shape. I guess it could work, but does it really work better than 3D printed gears?
@@VaughnRhinehartgear teeth com in many shape and profile.
@@VaughnRhinehart pretty much anything works better than 3d printed gears, unless you're making very large tooth low load systems out of tpu. Although I've never used the belt tooth trick, I just end up using a belt conventionally or a chain for force transfer.
I think another term that could be used is "Design for Manufacture." Essentially we must know the limitations of a manufacturing process, including 3D printing, which has many positives, but can often fall short if off-the-shelf components are not integrated into an assembly or project. As you have demonstrated, the simple addition of off-the-shelf hardware can drastically increase the capabilities of 3D Printed components and their integration with more "traditional" manufacturing methods.
My main piece of advice as a fellow engineering major is to try to address an audience more consistently. You clearly have a great understanding and knowledge of your field, but if you are going to address an audience that may not have expertise in your field be careful with how complex the terminology that you use is. Sometimes surface level terminology is all that is needed to accurately describe a concept, and you seemed to swap from expert level terminology to very simple descriptions of a problem throughout the video.
Great video and keep up the great work!
One of the most important things I learned early when I started getting into designing with my 3d printer was the important of stress tests. Know your overhang angles, know your tolerances between 2 printed parts and know your tolerances between a printed part and a manufactured part, know the exact spacing for heat set inserts, screws, etc, and the exact minimum distance you need for a wall to not be too thin. All of these things will make designing for the printer so much easier.
I understand this is basic knowledge for anyone who's already in manufacturing, but I came from a software background and had to learn it all as a hobby. It seems so obvious now, but it's kind of a blind spot going into your designs at the start.
I disagree in one comment. It is good for anyone learning design engineering as a hobby or professionally to learn the proper language. As long as a brief educational explanation as to the meaning of engineering terminology is given at some point early in the video as was done here, I would not discourage the continuance of such language.
@@RexAnothership Yep I totally agree with you! I could just see it being a bit of whiplash for less technical viewers if not explaining is done and both simple and complex terms are being thrown around.
I didn't have any trouble with it at all, but then again, I am an actual machinist.
He’s presenting a useful mental model that will help when doing DFM but there’s way more to DFM
Man, you've got some hateful people in your audience. Don't let the stupid closed minded remarks diminish the value you add here on youtube.
Thanks for all you do to teach people about these amazing passions!
Content is not bad, but OP has really obtuse way of overexplaining things, maybe that why.
@@VEC7ORlt If English is not your native language, I can understand why you feel this way.
@@AngryMarkFPV nah, don't think thats the problem, some peeps literally think like that, they have a different 'order of things' in their head.
@@VEC7ORlt I really don't see it? there is no "over-explaining" in the context of learning. if you already know stuff, good for you, but thorough explainations are exactly the goal in an explainer video.
@@TacticalFluke09 maybe, maybe not, but it sure reminds me of a uni lecturer we had at one moment - tells same thing in 3 different ways, and not the most important stuff, and there is no remote control to fast forward, unlike YT.
Not sure if you asked us to subscribe in the video, but I subscribed immediately after this video because this is the exact type of channel that I’m looking for. I love taking deep dives into engineering topics, especially the ones that don’t get talked about that often. Keep up the great work, I look forward to seeing what you make in the future!
Tolerance is a function of design, precision is a function of manufacture.
A good engineer designs for the largest possible tolerances that still allow manufacturing precision ti achieve a functiinal product, while still practical and cost-efficient.
That's why an engineer with actual productiin experience is preferable to a pure theorist.
YES! It annoys me no end when I watch 3d printer channels misuse the word tolerance as some kind of function of the machine.
Clearance is another word I would like them to add to their vocabulary.
@@carneeki Printers do have tolerance limitations but they mostly make repeatable mistakes which the model can be adjusted for to achieve decent accuracy. I agree that clearance is a needed addition to their vocabulary. Making a log book for your machine to achieve proper clearance for the design intent is a wise move. Also printing with exterior first with slower travel speeds and or smaller road/pass width makes a huge difference to tolerance and surface quality. Some slicers allow for different perimeter layer heights than infill. This is good for great surface quality and decent print speeds. I often use 0.4mm wide 0.07mm layer height perimeters with 0.7mm wide 0.2mm layer height inner walls and infill.
@@RexAnothership while true and a great idea to log good settings, this doesn't really have any bearing on the misuse of language.
This is great. Often times trying to figure out "how an engineer would do it" is difficult to look up. Don't know the lingo, don't know the techniques, so I end up just trying things that don't work. Knowing basics like this from you just talking through it I think is a great tool for "quasi" engineers that like to just play with 3d prints and cad while trying to make something that works.
I like the concept of "borrowing" characteristics for your assembly by choosing your included parts. It sounds weird but I think it makes alot of sense for 3D printing where you are limited with the characteristics that you mentioned.
Refered here by a short and stayed for the full video. Well done nailing what is missing from the typical engineering coursework that profs expect you to discover in the lab portion (or when thrust into the real world).
Assembly concepts also apply to electronics design! Diodes, digital latches and precision rectifiers and other techniques for example to get precise voltages.
Same here. I don’t know why it was so intriguing but stayed for the whole video. It’s interesting to supplement the imperfect additive process with classic more precise items. The spring steel is a good example. Borrowing the tolerance from those industries to improve a print makes a lot of sense.
As an amateur maker on a budget (I'm both poor and raised not to spend money on stuff that I don't absolutely need... it gets in the way more than anything honestly) I kind of learned that on my own. Any time you overthink something, check if there are ready made solutions. Nearly every time you can save yourself money, time and hassle this way. I'm slowly becoming a prop maker and my mind is SO primed to just keep thinking of solutions when I think up a project. 3D printing really made me get into it even more.
Few things that absolutely ruin me: Overthinking the details and doing a stupidly simple mistake with the very basic part of the project... This happens constantly. And another one is screw ups... I hate myself every time I screw something up, especially when I can't easily fix it. Today I was cutting up a mirror to fit the irregular hexagonal frame for the first time and I screw up all of them (first one was slightly too large and the tiny piece to make it fit didn't snap well and the other one I somehow cut up to wrong dimensions... yeah) and getting more is a hassle because shipping will end up being more than the mirror.
@ares395 Don't beat yourself up over mistakes, it's the cost of your education.
Mistakes are inevitable, don’t be too hard on yourself. If you still need a mirror, I’d highly recommend checking local thrift stores/second hand stores or similar, usually you can find some great bargains in those kind of stores.
Finally found a TH-cam channel that I 100% match with
This is a great follow-up to your short video on this topic. I feel like I am able to understand when a part needs to "borrow a tolerance", but determining which pre-existing part is most optimal is the hard part. I will definitely try to keep these examples in mind for when I design models in the future!
Yup, this is where creativity and paying attention to everything around you can really help.
So much information in each sentence! I think people are not used to such high quality content. Keep up the great work!
i was barely paying attention until 6:25 and now I believe everything you say.
Keep on rocking!
And thank you for adding a little more experience/knowledge/points of view into the shared pool of human knowledge.
I don't have a 3d printer or am an engeneer, but I found all topics very interesting, especially the concept to design parts so that you can reley on proporties from other materials like precicion or "springiness". thank you!
Your short video on Borrowing a Tolerance led me here. The full video did not disappoint, and it expanded the discussion into directions only hinted at in the short. Thanks! I am not a design or manufacturing professional but am 3D-print-curious, and this video is enlightening. Regarding your specific questions at the end of this video, category 5 was most interesting to me but others appeal as well.
you enrich my world today
a day you not learning is a day wasted!!!
going to watch you for more !!
I enjoyed seeing the integration of high tolerance parts into 3d prints sich as the 3dp hing and borrowed pin
This was a wonderful talk on the subject of the necessities and limits of design tolerance. Your words emphasize the importance of using tools and materials for their distinct advantages. Utilizing off-the-shelf parts in key areas is superior to single-component manufacturing, as many readily available components have acceptable tolerances imbued from the manufacturing method. I also appreciate the notes on how high tolerance can be achieved with redundant and feedback loops.
man, PLEASE make a video of your workshop organisation 👀 it looks like paradise !
Another thing that is possible is borrowing a clearance. This actually often makes precision fits work interestingly when 3d printing. I unintentionally made a gearbox that only worked when not completely screwed together. If screwed together it bound up. Turns out the play in the self-threading M2 socket head screws was allowing the gearbox to work.
Your content was very helpful. Thank you.
Really enjoyed all of the different examples to illustrate the general point. Well done David!
I am going to enjoy mentally digesting all this in the coming weeks/months until I have that "AHA!" moment where it applies to what I'm doing. Fascinating video, thank you!
I love the premise of this video, I feel like the topic discussed heavily relates to the general idea of reverse engineering!
It is true that this is a concept and approach that many engineers use to learn and develop intuition and perspective into the world of engineering, but what you are doing is putting it to words in way that can incite passion and curiosity into newcomers to the wonderful world of manufacturing and design.
:)
Subbed cause of the tolerance short. I don’t even 3d print and loved it
I admit the explanation needed to be a bit clearer, but the concepts are actually smart, i enjoyed the video and was shocked to notice its 32min after i finished it, didnt feel like 32 min, thanks for sharing your thoughts, and for the new term "borrowing a tolerance" i will borrow it from you 😅
Great video, thanks. Some good stuff in the comments too - most good videos (and, equally, most bad videos) often attract lots of valuable comments.
As for the key subject, speaking as a programmer with decades of experience (and hacker, hobbyist engineer etc with interests and experience in electronics, metal work, woodwork, 3d printing/design etc etc) it really chimes with me.
It's about the mindset rather than specific techniques. Few, if any, good or great programmers keep everything in their heads, exactly the same as lawyers and doctors etc. It's about knowing what you need to do, how - roughly - to do it, how you've tried, failed, and succeeded in the past in similar issues, and - crucially - how to find and understand more detailed information from others when/if you need it.
Theory alone is useless. Application/self-learning without theory is limiting. Combine the two - even to a small extent - and, especially, adopt the type of mindset shown here and you're set up for an enjoyable hobby or enhanced career. When the shit hits the fan, no one wants theory alone if it fails at the first lack of practical experience, and vice-versa. Subscribed. Thanks for the content and the mental reminder.
Some really brilliant concepts here. Thank you very much for this.
Fascinating subject! This reminds me of my small myford lathe, which has gears for setting the feed rate. By removing the cover and installing a simple plunger you can use these gears as dividing heads without purchasing the very expensive dividing heads. Using Matthias Wandel's calculator and combining gears you could probably divide to any number you might ever need.
Borrowing useful qualities from a material might come up when talking about composites too. Old woodworking chosels were often make mostly of soft Iron welded to a small piece of high barbon steel while forging, giving you a very hard ans durable edge on a tool that's much less brittle and easier to sharpen. Wood is a good example of a natural composite with anisotropic properties, the cellulose fibers give it high strength in tension while the lignin binder gives it ridgidity and toughness.
Excellent ideas.
When I have something I can contribute, I will.
Until then, this was fascinating.
Thank you.
You make this world a better place my friend! Sub'd! First of all, set up a patreon account and promote it in you videos. You reall need to get paid for being this awesome. Second, I love to learn things you can't learn in 6 years of grad/post grad in anyfield. It is usually when you're in the workforce the true learning begins. There are so many tips and tricks out there that need to be exposed in order for forward progess.
keep up the good work !
these videos are very useful to us engineers and makers
lol this is blowing my mind! Really great reminder that there are lots of ways to do even simple things.
I'm always amazed at assemblies too. Each individual component down to the nuts and bolts have some statistical variation. All of that variation sums into a very dimensionally "blurry" assembly that may have to be accounted for.
I'm starting my mechanical engineering study next year, and I am super interested in the tolerances I could get from my 3d printer! I love this video and I can't wait for some more! I'm going online and buying some ball bearings for some hinges! I love designing parts and have created my own electric motorcycle with one of my friends and all the power transition parts are 3d printed (excluding motor and chain and the base of a bicycle) our designs are far from accurate and having such inaccuracies in mind can help tremendously in our next design or project. Thank you so much and I'm looking forward to the next video!!
This is a great summary. Well presented
Great video, I saw your other videos thumbnails and am definitely interested. When I clicked on your video iPod this was a bigger youtube channel with many many views and subscribers. Great content you definitely deserve more. Definitely got my support, even inspires me to start a channel again about my Hobby (Mechatronics engineer here)
Keep up the great work! 💪
loved this video, subscribed. what got me, personally, was 'will be open source'.. which is a great hook. and the other major thing is 'thinking outside the box' which are the best examples ever. if you show someone 10 examples of how to do things differently, they'll come up with at least 3 ways on their own in different situations. examples of functional variety open up peoples ability to think wider. replacing a belt on an engine? you need the same belt. but.. if you're out in the middle of nowhere, maybe a belt, pantyhose, duct tape, water hose, or something else might be tried (won't necessarily work, but it might).. I use things 'not for their intended purpose' all the time. and it's interesting to see how many people are stuck in the "why would that work?" thought process as opposed to, "well, I supposed grinding a nut shape into a metal ruler might just work in this case"... or ratcheting 2 pieces of hard wood together around a nut...
the more people can think like this, the more their minds become like the inventors of old... bicycle mechanics made an airplane, not by thinking of how they don't have airplane parts or that planes might not work, but by thinking that, y'know, with enough gearing, light weight materials, or wings.... this might just do the trick"....
and these are great people to be surrounded by. the can-do'ers. and the ones willing to try.
so.. I see your approach as very inspirational, and also useful to myself, as there's never enough examples of a different way to do something, which might translate to a completely different solution years later in a completely different situation. kudos. :-)
Mind, I'd rather not see you turn into the 'Look, a bottle cap and a drill = a new way to wing string!" sort of thing.. you're way better than that. like a skateboard compared to a motorcycle.
looking forward to learning more from you. :-)
All of it but I found the material/object examples most helpful. Like HDPE tubing for axles, BBs for precise and light balls etc
Brilliant explanations, real engineering - more of this pls
This was an excellent and information dense video. Thank you for creating it!
Awesome stuff man! I only work with wood and concete (high tolerances) but have considered engineering tools for some time. This channel is really cool. Dont mind all the hate over the wording, i totally understand what you mean because we use things that expand and contract in heat, all of this needs to be accounted for in the beginning. And your ball bearing needing to be "broken in" concept made perfect sense. Oh and im a skater too... so thats a real thing wel alllll know about as skaters...Even with all steel bearings. Subbed for sure!
Great work! I have been back on a 3D printing kick and tried my first printed spring a week ago. It works great, but applying it to something that will hold significant weight, like holding a monitor is a joke. I really like your idea of stealing the strength and spring properties from the binder clips!
I've been thinking about this a lot lately.. The algorithm brought me here for a reason.. Thank you for this video.. Still figuring out all the ins and outs of FreeCad,, not sure if paying for a good CAD is worth yet but I have too many ideas and not enough knowledge to bring them into existence.. Thank you for teaching me so many useful engineering tricks to think about while I build my first projects.. I'm almost 33 and I feel like I'm really far behind because I haven't built anything useful yet.. Learning,, Understanding,, before Building and Tinkering..
Maybe I should find some videos on the engineering process.. But I kind of want to figure it out myself with some 1st principals thinking but it's the more difficult process.. (probably)
really nice video! looking forward to more.
Solid work, a YT recommendation success story. Subscribed.
I guess if I were to go out of my way to find things to improve, perhaps the edit could be different such that there's less jumping around and backtracking in topics or something. I also didn't come away with the clearest idea of what "borrowing a tolerance" is supposed to mean exactly, but you did say that it's kind of a nebulous concept so I think that's par for the course.
Anyway, lots of food for thought, thanks.
The DIN-rail clip design is really great. A great idea to reuse those very common spring-clips for something else.
This was great. Yes he gave a name to "macgyvering", but it is such a fundamental part of rigid manufacturing that it deserves discussion. The metalworking example showing the flattened contact point needed to create another flat contact for a joint was not something I considered as someone that has only worked with 3D printing. I incorrectly assumed metal parts just had better tolerances, but no instead a precision design will include a step to ensure precision. The sloped shape edges for the sake metal part release are another nice detail that makes sense but I hadnt considered. Mass production 3D printing has similar tricks, such minimizing bed contact area so an impact from the printer tool head can be used to release the part. This is a great topic, something the average printer user wouldn't consider, despite affordable 3D printer design being rooted in this concept (rigid 20x20 bars, rods, and other non-plastic parts being used harmoniously with plastic ones).
Very good video, a lot of ideas .... Now I can see it is good to have a 3D printer.
Extrmely well explained good video. Keep it up and thank you!
While all the haters with low self esteem are getting triggered by the most insignificant details, the rest of us just had a ton of fun and learned something. Since the haters seemed to dislike the term "Borrowing Tollerance", I will start using it as much as I can 😉
BORROWING TOLERANCE
Very nice topic. Thanks for the video
I love this way of thinking. Thanks.
well done, will definitely inform my designs in the future
would love more videos around this.
Awesome David!
Generally helpful, but the last topic (examples) was best for me. Very keen to understand how 3d printing can be merged with generally available precision components to achieve accruate, strong and repeatable parts. The spring steel from bulldog clips is great example as well as the hdpe tubing.
This is an excellent review, probably especially for folks just getting into the hobby aspects of mechanical engineering through 3D printing.
There are some things where it's probably important to emphasize that "very precise" in some of these contexts - when actually quantified - may mean something very different. The example I'll use is your post-processing of the print with a handheld size-O twist drill; if you're chasing the difference between a metric 8mm and an ANSI Size O, a two-flute twist drill is going to be very disappointing to use, even in a lathe. But if you're designing in metric and living in the US, the size-O is a very nice alternative to trying to source an 8mm six flute reamer - especially if the size, roundness, and perpendicularity over the length of the hole are more critical than what you can get from FDM but less critical than those last fifty microns.
I tear down lots of thrown out stuff - like tear it way down - and that is a great way to learn fastening and fabrication techniques - as you are showing - my Twin brother had his daughtesr (goggles and headphones) - tear down anything that was throw out - vacuum cleaners - tools - etc - the brain has endless hard drive visually
&t=1186 - Neat, that's my design :) Good suggestion with the binder clip spring.
which one? small world we have now!
I hope to be as clever as you someday. I’ll be borrowing this bit of wisdom until then!
Thank you. Interesting video and important/useful topic. Though, on occasion, had it's ambiguities or could've been shorter. For me, it would help to point out and VISUALIZE/animate/show the fundamental principle / the mechanism; for example (was a bit distracted though), with the DIN rail and the spring steel clip, I need to see the movement of the spring in or related to its installed position. After that, all is clear, and all else is superfluous :) I need to visualize the mechanism to understand it and model it in my head.
Understood the importance of low tolerance with bearings. Of course! Thanks! Glad to see, plastic balls exist. 3D printed bearing could be such, that it one would tighten it after the running-in period. The balls even out everything. Also, I now understand: cylinder (instead of ball) type of bearings rolling have a much smaller contact surface area than with balls.
excellent video, learnt a lot!
I just found your channel and really like it. Keep up the good work. On this topic I would add bronze bushings to add precision and strength to a 3d print. A flanged bushing with a shoulder bolt for rotation of parts.
what a nice video, thank you so much
just realised you made the video on tapes as well. Great work man
Wow. Amazing content
Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
I believe you are really on to a good topic here. There is much to be learned from this video and likely this is just the start of the topic. Also, I see you are using SolidWorks and likely either professional or premium because you spoke of simulation. I use it as well, what a wonderful resource for us!!! One item (possibly a strange one) is PEX crimp rings. I wanted to strengthen the boss on a part that kept splitting. So, we fashioned the boss just so the copper crimp ring would compress the PLA and strengthen it. I suppose a PEX Pinch Ring would be ok too but we have the crimping tool so I think that worked better. I have repaired wooden handles on wood chisels this way, by crimping a copper PES ring on the wood after turning it to a correct size.
Good luck with this concept. Thanks for the video.
it would be cool to see a photo of how you used the pex ring you described. thanks for your inputs!
thanks for mentioning those copper rings, I was unaware they existed as they aren't used at all around here, and they look like a good solution to many things like preventing ropes from fraying, making custom bushings, i'm even tempted to see if I could crimp a metal hard enough to machine good threads into, that would be interesting.
Also apparently looking on google, there exists a 'pex pocket crimper' used with locking pliers to provide the force, much more compact than the huge pliers crimping usually requires. I'm happy i found it as I've been looking for an existing tool like this for a while, i really don't have the space to carry large tools, the closest i found were pipe flaring dies which have their cool uses but for crimping bleh not practical.
Love your video, nicely explained
Great video, thanks
I never thought of ball bearings as a force mitigators. I'm a 79y/o Fusion & 3D print tinkerer. I really enjoyed the video. I liked and subbed up. I hope I can contribute something.
This reminded me of that hot debate of having absolutely precise jigs to do welding.
They are trying to sell their gears to do precise cutting and welding by deliberately not talking about how to design things to be easier to put together or borrowing tolerance like you're doing here.
People need to know more about this, it's just easier to get higher consistency and cost effectiveness this way than trying to perfect machining of every parts, that's just unnecessary cost.
incredibly insightful
I recommend certain reamers and end mills for opening holes in 3d printed parts. I've just had very bad luck using drill bits, even when I'm only slightly opening or sizing the hole. I've tried several feeds and speeds, but drill bit just don't seem to be the best tool for holes on plastic. It can be hard to find good tools for the job though. Some won't cut and just slip off the surface, some will cause too much pressure and will break the part, some will work on one plastic, but not another... etc... etc... The thing I've always seemed to have trouble with though... is drill bits.
Great idea.
Very informative
as amateur designer, these types of discussions are very helpful in 3d printing, I think going over common issues that come to assemblies on cad to 3d print would be something I would be interested in. Thank you for your time… subscribed and liked.
Honestly ball bearings really are crazy. You'd think making a near-perfect sphere would be hard yet they're (literally in some cases) a dime a dozen
by god, he done did it. my man's gone long form 🎉
Excellent video
Crazy useful info. Cheers!!
In post processing parts tolerances can be borrowed from hand tools and other odd objects. For instance at a big box store like Home depot you can pick up reasonably flat to high tolerances marble tiles. With sandpaper taped to it, surfaces of parts can be quickly flattened, and it can also be used to create a reference surface to push up against a square and then another flat perpendicular surface can be applied. In this way, if the intitial design gives maybe a +.001 overage over the final design, more precision parts can be achieved.
Yes, a bit of extra work, but depending on the application it can be much quicker than repeatedly printing parts to achieve the most ideal dimension.
very useful video
You're not just borrowing a tolerance. That seems to be one case of a more generic concept. Borrowing a property. You might be borrowing tolerance, or borrowing smoothness, or borrowing plastic deformation, or hardness, or heat resistance, etc. Etc. Many other topics to explore here
Those are all tolerances. Anything that can be measured can have a tolerance attribute.
In your example of the hex chuck vs. 3 jaw chuck, the precision of the 3 jaw comes from being able to make afirmative contact with the tool being chucked, whereas the hex chuck is non adjustable. If one jaw in a 3 jaw chuck is displaced 1mm radially, the contact point with the tool also displaces that same 1mm, and as such the center line of that tool displaces that same 1mm. Hex chucks wobble because they favor rapid interchangability and utilize flank contact to drive a tool. To facilitate rapit interchangability, they need to be loose. Even if your hex chuck is perfectly centered, there will still be room for the tool to move within the chuck. 3 jaw chucks on the other hand are not favoring rapid changability as much as a hex chuck, and have adjustability built in to facilitate positive contact with the tool, hopefully eliminating wobble of the tool within its chucking contacts
You're the only other person I've ever seen except one of my best friends that has a thumb that bends backwards like that. I always thought he would have some kind of problem, but he never has. It may be weird and freaky, but it still works fine. lol.
Balls in bearings are not supposed to contact all the race, just two points. Otherwise there will be not rolling friction, but sliding, excess heat and wear. If you need more load bearing capacity, you need to use roller bearings.
The golf cart I have at work has urethane bushings in the steering column. In the summer, turning the steering wheel causes a honking noise and the wheel just stays wherever you last pointed it. As soon as the cooler fall temperatures hit, it becomes quieter and steers easily. No amount of graphite, Moly or teflon changes this.
Need to print an ABS replacement.
Nice video from a fellow ME.
New subscriber here. Thank you for the video
great video dude! don't know how it found me but it did :D
Borrowing tolerance is an excellent technique for 3D printed design. Great video!
thank you for making this video~
Loved the video! It really sparked some ideas and solutions for certain problems.
My only complaint is how monotone your delivery is. Kind of ironic being an engineering topic where you do everything to help minimize or eliminate variance. In the case of your vocal delivery some, variance would be helpful 😉
Excellent
Interesting! I already used staples to face the metal claws of some ancient video connector I wanted to make replacement mating parts for, which works quite well for the test I made but I still have to finish the design.