A simple case for a sleeved ipod. The sleeve is not part of the thing, but serves to hold the ipod in nicely.

A pair of these will hold a 26 cm spool above a Mendel using a 8mm smooth or threaded rod as an axle. They are kind of long (~195 mm), and work best with PLA.

The supported spool is more stable if the two supports are tilted toward each other.

I was going to make clamps to hold the supports to the top pair of rods on the mendel, but it turned out that the weight of the spool was sufficient.

This is a simple box with mounting holes sized for mounting on standard American Pegboard (0.25 inch holes on 1 inch square grid). It is parametric.

The Mendel that I am building is mounted on pegboard, and I wanted a convenient place to put all the nuts and bolts that kept falling through the pegboard holes.

The original clamp (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:13228) held the M8 nut too tightly (probably due to poor print quality) and this created binding that my stepper motor could not overcome.

This modification does not hold the nut as tightly and can be installed without disassembling a lot of stuff. This means that the nut can wiggle slightly rather than the X axis end piece wiggling.

Building on the power cord support by foxdewayen, I have made a nice way to mount an AC power switch on my mendel. Note that my mendel is a little wider than the standard plan, so there is more room for this piece.

The switch came from an old copy machine, so I do not have a part number for it.

I have included a blank version in case someone wants to use a different switch.

Another attractive pattern from an old book.

An attractive pattern I found in an old book.

A interesting shape with room inside it for 2 to 4 AA batteries, LEDs and a small microcontroller.

This device has two parallel surfaces that can be moved far enough apart to measure the width (or length) of your head.

Note that the extra holes on the end pieces will hold a wade extruder.

This is a simple clip for a 608 skate bearing.

See objects.reprap.org/wiki/Bearing_clip_01 for more details.

More pictures at objects.reprap.org/wiki/FD_pencil_case

Next step... a hinged lid....

Simple box for an ipad, based on dimensions from Apple.

This is a somewhat improved Sarrus linkage based Z axis. It is much stiffer than the first one. I also have added a threaded rod drive. For more details, see objects.reprap.org/wiki/Sarrus_Z02

This is my first attempt at a Sarrus linkage suitable for a Z axis. It has room for a skate bearing, 10-32 threaded rod, and 10-32 nut to drive it. In practice, this mechanism is not quite stiff enough for good printing, but it might be useful for other things.

The total range of movement is just over 100 mm.

This is the next step in my attempt to make a Sarrus linkage based 3D printer. The idea is to have a cartesian mechanism without those long rods and bearings.

I built three of the Mark III and mounted them in a x-y arrangement as shown. They can move over a square about 105 mm wide, and someday may carry an extruder. They are driven by DC motors taken from inkjet printers. These motors are driven in a servo arrangement using quadrature optical encoders and optical strips removed from the same printers.

This is my second prototype of a Sarrus linkage type linear axis. A Sarrus linkage uses hinged joints to make linear motion. The idea is to have a linear bearing suitable for making part of an x-y cartesian assembly without needing long polished metal rods, thus getting a 3D printer that can make more of its own parts.

Notice that there is a set of 4 holes on the top armature that match 4 hole patterns on the end pieces. This means that one axis could mount on two others at right angles.

Drive system: DC motor from a cheap garage sale inkjet printer, using the timing belt from the printer. The pulley at the other end of the belt is a screw/washer/spacer combination with a skate bearing. The skate bearing is mounted in a flexure plate style mount to give tension the belt.

Optical feedback: I took a optical quadrature encoder and encoder strip from the same printer as the motor. The encoder is mounted on the moving armature, and the strip is anchored at both ends in the end blocks.

Hinges: The hinges on the Sarrus linkage are made with 1/16" diam brass rod as the hinge pins. The holes for the hinge pins were reamed out with a 1/16" drill bit.

Frank Davies

Sarrus linkage linear bearing

This is an implementation of the Sarrus linkage that may be useful for reprap type machines. It is made from ABS printed on my repstrap, with 1/16" (1.6 mm) brass rods for the hinge pins and 4-40 screws to hold the spine sections together. The hinge pin holes were chased with a 1/16 drill bit, and the screw holes with a 1/8" bit. The two ends are made of one center block cut in half with a saw, and there are some other holes that were drilled rather than printed.

It has a total swing of 100 mm. This is set by the length of the spine, and could easily be 110 mm. It moves very smoothly, and was stiffer than I thought it would be. The center block only moves down about 0.2mm with a 460 gram payload. Interestingly the droop is about the same over the whole range of motion. It stays well within 0.2mm of a straight line as it moves.

A payload (extruder?) could mount on the central block, which could be widened.

Here is a box that I made with my reprstrap. It has an inside size of 50 mm by 50 mm by 25 mm (approx).