How To Design and 3D Print Wheels and Gears That Just Work! (Print in Place)

[@MAKE]

Tell us how YOU would do some print in place stuff that has to be able to spin!

[@addtext]

Could you 3d print a mini caster wheel or caster ball In a way that you can have all the pieces be printed as an assembly?

[@davidbean4505]

Fantastic how-to video! Thank you!

[@johnmichaelpeters]

Hey thank you for getting this out there.. I have been waiting for solidworks to be in the cloud.. Love Fusion 360 but it is not Solidworks and at $120 a year - well that is cheap for what we used to pay at $3k a year for just AutoCad.. Showing my age... Great tutorial!

[@brandanmichael6982]

Thank you!

[@o1ecypher]

super useful info Thank you bro

[@ERKNEES2]

This is pretty cool!

[@christophwienands2408]

In which orientation did you print the double-gear widget? Wheels on the print plate? How did the printer do all this massive bridging for the part that connects both axles? Or if that part was at the bottom, how did you get the printer to start off the gears without fusing them to the static part?

[@CalebKraftmakes]

sorry for the slow reply. I printed it with the gears down as shown. Modern 3d printers can bridge some incredible gaps. My prusa minis had no problem with this at all.

[@JakeMcIvor]

Probably far more straight forward to model this as a revolve rather than a series of extrudes / drafted extrudes.

[@DocMacon]

It depends on if you are doing parametric design, in which case the method shown in the video is much closer to what you would want. Then you could just change tolerances and angles with a single parameter rather than having to redraw. Of course, you can set your distances in the sketch for the revolve using parameters as well but I think the way in the video leaves less room for error. (Learned this the very difficult way.)

[@DeveloperChris]

Without support material the gear example would not work. You have a large bridge between the two sections. So it's not really pop it off the bed and it will work is it.

[@quentinfool]

I thought that onshape, being part of the solidworks thing, would be able to do this as well. But I'm getting stuck with the drafting bit

[@patrickbumgardner2053]

Great demonstration of 3d printing techniques! Your voice sounds like Ben Affleck's. Any relation to one another? Cool Show!

[@CalebKraftmakes]

haha, it's been a while since I heard that. When he and I were both younger (think goodwill hunting) people said I looked like him too. Not so much anymore. no relation at all. We must just have a similar shape to our throat/jaw to have similar voices.

[@Aretmosa]

3:33

[@GHILLIESARCADEANDMORE]

Cool

[@andyhelipilot3528]

Possibly the best method would be to split it in half and revolve it👍🏻