{"id":473,"date":"2017-04-21T23:11:35","date_gmt":"2017-04-22T03:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/?p=473"},"modified":"2017-04-22T09:16:39","modified_gmt":"2017-04-22T13:16:39","slug":"functional-print-resistor-bending-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/2017\/04\/21\/functional-print-resistor-bending-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Functional Print – Resistor Bending Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past 6 months or so, I’ve started to use Reddit on regular basis. One of my favorite recent finds is the r\/functionalprint<\/a> subreddit, which features practical items made with a 3D printer. Contrast this with r\/3dprinting<\/a>, which features lots of calibration prints<\/a>, printer upgrades (many themselves 3D printed), hardware and software reviews, folks asking for help, etc. r\/3dprinting is a great subreddit with lots of helpful folks, but it’s mostly about the practice of printing, and not about what we print. r\/functionalprint, on the other hand, is about useful things made with a 3d printer. It reminds me that having a 3d printer isn’t just about having a 3d printer, it’s about all the things such a device enables.<\/p>\n

I’ve had my printer now for nearly a year. It has gotten a fair amount of use, but it has also set unused for months at a time. Often, it has printed its own upgrades parts, or calibration cubes, or other objects focused on making the printer better. But once the printer is all dialed in, then what? Aside from a stretch of playing with 3D printed terrain<\/a> for tabletop gaming (more on that in the future), I’ve really on focused on the practice of printing, and not the rest.<\/p>\n

So here’s something that I designed (Fusion 360) and printed on my Monoprice Maker Select V2<\/a> last night:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

It’s a Resistor Bending Guide. A what? Well, I’ve recently designed a through-hole Display board PCB for another project (more on that in the future) which I had made at OSH Park<\/a>. It contains several 14- and 7-segment LED displays, so it needs a number of current-limiting resistors. The ones I spec’ed are quite small, and trying to bend the legs at just the right places to get them to sit nicely on the board was quite a chore, so I designed this as a template for bending them to size. The first one was twice as tall, but the other dimensions weren’t quite right, so I made it shorter for faster prints while iterating; once I had the rest of the dimensions correct, I found that the shorter guide was perfect for pre-trimming the leads to a shorter length before inserting into the PCB. Here are some action shots to show you what I’m talking about.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Tiny little resistors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

The divot in the top of the widget is just the right size to hold the resistor body.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Just fold the legs over to get the correct spacing for the holes on the PCB. The bottom of the tool is a perfect place to trim the leads.<\/p>\n

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Here’s one that’s been bent and trimmed, and is all ready for the PCB.<\/p>\n

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And here it is, at home on the PCB. With 66 per board times 2 boards, plus a different display board that will need a similar number, this little tool will save more time than the ~hour it took me to design, print, and iterate it. Quite functional, that.<\/p>\n

Finally, here’s a closeup of the design in Fusion 360. The detail is a bit finer than my printer can reliably reproduce, hence some iterating, but it gets the job done.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past 6 months or so, I’ve started to use Reddit on regular basis. One of my favorite recent finds is the r\/functionalprint subreddit, which features practical items made with a 3D printer. Contrast this with r\/3dprinting, which features lots of calibration prints, printer upgrades (many themselves 3D printed), hardware and software reviews, folks […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[121,120],"class_list":["post-473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-3d-printing","tag-functional-print"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":486,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions\/486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}