Bolt Blank 1

thingiverse

Hello again, dear readers. I decided to just throw this out there, Earth shattering as it is. It's just an unthreaded bolt blank, a stopover on the way to experiments with fully threaded, printed bolts. You may ask, "Why oh why did you not simply post a fully threaded bolt? WHY THIS UNTHREADED CRAP???". And I'd be like, "Chill. It's useful." Actually, it is MORE useful than a finished bolt. This thing, you can rescale to any head/shaft size you like, and using simple die tools, tap your OWN threads onto it for your own purposes. Small threadings are notoriously hard to print unless you have a truly special printer, so as long as your blank is strong enough to take the abuse of cutting, you'll actually get better results from cutting the threads by hand, provided your print quality and material is up to it. Why use plastic bolts at all? I'll grant you that metal, functionally, will beat plastic just about any day of the week, but I can throw you five instances where plastic is just better: 1) Weight sensitive applications such as drone usage. 2) Magnetism sensitive applications. 3) Electrically sensitive applications. 4) Any application where surfaces may be damaged by the strength and hardness of metal bolts. 5) Thermal conductivity sensitive applications. Default dimensions of this bolt blank are: 10mm head width 3.7mm head height 6mm shaft diameter 27mm shaft length Print Settings Printer Brand: Robo 3D Printer: R1 ABS + PLA Model Rafts: Doesn't Matter Supports: No Resolution: 0.1mm - 0.2mm Infill: 100% Notes: This thing needs to have a high density in a strong plastic, so that it can withstand the abuse of having threads cut into it. I suppose PLA would work, as long as you're gentle, but then too I have to question the sanity of making bolts out of PLA, I'd sooner go with something a bit more exotic like PETG, Nylon or Polycarbonate. Print it dense and fairly hot for good layer adhesion, and with a little luck and effort you can come away with some useful little plastic bolts cut to your own specs. Good luck! How I Designed This Who says I did? Kidding. I did. Well, the Elves did. Those mofos be crazy this week.