Ring with Gears V5

thingiverse

I printed a couple V3 and V4 rings that held up pretty well, but these V5's do a great job. My first one (fully FDM files) lasted over a month of daily wear before I accidentally stepped on it. My most recent one (FDM ring w SLA gears) was only printed a couple days ago so I will update with it's durability as time goes on. The rings have a 21.25mm inner diameter, which is a size 11 3/4 in the US, or a size X in Europe. Scale your files appropriately. I have 2 ways of printing it that have worked for me: 1st- Printing on FDM (ender-3) with PLA at 209° C (this is hot so that the clips have good adhesion) and a .2mm nozzle. I printed the FDM gears flat on the bed and then bent the "spokes" up one by one by hand with needle-nose pliers. 2nd- Printing on SLA (elgoo Mars 2) with .05mm layer height and 6s exposure time. I had the best luck printing the gears upright (see the image below). I have not made any efforts to calibrate my printers layer height, and I don't know if it is only my printer but it tends to squish things so that they are not as tall as they should be. I included a file that compensates for this with the Skeletor gear to make it come out round. The one shown in the images has SLA gears and an FDM body. I came up with this idea while staring at my ceiling late at night, after designing/printing it someone on reddit pointed out that it kind of already existed at kinektdesign.com/products/gear-ring. I have looked through both of their patents for their ring and I am very confident that my ring is different in design, purpose and does not overlap with theirs in any way as far as the patents are concerned. I will die on this hill, and I maintain the right to produce and sell these if I so please.