Arbor Press

thingiverse

I designed this arbor press using my own brain power, and it's an impressive piece of work if I do say so myself. From testing its limits with a standard weight scale, I can get about 50-55lbs of force, but I could probably push it harder than that - the problem is, I don't have the grip strength to hold it down without it pulling into itself rather than just pushing down on the scale. It's a bit hard to explain, but hopefully you understand what I mean. I've been messing with this thing and testing its limits, and it's clear as day that the weak point is where the top of the base meets the "arm". That's probably not surprising, given how it was printed - with PLA at a 0.3 layer height, three shells, and 25% infill. If I'm being honest, I think this thing would be way stronger if it were made out of ABS or something similar, with a thinner layer height, more shells, or even more infill. The actual gear rack is from someone else's design that I scaled up to fit my pinion gear - unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the original designer to credit them. The hole in the gear rack was meant for attachments and uses a 1/4 bolt - although I haven't gotten around to making any yet. Here are the parts you'll need: * Two 5x100mm rods (one for gearing, one for the handle) * You'll need to cut or grind some flat spots onto one of these so that the pinion gear and the handles' set screw have something to grab - I'm sure you can figure out where to put them. * Two 625zz bearings * One M3x20mm (or longer) screw and nut * Four screws for mounting * One 17T pinion gear with a 5mm shaft - this might be the tricky part to find, since I got it from a pack that didn't specify the pitch. The diameter is 19mm. As for print settings, here's what I used: * Supports: yes * Resolution: 0.3 * Infill: 25 I'm not an engineer, so there are probably structural flaws that I haven't noticed because I don't have the knowledge - but overall, this thing seems to work pretty well. The dimensions of the arbor press (not including the gear rack sticking out) are 119x88.50x149mm. I hope you find it useful!