Balance Scale

thingiverse

This is a very simple balance beam scale that uses two trays on either side. Each tray includes round indentations to match the sizes of US dimes, pennies and nickels because my purpose was to compare the weight of coins. Each tray is suspended from the beam by hangers that snap into place. I found it easy to snap the tray into the hanger in most cases, but there was a small issue with one nib snapping off. You may experience this too. If the fit seems too tight, you can file down the nib on the hanger a little. If the nib does snap off, simply superglue the tray onto the hanger. The beam includes four separate detents that accept the hangers. If you want to hang one tray at notch 2 and the other at notch 4 on the opposite side, the tray at notch 2 will require twice the weight to balance with the object at notch 4. However, the tray itself is part of the weight, so there's a separately printable object called a tray topper that I designed. It's intended to be placed in the tray at notch 2 and has keys to hold it in place. Its mass is equal to the combined mass of a hanger and a tray. Whether the mass of the tray topper is equal to the mass of the hanger/tray depends on the infill settings of the print. The key is to create a sliced file of one hanger/tray with the desired print settings and note the amount of filament used. Then, create a separate sliced file with the same setting and only the tray topper. In the slicer software, slice off the bottom of the tray topper until the filament used is the same as the hanger/tray. You can then add all of the needed parts to that file or keep the files separate. There's an adjuster for each side of the scale beam that can be slid left or right to level the beam before putting items in the trays. Note that you need to print two feet, two adjusters, two hangers and two trays. You only need one copy of the other parts. No support is required when printing this balance beam scale. The stand, feet and trays were all printed upright. The beam and fulcrum were printed upside down. The hangers were printed on their backs. The adjusters were printed flat on their sides.