Cow Face Extruder Indicator/Feed-Wheel

thingiverse

It can be difficult to see what the extruder is doing when monitoring it remotely through a webcam - is it feeding, retracting, or has it stopped completely? The extruder's movements will become more apparent if you attach this cow-themed indicator to your extruder motor's shaft. This feed-wheel was designed for use with the Printrbot Simple Metal, but it can also fit any motor with a 5 mm outer diameter shaft. This design is based on Richard Schumann's Cow icon from The Noun Project. Included in this item Cowface Feedwheel.stl is a friction-fit onto the motor shaft. It features a block for friction-fitting an optional M3 threaded insert (4 mm OD) to fit an M3 grub screw. Insert the insert into the hole horizontally, and then use a longer M3 screw to pull it into the block. Adding the grub screw gives this feedwheel enough grip to be used as a handle for turning the shaft by hand for manual extrusion. Print Settings Rafts: No Supports: No Resolution: 0.2 mm Infill: 10 % Notes: Print this face-down as supplied. Your bottom layer needs to be perfect, or else you will lose the outline of the cow face. If you can't do this, then you can print it with the cow face-up, but you'll need supports. Post-Printing Grab a fine Sharpie and carefully use the side of the tip to outline the edges and details of the cow's face. If you are having trouble fitting this onto your motor shaft, dip the stem of the print in just-boiled water to soften it. Changelog 18 Aug 2017 Redrawn in Fusion 360. It is now approx. 3 mm wider all around to make it easier to grip and turn for manual extrusion. My previous design for the M3 insert/grub screw was very bad because I relied on the insert to grab onto the plastic and stay there - but the AliExpress inserts are straight-knurled and have no grip, so they simply got pushed out as I tightened the grub screw. In this new design, the insert is trapped inside a block. 16 Feb 2016 Added grub screw version; I stripped the soft PLA on the original version by using it as a handle for turning the extruder shaft manually, so this should make the object more robust for this purpose. Increased the ID of the motor shaft mounts by 0.10 mm. 3 Feb 2016 Initial release.