HT Antenna Base - Super Elastic Dude

thingiverse

Hey, I made a Super Elastic Dude. In case you don't know, I like to create fun names for everything. This is cover for a "Signal Stick" Antenna with a Male Connector.What is still needed - I need a Jack in the Box ball for the top.Parts Needed:Nitinol. I used 1mm thick Nitinol from Amazon - Nitinol - I use 1mm - Linked here with No Memory - https://amzn.to/49v5JoI (This is an affiliate link) SMA Male to Female Connectors -https://amzn.to/3NweKp1 (This is an affiliate link, buy it where you want) These are not the ones I used (I don't know which ones I had around here). If they don't fit completely, I can fix the file. Heat Shrink Tubing - https://amzn.to/3v7XBM5 (Also an affiliate link).Super Glue, if needed. Of course, I highly recommend supporting hamstudy and buying a signal stick - https://signalstuff.com/product/super-elastic-signal-stick-sma-male/But I also recognize the desire to test and experiment:One, determine the length of your antenna. For example 2m, at 146.520 is about 1.7 feet or .51 meters for a 1/4 wave.Also, Always cut long then cut down. After you have your length of Nitinol Wire cut, this will be tricky. In a post from reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/xkbb77/how_signal_sticks_are_made_signal_stuff/): there is mention of using acid. If you ever watched one of my videos, you know acid would be a bad idea. Instead, I used a Dremel to sand down a very fine point on the nitinol, which fit into the SMA Connector (the pointy part that goes into the larger connector. After I was able to get the nitinol into the connector, I used solder, as hot as my solder gun would go bridge the SMA and Nitinol. This took a LONG Time.What I noticed was: Without the part I designed (In Tinkercad), the Nitinol would hit the "Outer Shield" of the connector, causing a temporary short from Inner To Outer. Obviously this wasn't Ideal and the cover I created, prevents that (and looks cool).I used PLA for the blue connector. However, this part was designed with ASA in mind, which appears to shrink more than PLA. Why do I tell you this? If you are using PLA, you may need to scale this down just a tad (1 percent, maybe).I also printed it as it is and printed it with "Tree Supports" so the supports internally were easy to use. Does it even need supports? Probably not.With the PLA, the tolerance (as printed with no scaling) was slightly too big. Perfect opportunity to use Super Glue on the SMA Connector to "Bond" it to the PLA. Female Version is in the works (Photo with the green was just an example of me starting and playing around with the female version)Hey Enjoy. And If this was helpful, please leave a Thank You message.