Large Tumbler / Polishing Tumbler

thingiverse

My first Thingiverse upload, so go easy on me :)\r\n\r\nI needed a tumbler to polish printed parts. There's quite a few available but after a few trial&errors I decided to create one by myself. Big thanks for earlier releases for inspiration!\r\n\r\nI quickly learned from other designs that a tumbler without ball bearings is not gonna run stable. They are all over the place. I also learned that normal DC motors don't have the low range torque for this job. You need a higher speed on these motors in order to run and it ends up jumping off its guides. This is why I went for a (overkill) gear motor with lower rev's and higher torque. It's also a lot quieter.\r\n\r\nSo I simply made a base with an motor mount, a few M8 holes. Ran the M8 threaded rod through the PVC pipe and secured it with nuts and spacers in each end. The motor is directly attached to one of the rollers, and I drilled a 2 mm hole for an axle splint.\r\n\r\nThings you need:\r\n- Threaded M8 linear rod\r\n- PVC tube/pipe (Outer dim 32mm, inner 28mm)\r\n- Ball bearings 22mm outer 8mm inner \r\n- Gear motor 25-50 rpm (Better to go high RPM as you can always tune it down)\r\n- DC motor speed controller/regulator\r\n- Some sort of glass drum (Mine has a circle of 590 mm diameter of 187.8 mm)\r\n- Wiring and lots of glue :)\r\n\r\nOther Notes:\r\nAll M8 holes are deliberately printed 0.2 mm too tight. They are meant to be drilled to ensure a snug fit eliminating warping once the tumbler is running.\r\n\r\nI've used:\r\nPLA+ 1.75mm. 0,5mm nozzle. Extruder at 220c and bed at 65c. Sliced in Cura, 0.28mm layer, 60 speed. To avoid support the cogs are meant to be glued.