Nut Encasement

thingiverse

This is a casing that perfectly fits onto an M4 Nyloc nut, making it snugly fit into a cavity that's too big for it! It can be resized to fit any nut. I'm printing the metric/"international" version of the MPCNC, using 25mm pipe. Although it's all marvelous, there is some difficulty with the fittings that grip Nyloc nuts, which are meant to enable you to tighten them in place. Specifically, the hex-cavity for the nuts were originally designed to hold US/Imperial #6-32 (3/16") nuts, but when adapted to M3.5 or M4 nuts, there's too much room and they spin freely - but there's not much room to get pliers in to hold them. So I've designed these little cases. You put the nut in - quite a tight fit, and a bit easy to split, so print a few; I use a small hammer to tap the nut in - and then it fits the cavity far more closely. Printing is a bit tricky because the casing wall is very thin. I used a 0.25mm nozzle for the first time ever. The design as supplied is aimed at an M4 (4mm shaft, normal 7mm spanner-size) nut and makes it fit an 8mm hole - which means the case walls are only 0.5 mm wide, or less to allow fitting. In the photo above, you can see them printed, one of them has a nut embedded, and you can see them in place on the MPCNC leg clamps (I put a black one onto a red foot, so it's clear). You can read discussion about this issue at the MPCNC Forum. This solution has worked really well for me: problem solved. Printer Brand: Ultimaker Printer: Ultimaker 2 Rafts: No Supports: No Resolution: 0.1 Infill: Doesn't matter Notes: I sliced these with CURA, for a 0.25mm nozzle. Layer height: 0.1mm Shell thickness: 0.25mm (Advanced) Initial layer thickness: 0.1mm That last setting was a surprise, because Cura's default is 0.3 and I initially forgot that with a tiny nozzle, that first layer had better be much thinner. How I Designed This Designed in OpenSCAD (code supplied). It's all parameterized, so you can adapt it for M3.5 nuts or different depths, thicknesses, etc. Wrapping a 7mm nut to fit an 8mm cavity requires a very thin walled print: you're filling a tiny (but crucial) gap - you will probably have to fiddle with the settings and params to make it right for you.