Parametric Nipkow Disc

myminifactory

This is a Nipkow disc used to build your own Baird mechanical television set. Before 4K or HD, before ATSC or NTSC, before PAL and SECAM, before IC's, transistors, even tubes, this is how TV was made. And this, I claim, is the world's first parametric three-dimensional printed Nipkow disc. This has several advantages over usual alternatives. It is lighter than metal or wood, stronger than paper or cardboard, and its accuracy is limited only by printer precision. It is fully parameterized, with options in Openscad source to easily set the disc diameter, scanning hole size, number of holes, raster height and more. The photos are of my prototype. The final version is identical, only printed in black ABS. The included STL will print a 100 mm. diameter, 1 mm. thick disc with 32 scan lines and a 16 mm. raster height. The hole size is set to 2 mm., which on my printer generates holes with a diameter of 1 mm., which is about right for this combination. While this isn't really a "work in progress", I may make modifications down the line if I think of ways to improve it.