Touhou Project - Utsuho's Control Rod

thingiverse

Simple model of Utsuho Reiuji's control rod I knocked together in Tinkercad. Designed to more or less the correct scale for use as a (admittedly somewhat chunky) light switch chain pull, but can be scaled up for other uses. At 200% scale, I was able to, fairly easily, fit four 5mm LEDs inside, each with an 100 ohm resistor to allow the 3.2v LEDs I chose for the project to be driven off a 5v USB power supply via a breakout board. Print the preferred main body and cap using orange filament, and the insert in black. The end cap needs to be superglued into place. The insert should just friction-fit, although depending on your print quality, you may need to gently coerce it with a mallet, especially for smaller prints. I'm planning on eventually designing a version of this to take a standard 18650 battery and some cheap off-the-shelf parts to make a custom USB battery bank, but by all means, if you make the necessary changes yourself, PLEASE publish your finished product and let me know! I'd love to see what you do with this simple design! Edit - Mar. 5, 2021: Been a few weeks... created a new version of the main body and two new end caps for this. For those who wonder, "Why aren't the body and end caps one piece?" There's a simple explanation - the body segments are intended to be able to be linked together with appropriate-sized insert pieces so that you can create a model of arbitrary length for any given 3D printer. Given the small size of my 3D printer (its print volume is limited to 120mm³), this is absolutely necessary for me, and also it's been quite helpful with later builds and versions. Anyway, back on subject. The new body segment is just one long hollow segment, with the hole through the middle proportioned to be able to take an insert piece (control_rod_insert.stl) and link on either end with another piece of the same size. This was originally designed primarily as, admittedly, just a way for me to get a few more LEDs inside the cavity, but in the latest build I've done with it, I used two segments scaled on x and y axes to 220%, and one to 220% and the other to only 100% on the z axis, with an insert piece and a custom end cap to accept a circuit board from a generic USB power bank in one chamber (one of the ones in the style of the Poundland power banks that Big Clive tore down a few years back) and an 18650 cell in the other. Looking around, this might not be the most useful part, seeing as how these seem to no longer be on the market, but a generic cylindrical power bank should be able to fit in the back of the v3 body just fine, if scaled right (keep in mind when printing, the insert and therefore the cavity in the v3 have a 10mm diameter at 1x scale and you'll want to go about half a millimeter larger so it'll actually fit without excessive force). Additionally, I've created a rear cap that goes on around the rear insert to give the main body a more symmetrical profile. Not really much more to say about this.