February 22, 2024
Description
Hey team,
There are already a few great models on Printables for Vernier calipers but for a bit of fun I thought I would give it a try and share my results.
The overall design is the classic shape and has features you would find on a Japanese or German model with ~150mm measurement capacity.
I tried to make the design 3D printer friendly and use angled geometry to keep all the sliding parts together rather than printing separate binders or pins just for a cleaner look and without the need for glue.
I had my fair share of trials and tribulations getting it to print nicely; here I thought it might be a quick job with PLA as opposed to PETG, but it turned out to be quite tricky. I think I will have a go at making a PETG version if this one doesn't stand up to abuse, but it feels fairly sturdy and might give it a coat of paint and a light sand to bring out the numbers a little clearer.
I started off by using custom made ‘mouse ears’ to adhere this thin and long item to the bed but the adherence just wasn't up to the task, so I changed the approach and went with a combination of brims and ‘helper disks’ which can be inserted from the shape library in Prusa Slicer and ‘merged’ into the model prior to printing.
In addition, for the Prusament PLA I had to bump the temperature by 5 degrees to 65 degrees and slow down the first layer by 50%. I did experiment with ironing to see if that made the numbers and lettering more legible, however I found that it didn't make a noticeable improvement so I ended up leaving it off in my final version.
With regards to fitment I went through a few iterations but wanted it to be ‘just snug’ coming right off the bed, and if you give it a very light sand with some 1000 grit sandpaper it should slide smoothly for you with just a little bit of resistance.
With regards to the lettering and legibility, this was always going to be tricky but I think I found a reasonably good balance with the numbers. I would probably only use this caliper seldom when the need arises such as painted surfaces, so it's certainly good enough in a pinch and better than a ruler that's for sure. I also decided to set the Vernier scale over 39 mm rather than 9 mm, similar to Mitutoyo as I find this easier to read. I decided to remove numbers from the Vernier scale as they were just far too small to read.
In regards to the ‘spine’ which doubles as a depth gauge, initially I had it ending within the slide jaw for aesthetic reasons, but later found it added a bit of rigidity when measuring, so just to be practical I ran it through the entire static jaw.
Other remarks regarding printing, I was initially printing both at the same time, but I did find, especially with ironing turned on which slowed down the printing, this introduced ‘cold’ joins and imperfections, so to keep it tidy I ended up printing one at a time.
I'll upload the exact gcode I ran to print both parts using Prusament PLA Galaxy Black, but a summary of the settings below;
Hope this is useful for somebody out there :-)
Cheers
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution
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