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This thing was originally a small part of a bigger project I made (See my thing "PLA / ABS Spool Cradle")... However, I decided to upload it as its own thing when I realized it can easily be imported and added to any design or thing anyone wants to make that requires fastening of separate parts with a nut and screw...
The part is cool in that the nut is permanently confined within any "thing" you add it to - it will never fall out - yet still prints as one piece without ever fusing to the shell surrounding it... It is designed in a way that allows it to spin freely while never separating from the shell or bigger part that encompesses it. With the spinner, I also provided a hollowed out base containing a perfectly sized and scaled screw. Located in the geometrical center of the base, the screw flawlessly slips into the nut with little to no aligning or effort - all while still maintaining a very tight grip...
Both parts are purposely designed so that everything is centered perfectly, the base that closely hugs - yet never touches - the nut, prohibits the nut from rotating side to side - thus assuring a perfect spin onto the screw so that they never meet at an angle that would cause mis-threading or any difficulty tightening.
This was a very tedious project that I became very obsessive designing. It took me an entire weekend, about 50 prototypes and nearly an entire spool of PLA to perfect - however - I managed to get the dimensions synced perfectly down to < 0.1mm... So, unlike OJ's bloody glove, it slides on without effort or acquittal. Although this piece takes less than an hour to print in standard quality, I've successfully printed it in every level of quality makerbot offers and it works great in even the lowest quality slices...
Another awesome design feature of the "thing" is - due to the nut's free range of motion and the hollowed base the screw rests in creates a, never-fail, super tight grip between the two pieces thus optimizing the connection... While the nut tightens, it sinks into its shell, this applies a strong force against the shell - more importantly though - due to this sinking - while it tightens it concurrently extrudes through the bottom and snugly enters the hollow base surrounding the screw, further tightening the grip and adding a much needed level of support to the fragile plastic screw. These mechanics are much more durable and effective when compared to simply screwing two pieces together along flush surfaces with no snatch or support to defend against unwanted torque. The one flaw of building with plastic material is that it has a very high risk of breaking or snapping when small support pieces are over torqued. This unavoidable weakness is a contingency that I make sure to address while engineering everything I design in an effort to maximize the durability of everything I build... It's kind of hard to explain this feature without visual aid, but if you print this thing and try it out - you'll see exactly what I'm saying. All in all, it provides a lot of longevity and durability to the entire apparatus.
Feel free to use it on any project you're working on, or plan on working on... I am very proud of this "thing" and spent a lot of TLC in engineering it perfectly... If you have an idea to make it better, please do... I would love to see what others can do with it... Make sure to upload it though and keep the open-source going. Thanks for checking out my things!
