3D Printed bolts and nuts however you would like them!

[Eddie]

Maker and Thingiverse user Tyler Bletsch has developed 3D printable nuts that can be used with virtually any size metal bolt or screw. The 3D printed nut is printed with no threads, so when a metal bolt is screwed into it, the threads are cut directly into it, making it a firm and tight hold. Obviously 3D printed nuts are not suitable for any projects or tools that are load bearing, but they have multiple useful applications for other projects. You can find out more on 3DPrint.com: http://3dprint.com/68289/3d-print-any-nut-you-choose/
Below is a look at Bletsch's designs:

[curious aardvark]

I guess my main response would be: well yeah.
It's a thing with a hole in.
It really is a slow week isn't it :-)

The lock washers are neat.

The rest are about 3 line openscad scripts.

[Mjolinor]

What a strange thing to do. Probably 100 or more STLs on Thingiverse when one openscad for each external shape would do it if it's written with variables as it should be. In fact one openscad with the shapes commented out and you are where you need to be.

Even then it seems a bit pointless because surely anyone that prints things with a 3d printer has done this for themselves at some point.

Still I suppose you have to keep up the thingverse tradition of posting what you did even though no one else can see a use for it.

[curious aardvark]

I think what's happening is that more and more 3d printers are being sold to people who didn't want one to make their own stuff.
And they're cheap enough now for someone to buy one just to download things other people have made.

Which suits me :-)
Now those people need to get into the habit of paying for these things and I've got a half decent revenue stream in the offing :-)

[Pldruart]

I felt bad when I heard he molded each individual piece of hardware out. Solidworks has pretty much all basic hardware pre-instaleld via toolbox.

[Mjolinor]

It's still quicker to model a nut in Openscad than it is to find the button on Solidworks.

$fn=100;
difference() {
cylinder (6,10,10,$fn=6);
cylinder (6,3,3);
}

[Roxy]

It's still quicker to model a nut in Openscad than it is to find the button on Solidworks.

$fn=100;
difference() {
cylinder (6,10,10,$fn=6);
cylinder (6,3,3);
}

Yeah... But what about the threads? I bet that can be done in 2 or 3 more lines of code.

[Mjolinor]

If someone shows me an FDM printer that can print thread for M3 that are worth a damn I'll work out how to make the thread with one line of code.

I will also post them a lb of rocking horse droppings and hens teeth.

[tkbletsc]

Hey, I'm Tyler Bletsch, and I just found out this got posted somewhere. Just wanted to respond. Basically all of you are correct.

I did model it using a small number of OpenSCAD lines, and I did *NOT* do each one by hand! I just modeled all of them in one multi-purpose OpenSCAD script, and had a lookup table to make the industry standard sizes instead of prompting the user for every parameter. Also, they're a *little* better than just a hole in a hexagon...I noticed that real nuts are slightly rounded to fit into tools easier, so I did that. Also, the wing nut auto-sizes the wings to the size of the nut, the thumb nut has consistent knurls compatible with 3D printing, etc. Nothing hard, just little niceties.

I actually didn't want to upload all those STLs -- I wanted to just have it be a customizer, so you'd put in "M3" and get what you want, but the customizer choked on my script for some reason, and I wasn't able to determine the cause. So given that I couldn't do a customizer, I just scripted creation of all the parts at all the standard sizes and uploaded them so that folks could print that one thing they needed without having to get OpenSCAD or design from scratch. If you scroll to the very bottom, the SCAD file is also on there.

Lastly, as for printable M3 nuts, believe it or not, that size actually works quite well. I do 3mm holes in my designs all the time, then use a normal metal M3 screw to go into them. It's not the strongest joint in the world, since M3 threads are so fine, but it holds without issue for a lot of lightweight applications.

Overall, I agree that this wasn't really that big of a deal...I was surprised they wanted to write something on it.

[sjgrunewald]

Overall, I agree that this wasn't really that big of a deal...I was surprised they wanted to write something on it.

I thought it was cool. Also, I wanted to make a 'nut' joke. Be glad I left out most of them.