A concept for 3d printer toolchanger which uses only the existing X- and Y-movements to lock and unlock the toolhead
This project was inspired by existing toolchangers. They all used additional hardware to lock and unlock the tool.
This is usually done by a motor that rotates a lock or by an electromagnet.
I wanted to find a way to lock and unlock the toolhead with the allready existing stepper motors for the X- and Y-movement.
I am not sure if this has any benefit, but somehow it became a personal challenge. All what I am publishing here is only "proof of concept" because I do not have a printer that can be transfered to a toolchanger yet.
Starting point for this project were the tool_carrier and the tool_template from jubilee printer project by Joshua Vasquez of Machine Agency at the University of Washington.
The magnet-wheel-toolchanger uses a wheel with magnets, that is rotated by a cograil. The cograil holds the wings that fit into the tool-post. When inside the tool-post, the cograil is fixed left/right and the wheel can be rotated by moving the tool-plate.
(Inspired by my Espresso machine)
I develop with RS components DesignSpark mechanical which seems to be a stripped down version from spaceclaim. Unfortunatly, export to STEP is not possible in the free version.
Construction is not optimized to be perfect printable but for me, everything printed without support.
I do not have a 3D printer that is possible to be transfered to a toolchanger yet. All of the files are designed to work on my current printer Easythreed K1. This printer has geared stepper motors and thus has backlash on all three axis. The results will be different when printing on a printer without backlash.
passive-toolchanger was designed by [Martin Voelz]
passive-toolchanger is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License (CC BY 4.0)