Caliper Pen CaliPen by nerdCopter 3d model
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Caliper Pen CaliPen by nerdCopter

Caliper Pen CaliPen by nerdCopter

by Thingiverse
Last crawled date: 3 years ago
Based on https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4613254. You'll need parts from it as well. I'm including screenshot of original for completeness sake.
File 1: nerdCopter_Caliper_01_Pen.stl was the first version which does not take into account that PLA shrinks.
File 2: nerdCopter_Caliper_01_Pen_QUESTIONABLY_FIXED.stl is my attempt at fixing for PLA shrinkage.
Remix of pen-body is 100% from scratch.
This is WIP. still in testing. The idea is to use the 143-145mm ink cartridges from cheap ink pens as photo shows.
Full disclosure: i feel like this end-product is a novelty item, not a true measurement tool. The caliper-stop, is a bit loose, and maybe needs to be resize 99.9X% to be tight enough for proper friction-fit. The caliper-slide is near perfect for sliding, maybe 99.99% resize. The eraser-plug, maybe 100.4% for snug-fit. Maybe the caliper-stop and eraser-plug should be one merged unit :shrug:. I'm uploading GuppyK's original caliper-stop and caliper-slide 100% unmodified. I'm uploading his eraser-plug modded for symmetrical X,Y. Again, take note of my observations and recommended resizing which need to be done at slicing.

My learning process/progress.
2021 March 28: Designed. 2mm tip cavity; 3mm×3mm×3mm "end-stop" cavity; 3.8mm×3.8mm×135mm length cavity.
Printed vertically. Printed with variable layer heights.
Displeased with results. Variable heights and vertical PLA made for rough print. Ruler scale markings and layers were indistinguishable between each other. PLA shrinkage resulted in inability to insert ink-cartridge completely through to exit the tip.
Sanding smoothed it out (unfinished), but still indiscernible ruler markings.
I redesigned it for more cavity space...
2021 March 30: Printed the second version horizontally and without variable layer heights. This orientation proved to show good ruler scale markings; However, i forgot to support the tip which resulted in curls, overhang-failures, and a squished tip opening.
2021 March 31: quick print just the tip for size-proving.
INCOMPLETE: have not tested measurement scale accuracy.
2021 April 02: Used two plastic rulers against my good PLA print. Accuracy is only approximate due to PLA shrinkage. :(
Metric held better than Imperial.
TinkerCAD workspace: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/cSQQfIzFLhf

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