Contact Machine by bobcap1957

Last crawled date: 3 years, 4 months ago

This is my version of the machine from the movie Contact. I love the movie and always thought it'd be cool to make one, So I did! It's still a little work in progress with the finishing touches but I thought I'd share it anyway.
I printed it on my Creality CR-6 SE printer. It doesn't show as an option.
The machine was printed without supports but the rings I added custom supports under the axles. I used 5x10x4mm bearings in all places that move. I bought the bearings off of Ebay. I needed to use a "W" drill bit to clearance the holes so all the bearings would fit tight. Be VERY careful drilling out the holes!! Slow speed and a steady hand. The Motor tower is designed to have a 5mm brass shaft run through it if you'd like to make it operational. The one problem I had with the brass is I needed to sand down the outside to get it to fit into the bearings. It was slightly oversized.
In the motor tower there is a bearing on the bottom and the top. There's 1 bearing where the ring axle comes into it. On the Support tower there are 2 bearings in there. One pushed to the back and one at the edge. If you want to make it a static model you will still need to add the bearings in the rings and the towers BUT you don't need to put the 5mm shaft in or the gears. If you do want to make it run, the gears need to have a hole drilled and tapped for a 4-40 set screw. I then put the gear on the shaft and fed it through from the top. Then I inserted the ring axle and placed the gear on it as I pushed it in. once all the way in I pushed the 5mm shaft up to engage the gears together.
The rings have the same bearings in them. I drilled them out with the "W" drill bit and inserted the bearing. Then I cut the ends of the axles off of each ring so they would just fit inside the bearings without going past the outer edges. I then covered the bearings with little cut pieces of 10mm Plastructs plastic. You can spread the rings to get them into each other. If you do it right they will spin wildly when you hold the #4 ring and spin it.
There is a bar on the Support arms that you could put a wire through to make them go up and down from a solenoid underneath. The motor I used is a 30 RPM motor with a 5mm shaft from Ebay. I tried to up load a video but can't seem to make it small enough to upload. :( I painted it with a Stainless Steel Rustoleum spray paint. Being careful to tape off all the bearings.
It was a fun project. I hope to completely automate it with the Support arms releasing first and then the machine start to spin. This will end up on my HO train layout in the near future.