Miniature Vice 2.0 - No metal parts required by HD_Creator

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This is an "upgrade" for my very popular miniature vice, which is published here:https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/53471
From all the feedback that I got, the most common one was that it is hard to get hold of the required M6x70 screw, especially in the UK and the US, due to their usage of imperial size screws.
So I experimented and finally came up with this 3D printed screw, which is much more sturdy than I ever could have expected. I have tested it in my load test machine, which reached it's limit at roughly 150kg (1.5kN) without being able to rip the screw apart.
The screw needs to be printed in the uploaded orientation, i.e. laying flat on it's side. The nut insert should be printed in the uploaded orientation, the thread upright. Thanks to the used 45° flank angle, that will work fine even in budget printers (tested on a Ender3Pro).
As the screw head is not a regular hex head, you will need a specific hand knob, which is also part of this publication. All other parts of the vice can be used as-is.
Important post-printing hint:
Depending on your printer, the screw and the insert may not seem to fit well right after printing. But after two or three times of screwing the screw completely into the insert (at it's full length) the thread will work like a charm. It simply takes a little bit of run-in to make all the imperfections go away.
For this particular part I explicitly recommend PLA. It is quite strong (stronger than PETG), it is hard (which is good to avoid surface wear-out) and it becomes soft at relatively low temperature. The latter is an advantage in this case, as it speeds up the initial wear-in. As long as the friction is high, the surface will worm up while you screw the parts together, which in turn will help to smoothen the surface until everything runs lights. Once there is no noticeable friction any more, the will be no warm-up.