March Release - T-wist 5 Alpha1 (Patreon)

Today I have an actual hardware release for you guys! This is the T-wist mk5. It's a cable-driven twist mechanism that moves the weight and fragile electronics of the twist mechanism off the reciever and into a side-mounted box that sits opposite the pitcher mechanism.

This is an Alpha-level release to serve as a proof-of-concept. I'm just releasing the STLs and will be following up with a few refinements and build instructions next month. My advice is that newbies stick to T-wist 4 for the time being, however for those who want to give this a go I recommend that you check out my livestreams from this month (March 2024), and if you have any questions you can ask them in the #maker-chat area of the Discord server. Feel free to @ me there.

The BoM is as follows:

• 2x 7x3x3mm bearings (ie 7mm outer diameter, 3mm inner diameter, 3mm thick)

• A length of 3mm brass rod, cut to 42mm length

• A standard size servo (180 or 270 degree)

• A circular servo horn 

• 2x ~50cm 4mm PTFE bowden tube (as used on 3D printers)

• Steel fishing wire

• 3x M2x5 bolts and M2 washers - to secure the cable ends and centre point.

• 12x M3x8 bolts - to close the receiver and secure the servo horn to the drive gear

• 13x M3x10 bolts - to secure everything else!

I recommend lubricating the moving parts as in the earlier twist mechanisms.

Happy building!

Tempest

(The files are protected with the march password because of an ongoing Patreon security flaw. Check your email. As a $8 or $16 patron you should have received the passwords in your welcome email, but feel free to contact me if you have any trouble finding them. The files are also available on my discord server.)