CAUTIONARY NOTE
your printer needs to be very fine-tuned to make this part perfectly concentric. If it is not perfectly concentric, your hexagons will be imperfect - when I attempted this, the hex ended up being ‘tilted’. On a hex measuring 1.95mm flat-to-flat, it was tilted by 0.10mm. The model itself is perfectly concentric/hexagonal.
Background
I needed to make some tiny hex keys for mouse wheel encoders that were non-standard sizes. I had an R8 arbor for an ER16 collet set. I did not have a hex block. It turns out, there's no such thing as an R8 hex block because the R8 spec can't pass stock through - any hex blocks out there were DIY (or very very expensive compared to a 5C collet system).
Anyways, this works just fine aside from the printing tolerance note above.
Other materials
You will need a ~50mm bolt (M12x1.75 for mine) to secure the arbor. I also left an extra 5-10mm in the bottom for ‘my arbor is too long’ problems.
I used a fine-tip sharpie to colour in the letters.
You will obviously need an R8 arbor of some flavour. :)
Usage & functionality
The hex block was not the weak part of my milling setup. Functionally it worked perfectly (aside from print tolerance thing noted above).
Printing recommendations
- 40% infill, 4 perimeters, Prusaslicer 0.15mm STRUCTURAL preset, gyroid infill pattern.
- In one of the pictures you can see what happens when you use 0.20mm, 2perim, 0.20mm SPEED settings. Both models were subjected to the same test - the vise easily crushed one, and I was afraid of breaking the vise on the other. (PLA+)
- Print vertically, with the bolt hole on the print plate - no supports required.
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