The strength and flexibility of 3D printed ABS is far better than I anticipated. I can also comment on the fact that printing these clamps at 25% infill was strong enough to support a 10ft stick of PVC conduit dangling as I am installing the pieces together. I originally intended on installing one every two feet but quickly established it provided no benefit. I am super happy with how it has turned out and how it looks.
This is making me think about how I could potentially use this to clean up some of the other conduit mounting in CubicleLabs. The great thing about this design is that it is easily adjusted to accommodate for different sizes of conduit or different materials to clamp onto. The initial idea was that I would use a screw to secure the clamp into the I-beam by creating additional pressure but I ultimately decided to just reduce the throat size of the clamp. I then decided, that I am going to just design and 3D print my own solution in ABS plastic. They were either too expensive or they looked like an unnecessary amount of work to do a simple thing.
When researching components for clamps, I didn’t particularly care for any of the options.
Looking at my options, I really didn’t like the idea of drilling a bunch of holes in the rather thick outer, metal, skin of the building and I certainly wasn’t going to punch any holes in the structural beams to supports some wires. My plan was to run 3/4 inch conduit with two 20 Amp circuits. The west-bay are of my building doesn’t have any outlets which is highly inconvenient. I have shared it with the world wide web. I am not sure how useful this solution is for anyone but me but none the less. My solution was to design and install my own clamping system. I found some clamps that would work but they were too expensive and I didn’t particularly care for them. In short, I had some electrical conduit to run and I wanted to mount it along a steel structural I-beam in CubicleLabs. The great thing about having a 3D printer and open source CAD software is the ability to make accomplishing projects easier.
0 kommentar(er)
