Tiny Vice

I've made a few 3D Printed Vices these are popular for people who do electronics and less chance of shorting out any components.

On this occasion I thought I would have an attempt at a Tiny Vice and here is the outcome, the vice is designed from scratch and is all 3D printed including the screw thread, this size of vice will test the majority of 3D Printers out there as the tolerances are minuscule, I had to use a 0.2mm Nozzle for this print as the standard 0.4 Nozzle wouldn't print the text on each side of the vice.

Albeit modeled as a keychain/novelty item, the vice is fully functional, the screw turn turns and the slider travels up/down the vice and the vice will indeed grip.

I will take you through how the vice was designed, and there are quite a few off-sets used on both the slider garage and also the screw thread.

There are caveats to 3D printed threads, the slicer always needs a seam and whichever option you select can make the threads tighter, you can appreciate with a 4mm 3D printed thread one has to tread carefully and for this reason I printed the screw thread separately at 100% infill.

The initial part of this project is sketching up the vice, I don't use a sketch/drawing as such, I just start with dimensions on what I think will print ok within the design software.

When I design a component I look at how the part will print, I try to stay away from using support as on occasion this will marr the finish on the end component.

Rest assured, this Tiny Vice prints without support.

A 3D Printer with good tolerances on which you can change the tip/nozzle to 0.2mm

1.75 PLA

CA Glue

I start the sketch on the top plane and start with a rectangle, approx 30mm x 20mm in this case, I then sketch the channels that the sliding jaw will run along, the channels are extruded first to the length of the vice itself then the body of the static jaw can be extruded, all the angles of the channels are filleted to 0.2mm this helps the sliding jaw glide along smoothly.

Using the text tool, "TINY VICE" is sketched on each side of the vice and extruded to 0.3mm the main body will be printed vertically and no support will be needed.

The teeth for the Jaw and the shape of the rear of the body is added when the sliding jaw is modeled, then the parts can be mirrored and filleted to give a more aesthetically pleasing look as in the images.

I can now add the hole for which the screw turn will enter.

The idea is with this style of vice is that it needs no hardware, so to achieve this the sliding jaw will have a 4mm threaded hole, the main body hole will be 4mm and the thread itself will be length of the vice protruding into the end cap as a guide hole only, then end section of the thread is narrower 3.8mm and this will protrude through the main body and will have a snug fit turn knob secured with CA Glue this allows only the sliding jaw to travel up/down the vice channel.

The screen shot of the screw thread explains it better than I can explain it.

Note, each face of the thread is off-set -0.01mm there are 3 faces to a thread both externally and internally, this eases the action so to speak, so the sliding jaw thread is off set as well.

For some reason I modeled the end cap next, but ideally it would be the sliding jaw, doesn't really matter.

The end cap is sketched by projecting the end of the channels where the sliding jaw will travel along.

I initially sketch a line vertically from the outer channel projection and extrude these inwards 2mm and saved as a new body these you can call the locating pins when the end cap is glued in place using CA Glue, the full end cap to include the locators can now be extruded to 4mm allowing for an internal hole for the screw thread.

The screw thread size is 4mm so the hole which is a guide hole only is off-set to 4.2mm

The ends and top part of the end cap are filleted

The slider jaw is modeled using the main body to project the outline, a line is sketched horizontally along the top of the channels and this section can be off-set inwards 0.3mm in this case.

With the sketch complete extrude the projected sketch including the jaw section to the same diameter as the body jaw, save this as a separate body.

The teeth for the jaws can now be added, I selected the side of the main body and sketch a rectangle at the top of the jaws and used the rectangle pattern tool to add more of these rectangles downwards, 7 in total then extruded horizontally across the jaws, and now the vice has jaws with teeth to grip.

At this stage I can now cut off the front and back corners off on the jaws to make it look more like a vice, this is easily done with a simple line to each component, then extruded and filleted the edges to 1mm.

The Turn Knob is sketched by projecting the top threadless end of the screw thread, the off-setting this to a 4mm overall diameter, then extruded down until there is enough clearance between it and the body of the vice, you don't want it tight up.

Save as separate body and then project the top of the extruded part and extrude a further 1.5mm to form the cap, using the top face of the knob sketch a 2mm circle and extrude the top section of the circle the full depth of the knob, this will create a rounded gripper which then using the circular pattern tool more can be added, 10 I think on this occasion, the 2 component can then be filleted to 0.2mm this completed the turn knob, this component is printed open end up.

With any vice, the first thing to do is ensure that the sliding jaw glides up/down the channels easily, the off-set should achieve this and in this case it did.

The hardest part of this is assembly is ensuring that the thread fits into the slider jaw and to achieve this I ran a 4mm bolt through the jaw first and then a 4mm nut along the screw thread, this just cleans out the thread.

The Screw thread is printed on it's own and vertically, the slicer automatically includes a small brim to hold in place, if it's included with the rest of the components it messes with the thread, this has got to be precise for it to work.

With the screw thread screwed into the sliding jaw, slide along the channel until the unthreaded end of the screw protrudes through the main body hole, the end cap can now be glued into position, and finally apply a little CA to the hole of the turn knob and press into place on end of the threaded shaft.

As I said earlier, with 3D Printed threads, the slicer needs to put seams in on any component for some reason, and which ever way you go about it, they will always interfere with the smooth running of a thread, the thread on this vice is 4mm it works but it is fairly tight, on bigger vices I have increased the thread off-sets to achieve smoothness.

All in all the goal is achieved, this is a Tiny Vice which actually works, makes a nice key chain too.

Thanks for Looking.