Pick-up tool mounts

[dlsmith]

I have a pick-up tool to pick up trash when I'm mowing my yard. Seems a lot of people seem to think my yard an the adjacent roadside is their personal landfill. So, I carry this on my BX tractor when I mow, and I didn't have any place or a way to stow it when not in use, so I came up with these clamps that attach to the ROPS cage on my BX2230. They are in two pieces, with a hole for a 1/4" bolt for a pivot, and another hole for a 1/4" socket head cap screw to clamp the pieces together. I designed them in Tinkercad and printed them with my 3D printer using PLA filament.
I also attached some thin (1/16") rubber strips to the inside of the long side of each half with 3M #77 adhesive keep them from sliding on the ROPS tubing.
They are designed for 1 1/2" X 3" tubing, and the clip for the pick-up tool is sized for the .480" diameter shaft.

If anyone is interested in printing a set, here is the link to them on Thingiverse, or PM me and I can send you the STL file.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3290923

 

[Benhameen]

Looks good!

I have a machete attached to my rops but I went the cheap route and used zip ties. Yours looks a lot nicer. ***128077;

 

[D2Cat]

DL, that looks as good as something can get! You better be careful though, folks see you out and about pick up trash with that fancy attachment and they'll be trying to hire you to clean the local park!! Nice job.

Where do you keep your trash bag (when on the tractor)? You surely don't just put a Walmart bag over you loader valve handles!

 

[dalola]

Nicely done!

I carry one of those on my ZTR when mowing. Really handy for grabbing sticks too big to mow over.

Living out in BFE, the only trash I would find would be my own!

 

[shootem604]

I live in a rural area but it is on route to a local fishing spot, and too many worthless slobs dump their garbage here on the way out. If I catch them... I feel your pain - good way of keeping up and not having to get off the tractor!

 

[dlsmith]

DL, that looks as good as something can get! You better be careful though, folks see you out and about pick up trash with that fancy attachment and they'll be trying to hire you to clean the local park!! Nice job.

Where do you keep your trash bag (when on the tractor)? You surely don't just put a Walmart bag over you loader valve handles!

Thanks D2. I have to admit, I'm always looking for some doodad I can make with the printer. Who knows what new accessory I'll come up with next for the Kubota.
No, not a Walmart bag, a Tractor Supply or Big R bag, they're sturdier and classier.

 

[85Hokie]

I too am a 3D printer want to be maker.....coming up with crazy stuff!

This is my latest ......the knobs on my subaru are hard to see in the daylight - easy to see at night.

the aluminum piece is an after market ....it is 20 thou too big, which means that has to be a shim placed inside....during cold weather the alum and plastic move a bit and the alum ring will come off.

so I drew a "new" over knob in my Autodesk Inventor software ......with a big ass notch! to cover......still need some tweaking !

 

[dlsmith]

I too am a 3D printer want to be maker.....coming up with crazy stuff!

This is my latest ......the knobs on my subaru are hard to see in the daylight - easy to see at night.

the aluminum piece is an after market ....it is 20 thou too big, which means that has to be a shim placed inside....during cold weather the alum and plastic move a bit and the alum ring will come off.

so I drew a "new" over knob in my Autodesk Inventor software ......with a big ass notch! to cover......still need some tweaking !

That's the nice part about a 3D printer, you can make a part and if it isn't just right, a little tweaking to the design, and you can print another one for a few cents in material.
I bought mt QIDI Tech 1on Amazon last year about this time (Christmas present to myself) and so far I have about 1200 hours on it and the filament odometer says I've used over 4800 meters. I've made everything from cookie cutters and puzzles for the grandkids to these parts for the Kubota. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

 

[Yooper]

Really nice design on your holder! How long did they take to print? Those 3D printers do have my curiosity piqued.

 

[JackJ]

Wow--nice! I'm going to come throw trash in your yard so I can watch you use it.

 

[dlsmith]

Really nice design on your holder! How long did they take to print? Those 3D printers do have my curiosity piqued.

It took about 3 1/2 hours to print, doing both pieces at the same time. I printed it using 25% infill and 3 layers on the top, bottom and sides to make it strong, so it took a little longer.

 

[Yooper]

If I read it right, you draw the design in an STL file and then the machine converts that to a CNC code? Or does the machine come with conversion software? Or maybe no conversion necessary? Or maybe I should just do some research and not ask these dumb questions.

 

[RCW]

Or maybe I should just do some research and not ask these dumb questions.

Yooper, don't feel like they're stupid questions.

I had to copy/paste the printer information to Google to figure out what one of those printers was...

I had seen them on "How It's Made" for commercial work. Was surprised by these for home use, and not anywhere near as expensive as I expected....

Kinda cool!

 

[dlsmith]

Nope, not stupid questions at all.

Okay, here is how I designed and printed it out.

I use and online CAD tool called Tinkercad. It is by the same people as AUTOCAD, one of the standards for CAD. With Tinkercad I used one of the stock components, which is a square tube which you can modify length, width, thickness, radius of the corners. I dimensioned it to be 1 1/2" by 3" inside the tube so it would fit over the ROPS tube.
Then I made two halves by duplicating it (only takes one click) and deleting one half of each one. I had to do it that way because there isn't a way in Tinkercad to cut one object in half to make two objects.
Then, I took another of the pre-made objects, a cylinder, and made the hinge bosses for the pivot, using another cylinder that is a hole, which will delete material when joined with a solid object. I also used a couple of circular shaped holes to make the holes for the pivot bolt, and to remove material of the hinge halves so they will mesh, i.e. a section from the center of one boss and some from the top and bottom of the other half.
I used the same type of process to create the boss where the socket head cap screw joins them together, using circular and rectangular shapes of solid objects and holes, including a hex shaped one to create a recess for the nut for the cap screw to engage.
After I got the design finished, I saved it to my computer as an STL file (Stereo Lithography File) and then loaded it into a program called Simplify3D, which takes the object and slices it into layers .2 mm (about .008") thick, which is the thickness of the layers of plastic my 3D printer lays down on each pass. I also creates a honeycomb interior inside the object of the density you chose, known as infill. It also creates support structures for areas of the object, like the hinge bosses, that have no supporting structure on the part, including inside the horizontal bolt hole for the socket head cap screw. When I have all the parameters to my liking I can tell it to build the object, and it will show an animation of how the printer will build it up a layer at a time. If it looks good, I can either save it to an SD card and insert it into my printer, or using an USB cable, send it directly to the printer. Either way, the printer will read the instructions, or Gcode, and head up the build surface and the extruder nozzle and start laying it down on the build plate.
I know it all sounds complicated, but once you learn the basics, you can do a lot of neat things with it.
There is a site called Thingiverse that has millions of objects you can download for free. and it is amazing to see what others can create. I have a few objects posted there for others to download and use.

Hope that answered a few questions.

 

[85Hokie]

If I read it right, you draw the design in an STL file and then the machine converts that to a CNC code? Or does the machine come with conversion software? Or maybe no conversion necessary? Or maybe I should just do some research and not ask these dumb questions.

Yooper,

most CAD packages dont "work" or create in an STL. (STL stands for stereolithography or Standard Triangle Language -made up name) However the CAD native software typically has an export to a STL file.

Once the STL file is created - it must be run through a SLICER software, this sound complicated but it really is simple. ON a brain scan, the doctor uses a MRI to take layered pictures of the brain, one small slice at a time - this is somewhat the same as what the slicing software does. This software is free or comes with the 3D printer that you buy. The slicer looks at the model and "builds" the image from the bottom up, one slice at a time and that is how the 3D printer kinda builds the model.

AS Dlsmith said - the process is rather simple, like learning all the knobs and levers on the tractor! Once you get the big "picture" it is not hard.

As a kid, there was a "toy" that involved squiring wet sand on top of each other, building the "castle" on squirt at a time.

The filament is 1.75 mm in diameter and is forced through an extruder (think spaghetti) then it is heated and squirted out at .25/.4 mm as it lays down a layer at a time.

Each layer can be solid or "hollow" depending on what is desired. The more you fill the longer the process. I have a nephew that I made a LEGO brick for a while back, it was a typical lego at a scale of 800% (about 6" long") and by mistake I had the infill at a higher number than I should have......it took 27 hours to print !

A 1 kilo weight of filament which is 300 meters long cost about 20 bucks - and you can print a lot of stuff with 300 meters of little plastic!