The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

The New Hotness

  • Laser-cut Profile Test Pieces

    A new battery for my electrified Tour Easy recumbent arrived. It has newer 21700 lithium cells in the same overall box, but the baseplate requires new blocks adapting it to the frame:

    UPP Battery Mount - solid model
    UPP Battery Mount – solid model

    The top profile fits snugly into the battery mounting plate, with clearance on the sides for the latches:

    UPP Battery Mount - trial fit
    UPP Battery Mount – trial fit

    However, I had enough trouble measuring those recesses that I broke down and added a projection() view to the OpenSCAD code:

    UPP Battery Mount - profile
    UPP Battery Mount – profile

    Exporting that as an SVG image and importing it into LightBurn let me cut it out of chipboard:

    UPP Battery Mount - laser cut profiles
    UPP Battery Mount – laser cut profiles

    Obviously, it took several iterations to fit the top profile to the baseplate, particularly after finding slightly different measurements at each block position. On the other paw, laser cutting the profiles proceeded much more quickly than 3D printing just a few millimeters of the block, so it was a net win.

    The new battery baseplate doesn’t have an internal space for the buck converter feeding the running lights, so there’s more construction ahead.