Any 3d print tips for arduino

Hey everyone! I'm new to microcontrollers, and so far, Arduino has surprised me with both fun and educational experiences for someone who has no prior knowledge of this. So I'm asking you, do you have any fun and useful accessories for microcontrollers? I mean 3D prints that are handy to have. :grinning_face:

Best Regards : Lasse

Hi @woodgaard. An "accessory" for my Arduino boards that I find very useful is something to protect the exposed conductive surfaces on the bottom of the board from being shorted by any conductive items on the work surface.

While working on electronics projects, it is common to end up with a bunch of cut component leads and other conductive debris on the work surface. If you accidentally place a powered Arduino board on top of this debris, it could cause some problems (either physical damage, or the board not behaving as expected).

The relevant official Arduino boards come with a plastic tray attached to the bottom, so you are all set if you are using one of those boards:

πŸ“·

A000073_01.iso_643x483.jpg by Arduino - CC BY-SA 4.0

But if you are using a board that doesn't have a tray like that, a 3D printed one might be a nice accessory.

This type of accessory is not relevant for boards like the Nanos that are designed to be plugged into a solderless breadboard during development work. In that case, the breadboard serves as the protection.

I don't have a 3D printer, so on relevant boards that don't come with a tray, I use screws to attach some standoffs to the bottom of the board. These act as feet that elevate the board enough above the work surface to ensure it doesn't touch any debris.

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Hello woodgaard

Take a view here to get some ideas:

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If you want to explore a little, type "Arduino" in the search bar and you're sure to find something interesting.

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Thanks for the tip :grinning_face: I appreciate it. Yes, I got the transparent case and an orange case. The instructions said that I should remove the transparent one? Very smart so that the electronic components don’t get damaged. I can print one for you if you want? Do you have any other tips? Like something useful to have?

Allready did, i just wounder yours personally tips or something its great to have

I haven't seen those. Were the instructions for the orange case? If so, it definitely makes sense that you would remove the clear tray when using the board with a case. But otherwise I would recommend leaving the tray on the board as the protective function is useful.

I have found that the tray can be a bit inconvenient if you are working with different shields, as when you remove the shield from the board, the force can be enough to instead remove the board from the tray (the board is held in the tray by pressure). If you encounter that problem, it can be easily solved by attaching the board to the tray with some screws. There are mounting holes in the board's PCB and the tray that can be used for that purpose.

I am all set with protection for my beloved collection of boards, but I very much appreciate the offer. Thanks!

Lead Bender

An axial through hole component lead bender jig could be a useful tool:

https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=lead+bender

I think this one has the traditional form:

but it looks like the 3D printing community came up with some other interesting designs, so maybe worth evaluating the others.

IC Pin Straightener

https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=ic+pin+straightener+bender

This is a useful tool if you are frequently working with bare ICs in the DIP package (e.g., making an Arduino board on a breadboard). The ICs come from the factory with the pins splayed out a bit. We must bend them inwards just a little before they will have the correct alignment for insertion into a breadboard, stripboard, perfboard, etc. You can do that by hand, so there isn't a need for a special tool if you are only ever going to do that a few times in your life. However, doing it by hand is a bit inconvenient and prone to error, so if you are working with such chips regularly the tool can be quite useful.

IC Puller

https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=ic+puller

This is another useful tool if you are working with bare ICs in the DIP package.

If you are using an IC in a solderless breadboard, or an IC socket, when you try to remove the IC you will find it requires a surprising amount of force. To make matters worse, the pins on one end of the chip tend to come free before those on the other end. So if you aren't very careful, you could end up severely bending the pins during the removal, and this causes metal fatigue that can eventually result in the pins breaking off.

So a special tool for removing ICs can be very useful to have.

My off the shelf tool has metal "jaws" and I am a bit skeptical about whether 3D printed plastic is up to the mechanical requirements. But I'm also not very knowledgeable about the capabilities of 3D printed parts so it might well be that a 3D printed tool would work perfectly well, especially when it will be used infrequently.

This is my goto Nano proto assembly I 3D printed.

Get comfortable with a CAD tool and create your own stl's.

Invest in an insert kit

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