- Joined
- Jul 28, 2017
- Messages
- 2,565
A coax jacket-stripper, that is.....
I found some 3D printed wire strippers and tried one, but none of its alignment features was quite right for the RG174 coax I'm using. They either produced an insufficiently-deep cut, or went all the way through the wire shielding. I started working on my own but discovered that the margin between the two situations was pretty small. So rather than burning through a lot more filament I made one that includes a fine-adjustment screw. The one shown uses a 4-40 screw with a captured nut and an external locknut. Due to the ridge on the corner of the top piece, I can't see the gap but I know it's there -- because this version WILL cut through the shielding w/o the adjustment feature.
One thing I did that's not too easy to see in this photo is that the pocket for the utility knife blade is rotated clockwise by about .6 degrees. So when the top piece is pushed down it's in complete contact with the blade, no gap at either end. I did that to make it easier to calculate the depth of the "vee" needed to get the right depth of cut and just left that feature in place when I went with my fine-adjust scheme.
I was able to adjust this one to produce a perfect cut through the coax jacket. I thought it would be handy for other coax sizes so I added some text to make it easier to use the correct one, but it didn't print all that well. Good enough, though. Sez the engineer in me . I _have_ increased the size of the text since I printed this one but I don't plan on printing another one just for that.
It would be pretty easy to modify this design to use a single-edge razor blade instead of the utility knife blade. But if I do that I would change the design so the horizontal location of the razor blade isn't fixed, it can slide back & forth. This would use much more of the blade before it needs to be replaced. And yes, I wash and re-use ziplog bags, too
I acknowledge the fact that my design isn't the prettiest in the world but it will get the job done. This one uses esun PLA+ on an old Ender 3.
I found some 3D printed wire strippers and tried one, but none of its alignment features was quite right for the RG174 coax I'm using. They either produced an insufficiently-deep cut, or went all the way through the wire shielding. I started working on my own but discovered that the margin between the two situations was pretty small. So rather than burning through a lot more filament I made one that includes a fine-adjustment screw. The one shown uses a 4-40 screw with a captured nut and an external locknut. Due to the ridge on the corner of the top piece, I can't see the gap but I know it's there -- because this version WILL cut through the shielding w/o the adjustment feature.
One thing I did that's not too easy to see in this photo is that the pocket for the utility knife blade is rotated clockwise by about .6 degrees. So when the top piece is pushed down it's in complete contact with the blade, no gap at either end. I did that to make it easier to calculate the depth of the "vee" needed to get the right depth of cut and just left that feature in place when I went with my fine-adjust scheme.
I was able to adjust this one to produce a perfect cut through the coax jacket. I thought it would be handy for other coax sizes so I added some text to make it easier to use the correct one, but it didn't print all that well. Good enough, though. Sez the engineer in me . I _have_ increased the size of the text since I printed this one but I don't plan on printing another one just for that.
It would be pretty easy to modify this design to use a single-edge razor blade instead of the utility knife blade. But if I do that I would change the design so the horizontal location of the razor blade isn't fixed, it can slide back & forth. This would use much more of the blade before it needs to be replaced. And yes, I wash and re-use ziplog bags, too
I acknowledge the fact that my design isn't the prettiest in the world but it will get the job done. This one uses esun PLA+ on an old Ender 3.
Look good though . 