Articulated Bucket Loader

Chunky print-in-place wheels are fun! But that's not what drove (har har) this model - it was, as you probably guessed, the bucket. The wheel part is trivial in the scheme of things, but keeping the bucket viably printable without it being high risk of unbalancing and coming off the bed was most certainly a challenge!

The axis around which the bucket rotates is the key piece here - it bears the weight of the initial strut until the print catches up with the rest that's converging from the bucket end, and so maximising the footprint of that part was essential. So, the footprint got larger, but there's a limit to how far that could go without compromising the vehicle body itself. I didn't want to encroach any further towards the perimeter of the body, but there was still space available on the side away from that spot.

So, that's why there's a slotted tab that moves with the bucket. It looks like a range-limiting mechanism but there's actually no need for such a thing as the rest of the body interior handles that anyway; it's purely there to slightly increase the contact patch of the pivot point. That said, it does also work as a range limiter, even if it's a redundant one!

The rest of the model design was all around finding angles that avoid overhangs since the whole thing prints on its side!

Print Description

This is an articulated, print-in-place model so make sure your first layer is nice and neat and that there aren't any print artifacts like stringing or overextrusion that might bond moving parts together! You may get warnings about floating parts being present in the model - it's the bridging in the bucket and in the bucket strut. This is intended, and doesn't need support. The bridges are all designed to be friendly to the slicer with neat rectangular lines.

Print Dimensions

The loader occupies 70mm x 197mm on the print bed and is 70mm tall.

Supports Needed?

Not at all!  Designed for straightforward printing!

You may get warnings about floating parts being present in the model - it's the bridging in the bucket and in the bucket strut. This is intended, and doesn't need support. The bridges are all designed to be friendly to the slicer with neat rectangular lines.

Scalability

The tolerances are quite generous, so the loader should scale down quite well, and the joints are large enough to keep things together if it's scaled up, too.

Print Orientation

The loader prints on its side, cabin-down.

Further Thoughts

A handy tip that Courtney from Filament Stories gave me once for these sorts of wheels is that adding some light oil to the moving parts can make it vastly smoother! The model already reduces contact area in the wheel assembly to reduce friction, but filament is still pretty rough. So, oil it is!

Happy printing!

xoxo

Sven.

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484 Articulated Loader