This thing is a pair of compound forceps or tweezers. Four "live" joints, consisting of thin flexible sections, are arranged into a diamond pattern. This produces increased mechanical advantage and gripping force.
I have found that the live joints used in this design are very tricky to produce with a 3D-printer. The fatigue life seems to be very sensitive to the thickness and radius of curvature of the joints. This thing is actually the fourth design iteration that I have been through in order to get acceptable service life from the joints. Under normal usage I get a few hundred cycles of actuation before one of the joints fails; good enough for a disposable tool that prints in 15 minutes.
| compound_tweezers_v4.STL | 589.0KB |
