Fitting the Tube Joints

By Tycho

Task: Mount the Tube Joints onto the Tube

Today we attempted to fit our tubes into our newly-printed Tube Joints. The tube joints, however, were at least 2 mm too small in the inside diameter, so we had to spend quite a bit of time sanding them down. We decided that this would be a good time to use the drum sanding attachment on our new Dremel. This helped speed up the process quite a bit.

Reflections:

In the end, the tube joints were still a bit too tight, and they ruined the ends of our cardboard tubes, flaring the walls out which constricted the pathway for the balls. We're going to need a quick solution to this problem so we can fix it if it happens during the competition, or just switch to a different kind of material that wouldn't have that problem (like plastic). Max also needs to rework design of the tube joints so that it has a smoother surface and maybe a slightly larger inside diameter.

Related Articles:

• First Tube Joint article
• Second Tube Joint article
• 3D Printing the Tube Joint