I remember when Thingiverse first launched, there were all sorts of awesome looking 3D printable design made available. I was like a kid in a candy shop, sorting through all the eye candy that was suddenly available for me to print out at home. As time has gone by, we are beginning to see the creation and open sourcing of 3D printable designs which are not just neat to look at, but ones which serve useful purposes in everyday life. While we are finally beginning to see an emergence of new materials within the FFF/FDM 3D printing space, it ultimately is up to designers to determine how far this technology will take us, and how quickly it will occur.
Luckily the internet is filled with creative minds, those looking to 3D print objects which can provide benefit to our everyday lives. One designer, named Xuexuan Chen, who happens to be a software engineer for Google in Switzerland, has created a 3D printed automatic coin sorter, that anyone can print out at home on their FDM/FFF based 3D printer.
The Auto Coin Sorter is available to download on Thingiverse, totally free of charge. It is available in four different version, covering four separate currencies: The US Dollar, Euro, Swiss Franc and Canadian Dollar.
“To store a coin, you may release [it] from the right-most top, and it will slide down the hill and go into the right tube,” explained Chen. “To get a coin, you may pull the whole rack out and take out any coin.”
While this can printed on virtually any 3D printer with a large enough build volume, Chen printed his on an Ultimaker 2 using Cura Software. The design is printed in several parts, including the ‘top board’ which he recommends printing with a shell thickness of 2.4mm, and bottom/top thickness of 1.5mm; the base box, which is best printed with a shell thickness and bottom thickness of 1.2mm, as well as a retraction length of 3mm; and the individual sorter tubes, which should be printed with the same settings as the base box. The complete recommended settings may be found in the instructions posted by Chen on Thingiverse.
This is just another great example of a design which could be quite useful to those needing to make their lives a bit more efficient. What do you think about the Coin Sorter? Have you 3D printed one yet? Discuss in the 3D printed coin sorter forum thread on 3DPB.com.