Preassembled Pliers

This is a fully functional set of pliers that prints in only one piece. They work pretty well and cannot be disassembled unless they are broken.

One cool thing about the design is that it used only 10 boolean operations to make the entire model.

I was going through a box of old prints and I came across a pair of pliers. It was one of my first prints, and it didn't work very well. It was not the design, just my settings at the time. Nevertheless, rather than printing a new pair of the same pliers I decided to revamp them by making them print in place. It's more of a novelty than anything useful, but it was a fun design challenge :) I was inspired by the printed pliers (designed by russrobot) and all of emmett's print in place designs.

I would recommend the V2 file because it looks a little better, but it also has a tighter tolerance (800 microns), so it may not work as well on some printers. I am using a Solidoodle 2 Pro and the print came out almost perfectly for me. If you are having trouble with the V2 file try the V1. If it works than your tolerances are not tight enough to successfully print the V2.

I find that the design prints best on it's side, the way that it is oriented in the .STL file. I would recommend the MakerBot standard layer height (200 microns). The infill should be no less than 15%. I print with two shells and two bottom/top layers. I have only printed this model in PLA, but I don't see a reason that it wouldn't work with ABS. Once the print is done, simply use a sharp blade to wedge in between the two halfs on the tip and the base and snap them apart gently.

This is a video of how to prepare them. http://youtu.be/fd35CpxsiBk