Experimentals: The Series Vol. 3

INTRO: You will see this before every Experimentals volume.

The gears are always a turning in my head. So many ideas that normally just fizzle due to time or complexity. Those that make their way to the virtual workbench I might just post up here. I want to showcase some of the ideas that I have had that seemed like a good idea at some point. What you may see here are 3D prints that are probably not final revisions, but most likely the starting point of an idea that deserves discussion or further development. Sometimes I get some idea for a product that just seems cool and sometimes they are a real solution to a problem I have had.

Above is a 3D printed wire holder thingy. It is made to slide on those driveway markers you can find at your local hardware stores. It fits pretty snug so not to slip too much. This project came about when I attempted to homebrew a cubical quad antenna using 3D printed parts. Instead of using those arrow parts or printing my own version and then not being able to accurately get the length of the spreaders, I decided that some sort of adjustable keeper would be needed. This would allow you to oversize the length of your driveway marker fiberglass rods and use these on each end to tension your elements perfectly, even if you have to cut to tune the wire. I haven't tried these out on a real antenna yet, so this is why it has ended up in my Experimentals page. I would like to think that these could be super-glued in place once the quad has been perfected, with perhaps 1 being left unglued in case you wanted to disassemble the antenna for storage or portable transport.