:work in progress: alt-THumbs home page

::Thangs is too broken for me to finish submitting my entry. Had fun, don't care. Might come back when it matures.::

Short a thumb or three? Finding yourself lacking when it comes to being able to express just how much you approve of something in a non-verbal way due to insufficient length or girth in your current anatomy? Just bored with the bland symmetrical quadrupedal body layout that biology dealt you? alt-THumbs might be what you were longing for!

This project aims to be a contemporary bridge between modern adaptive prosthetics and transhumanist aspirations (the "TH" in alt-THumbs stands for Transhumanist, which I thought was clever after ignoring diurnal biological impulses for too long) using the bleeding edge technology of the 1980's - 3D printing! The project focuses on mechanical freedoms afforded to us by readily available manufacturing processes and materials. A wide range of skills are critical to the expansion of the project, and community contributions are highly encouraged.

This serves as a landing page for the project, where links to components and example designs are listed. Overall BOM listed at the bottom.

Included below is the link that holds the project together, a simple joint analog, the interphalangeal element, which is a physical component that lets the entirety of the project get going, literally. A master list of relevant links (the electronic kind, not the physical kind) will be broken into two sections - components and builds, in their own subsections at the bottom of this description. Component links will have detailed print instructions and relevant design considerations, while the build links are higher level assembly guides. Feel free to use these as jumping off points to find a solution that's right for you, and share it in accordance with the license attached.

interphalangeal element

This element connects the phalangeal elements by sliding into their grooves. Ideally this would be printed in vase mode sequentially to get your required quantity with 1.2mm extrusion widths, but the thickness determines the force with which the joints are articulated, so feel free to play with the extrusion widths. I experimented with 0.6mm extrusion widths up to 100% perimeters, and the model was modified to accommodate any of these. If not printed in vase mode, make sure seams are set to random, and use the highest layer height available to you. an additional solid model has been added if you're having slicing issues.

Components list: (coming soon) interphanageal elements -standard element https://thangs.com/Trukku/work-in-progress-altTHumbs-home-page-hallowearables-27272 -solid element https://thangs.com/Trukku/interphalangeal-element-soild-27356 proximal phalanges https://thangs.com/Trukku/proximal-phalanx-27375 intermediate phalanges https://thangs.com/Trukku/intermediate-phalanx-27433 distal phalanges https://thangs.com/Trukku/distal-phalanx-27364 mounting plates retaining clips phalangeal pads

============================== General BOM (tinyurl used due to character limit)

Entirely too many m3 hex cap screws and nuts https://tinyurl.com/prf56tsp

Monofilament fishing line (30lb is a safe weight, as I had some issues with 8lb breaking) https://tinyurl.com/a53knz8w

3/4" or 20mm elastic band https://tinyurl.com/2z48s8dm

LiPo charge/boost board https://tinyurl.com/2vsj4xna

Servo trigger https://tinyurl.com/54ceu42u

Servo (sparkfun ROB-11885) https://tinyurl.com/2paz5tn5

LiPo battery (sparkfun PRT-13856) https://tinyurl.com/s4z2xzwr

Mini push botton on/off switch https://tinyurl.com/32f9482a

TPU and PLA filaments of your choice, but these are the ones I used https://tinyurl.com/2vxv9dhb https://tinyurl.com/y2r5dhx7 https://tinyurl.com/4kadwwrc

Miscellaneous jumper wires or header pins for assembling the boards https://tinyurl.com/wm52773w