This is a light duty pry bar that can also be a wedge for leveling something while working on it. If you need more height, and don't want to print extras, you can stretch it in the appropriate orientation. The original intent of the hex hole in the rounded end was originally intended to support drive 1/4" hex screwdriver bits, but I'm not a fan of having a pocket full of hex bits myself, so the horizontal expansion that I get in holes has never been something I've worried too much about with this. Also there is the question of how strong the material is for torque forces. There is a minor edge on either side of the nose end of the pri bar. This may be enough to break packing tape. I usually carry 2 with me at all times. One of the reasons it may drop in on it's side rather than vertically is that you will get a (hopefully) smoother wedge. Printing with either side face down is going to give you steps for each layer. This may actually be desirable in some instances, as it means that the wedge doesn't insert a lateral push if you are setting one upside down on the other as part of leveling your work. I will leave how you choose to orient the bar for your preference.

I tend to print these solid. Even with that you end up with a 1-5mm wedge that is made of whatever plastic you print with. You might get good results printing on edge or the larger flat surface with a continuous Fiber fill, I have not tested that.  This should print on any printer that has a bed that will give you 5 linear inches in any orientation to print with. I.e. if you happen to have that TronXY X1 with a 4"x4" bed, you should be able to print this on edge diagonally, and possibly oriented flat.

I've printed some of these against one of the long flat edges Taper as a surface, which gives a bit of a cross or diagonal layer pattern which may help with some strength. I have had at least one of these printed flat in PLA break on me when I exceeded the material strength. I don't have a metal printer, and haven't heard all that many good things about sintering filament, but it might work well as a milled project, either with an angle plate, or as stepped milling out of aluminum or one or another variety of steel.

This was one of my early efforts at using FreeCAD, and while not all elements of it worked exactly as I intended, I'm generally happy with it. It's been sitting in my collection for over half a year, and I haven't made any significant changes, but have printed some as handouts when I'm doing handyman work for family. Perhaps I should print some with embossed contact information in the wedge surface? We'll see.

A set of these may be useful for providing support under a warped board that you are running through a surface planer. On it's own, one gives you a lift of about 5mm, but you can stack 2 wedge to wedge for more height, and if you end up cutting two deep, and printed this in PLA, you're unlikely to be doing your planer blades any damage.

One of the more frequent uses of thes for me is to open folded boxes where there is a tab in a slot. This fits nicely in the slot, behind the tab, and allows me to easily pop that tab out of the slot.

They also make a great small piece that you can print one or a dozen of when you see that the filament spool is running out.

Pocket Pry Bar

PocketPriBar-Body.3mf

So you want to have a portable 20 meter full length dipole or one of the G5RV Jr. antenna's that you can get up off the ground quickly. Print up two of these. Stop by your local big-box store and pick up a couple of 24' or 32' telescoping paint poles, some rope, and 4 temporary dog run screws (they look like a piece of 3/8th inch stainless corkscrews that are a good foot and a half long with a triangle top, and a place to hook up a dog lead. (*OK these work well in dense soil, but if you have sandy soil, or muddy soil, they may not work out so well. Add a few Cement blocks for holding down the ground end of your guy wires. in addition to the screw, and try not to end up in the quicksand.) Figure out where you want your feed point to be, and how the antenna is going to be set up, and lay all that out. Guy lines should be pointing off at about 60 degrees from the line heading out from your antenna end points where the poles are going to be. If you're good with triganometry, you can calculate and pre-set where the guy lines should go into the gound, and how long they should be. At the very worst, go with a 3/4/5 ratio, with your mast being the '4', so divide that 24 or 32' by 4, giving 6 or 8, walk 18 or 24 feet out from where the mast is going to be, on each of those 60 degree angles, sink your screw into the ground, and  tie either 30 or 40 feet of guy line (not paracord, but a length of dacron antenna rope, not the stuff with an embed conductor either) and tie the other end off to one of the two identical rings on the adapter. Use either a zip tie, a carabiner or a carabiner with a pully all queued up for lifting your antenna up if you would rather do that, and a rope to tie off to the far end of the antenna. Extend out your telescoping paint stick, fit the screw through the center hole, with the rounded exterior at the top, and the handle end off between your guy points, and tighten all the fittings so that the pole remains extended. You should now be able to lift the pole up most of the way towards vertical, go to the other end, of the antenna and do the same. Make any final adjustments and antenna attachments at the center, then lift the poles to be vertical, and start making contacts.

I don't really recommend this for 30' and below, mostly because you will want a bit more clearance off the ground, but you may be OK with a pair of 30' poles, as long as you realize it's a compromise situation. I'm pretty sure you're looking to put in sime sort of a permanent solution in any case.

For such a setup, I recommend printing 2, perhaps a couple extras just in case, and giving them a paint job to seal them from rain infiltration, as that may affect the operating characteristics of the antenna. If you end up really liking this setup, the paint will probably be a help in time for keeping the UV from breaking down whatever you print with.

I've included an 'edge' with a 45 degree surface on it for printing if you want to reduce how much of the print is directly printed on the bed. When I use this I use Tree support to deal with the various hole edges that will otherwise be an issue. These do not 'screw' onto the end of the paint pole. They are unlikely to just blow off in my opinion. But you're perfectly welcome to remix using a paint pole screw hole model if you have one available, or want to slice one off of another model and replace the tapered cone at the top of this. 

This is a fairly simple model. I'm sure that there are a dozen of them out there. I put this one together so that I can have a setup for when I head out on a drive, I can set up a station at a rest stop along the way, and perhaps get some contacts made. 

Have fun, stay safe, and keep your paint poles away from power lines. Those are a really bad match for your rig.

PaintStick Antenna adapter with GuyWire links.

PaintStick_Guy_Antenna_v2-Body.3mf

Parks On The Air is a HAM or Amateur Radio activity where Amateur Radio operators go to city, county, parish, state or federal parks and set up a portable station and attempt to make contacts with other amateur radio operators, and demonstrate to park visitors some of the things one can do with Amateur Radio.

This assembly/model is intended to provide a simple spool solution that includes a ratchet, to allow an operator to set up and collect a long wire antenna while they are setting up and taking down, and provides a reasonably small package for keeping the antenna wire in an uncluttered package between events.

There are 5 parts. A base plate, a pawl, a ratchet spool side, a spool side, and a crank handle. You will need a 225x225 (X and Y dimensions, Z will fit on just about every printer out there) to print the baseplate. 

You will also need:
1 ea 3/4" (or longer) 5/16, or M8 bolt
( Optional - You may prefer a 1 and 1/2 inch long bolt with a nylock nut for this. The spool side of this provides me with a reasonably secure connection, however a locking bolt would prevent the spool from potentially unscrewing itself off the bolt.)
1 ea flat washer for 5/16 or M8 bolt
2 ea 16 mm M3 bolts
1 ea M3 Locking nut.
Appropriate wire for your setup. and a drill bit to open up the hole in the spool for the wire to secure the spool end of the wire to the spool center or side (There are designed in locations for these.)

I've printed mine in PETG for base plate and PAWL, and PLA for the spool parts and crank. Use whatever settings and materials provide the best results with your hardware. I will neither advocate for, or against using carbon fiber filled filaments however some people have observed some electrical characteristics with the material, so I'll leave that testing and debate to others.

The PETG parts were printed on a Bambu Labs P1S, and the PLA parts were printed on a Bambu Labs A1 Mini. All should print on anything from an Ender 3 to a Stratasys, so enjoy.

For most materials, if you are going to leave this in an outside environment for extended periods, it is a good idea to apply a paint that will block UV from attacking the material. I recommend doing that before assembly so you can mask off tight tollerance spaces, while treating all exposed surfaces.

Assembly:
Use superglue to assemble the ratchet side to the main spool. A couple of drops on the trefoil interface should provide a secure bond.
Feed the 5/16 bolt through the hole from the side with no raised features through the central hole of the baseplate.
set the washer on the spool side of this, and turn the spool onto the threads of the 5/16" bolt. Thread the spool down to just snug to the base plate, then back it off enough to allow the spool to turn freely relative to the base plate. If you elected to go with the longer bolt and a nylock nut, you will want to use a socket (either deep, or with an extension) and either a ratchet or handle appropriate to the socket to turn the nut to the point it provides a 'locked' fitting to the bolt, w/o snugging down the spool to he baseplate again. (You want that to spin.
Use one of the 16mm M3 bolts through the handle and through the hole on the side of the spool that the bolt fits through smoothly. Secure this with an M3 Nylock Nut. The crank handle should spin freely on the side of the spool, and the threads should not be extending so far into the spoo core that they cause issues with the wire you're going to be feeding in.
The second M3 bolt should fit through the hole on the Baseplate and thread onto the pawl. The pawl point should be oriented so that it can catch the ratchet ring of the spool, and the nub on the side of the pawl should fit one of the 2 notches in the baseplate raised portion at a good spot for the pawl to stay in place. It should also be loose enough to allow for the free turning of the spool with a light pressure on the thumb pad of the pawl when dispensing the wire, and light pressure against the other side of the pawl should give you a better feel of the ratchet action when retrieving your antenna to the spool.

Add wire for your antenna, a light duty, insulated stranded wire of 20-24 gauge (AWG) (I'm not sure what the equivalent is in metric) wire should work. Feed the wire through the eye in the feed end, and (after drilling out the appropriate hole per your preference, feed your wire through one of the holes in the spool, and either tie it off, or fold it over and crimp a ferrel onto it to prevent it from detaching from the spool. Now crank the wire onto the spool so that as you are cranking, the pawl slips over the ratchet catches, and if you stop spooling the wire the pawl prevents the wire from running free. This should be turning the spool in a clockwise direction as you are looking at the crank handle side of the spool, however if you have a reason for flipping things left to right specifically the baseplate, pawl and ratchet spool side, it may be counterclockwise. (Someone who wishes to operate this left handed may do this, or there may be other reasons.)

There is a hole in the corner under where your hand would normally hold the baseplate where you can attach some varieties of carabiners or a zip-tie, or some other lanyard solution, for securing the spooler where it is going to be in a safe place, and the antenna is going to be in an operational configuration. 

I advise reviewing your antenna building guides for a balun or unun to match this for your radio, and determination of whether you wish to have a counterpoise. 

I can see other uses for this if you wish. If you have a collection of mason line that is on cardboard spool cores that have gotten wet and failed, or you are looking for a means of pulling wire through conduit, or you would like a simple Kite Line spool, this may work for you. I imagine that you could put a fair amount of kite line on such a setup. You may want to add a metal guide to the feed guide to prevent the kite line from chewing through that though. It could also be used if you need to untangle some fishing line. I'm sure that there are other uses as well.

POTA Long Wire Spooler

POTA_LongWireSpooler-BasePlate_rev 1.3mf

Another Horizontal spool filament dispenser, this time designed to hold 3kg spools, with modifications the top side may hold other size spools as well. There ia a 175 mm throw for the feed arm for filament, meaning that any spool up to 350 mm (14 inches) with a 45 mm opening at the center, should feed through this feed system. The Filament may be fed through the slot, or the hole at the top of the feed arm. (the latter may help in some cases with preventing filament from spinning off the spool and getting caught under it. This also uses an LM11949 tapered bearing, not included,  If there is a need I can remix for a 608 bearing, but I don't consider that a recommendation. 

Spool3kgFilamentDispenser-Base.stl

Spool3kgFilamentDispenser-TopSide.stl

Originally designed as a spooless filament dispenser works well with many 1 kg plastic and cardboard spools of filament. Designed with the intent of using an LM11949 tapered bearing in common with the 3kg spool holder. Is not an AMS capable holder, though if you add a buffer for retraction, that may work. 

HorizontalFilamentDispenser-TopSide.stl

SpoollessFilamentDispenser-TopSide.stl

I'm hitting the road on Monday, Labor Day in the USA. I'm putting some 4000 to 4500 miles on whatever I drive. I observed with the new pickup that I have space under the back seat to put in a potentially useful rack for my ham and cb radios. I'm not convinced that the CB radio situation is what I'm looking for, so I may be picking up a new CB later today. It can be simple as the only "control" I'm going to have at the driving position is going to be the microphone. I do see that Cobra has something that might work though, where all the controls are all on the mic.As it stands (I'm still building it out) I'm going to have at least 3 radios that should be functional. A CB, a dual band Icom ID-800, and a single band Yaesu FT-1802. None of the radios are "new", though the D in ID for the ID-800 does stand for Digital, as it supports DStar, though I don't expect to be working any of those repeaters.The FT-1802 is my radio for APRS, It uses a TinyTracker3 as the APRS TNC, and I've mostly had good luck with it. Last couple of years it's been offline, mostly because where it was mounted in the old truck wasn't very conducive to accessing it, and it somehow got off frequency. That's not a good state to be in. One of the things I expect the new setup to correct.I'll be sharing the rack concept if it appears to work out well. No two of these radios "mounts" in the same way. I've debated re-designing one of the mounts for the rack to support the fact that the CB radio microphone plugs into the side of the radio, which makes the design of my rack for it a bit difficult. A different radio is in the works. Looks like it has a modular connector for the microphone (RJ48 variety)so I can extend that to the front seat.If everything works out, I'll be posting the models in both 3mf and step. One reason fro the latter is that I understand some folks prefer them for remixing, and this may be a good set of models to do that with. Add improvements like venting, making taller racks, or even interlinking vertically.So for the next couple of weeks I'll be on the road, pretending to have a good time, or something like that. Hoping all the best for everyone.

 I'm hitting the road on Monday, Labor Day in the USA. I'm putting some 4000 to 4500 miles on whatever I drive. I observed with the new pickup that I have space under the back seat to put in a potentially useful rack for my ham and cb radios. I'm not convinced that the CB radio situation is what I'm

Travel Time appoaching

No, I don't have a backlog... Well, OK, yes I do. I've been modeling for a while, mostly learning how to get more out of FreeCAD and my printers. Some of my prints may be of interest to ham radio operators, others may be of interest to carpenters. I'm also working on a fairly simple marking knife that looks like a stylus, and a stylus, and some jigs to hold parts of that for machining. One of my background projects has been making a 3d printed lathe. It takes ideas from some other projects, including some lathe parts I've seen elsewhere.In time I'm hoping to have enough 'good' (In my eyes) models that I can start selling some of my prints on Etsy, or other market places, but I'm probably going to hold off on that for a couple more months.For now, what I post here is going to be freely available for anyone. I'm currently debating whether my next model to be posted is going to be for hanging bar clamps on a wall, or for putting up a G5RV type antenna using a pair of extendable paint poles where the model also gives an option for guy ropes as well. This might be handy for some people for Field Day or Parks On The Air, or contests where operators want to operate remotely, but not mobile.In a couple of weeks, I'm going to be heading out of ton for a couple of weeks. Wouldn't mind finding out t hat people are interested in what I'm making.People may find me on X or FB, or even Discord. I'm not on Instagram, but if you're on the Fediverse, or using Mastodon (there are other interfaces) I can be found there @rusty@ma.zcx.cc.I also 3d print stamps for a local leather working shop. A bit of trivia there, I've yet to find a 3d printable material that will stand up to more than about 20 presses with a 20 ton press. And yes, that's what they use. So my skill set may eventually include metal casting... We'll see.Have fun, chase dreams, love life, and share. The universe may not care about fairness, but that doesn't mean you can't choose to.

 No, I don't have a backlog... Well, OK, yes I do. I've been modeling for a while, mostly learning how to get more out of FreeCAD and my printers. Some of my prints may be of interest to ham radio operators, others may be of interest to carpenters. I'm also working on a fairly simple marking knife t

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