Help designing an asymmetric bar spinner?

Questions & Help
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I’m attempting to create an asymmetric vertical bar spinner for my 454g US antweight, but I have no idea what I’m doing lol. I’m a high schooler who’s never taken a physics class, and my CAD skills are limited at best. Any help is appreciated! (Picture is of my current design.)

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Team panic has a great video which really helped me.

Having said that, I’m also using fusion, rather than tinkercad (i assume that’s what your using.) if your school uses it, go ask to be added to the list or whatever so that you can use it for free. TinkerCad is great, but as much as I know, it just isn’t capable enough to make a bar spinner - you need a Centre of Mass tool.

Go sign up for fusion or do a free trial or something, and then watch the team panic video on it. Make sure you change the component’s material so that you can check its weight too.

Here’s mine, made in fusion for a UK ant.

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and here it is post CNC (man, that’s satisfying):

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hope that helped,

Ollie

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Thanks, Ollie! I’m currently in the process of getting Fusion approved by my school principal, and it seems like it’ll be a huge help! Would you mind linking that Team Panic video?

Cheers!

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For what it’s worth fusion is free for hobbyist use (though it does come with limitations) so you can grab a personal copy today.

The long and the short of it you’ll be basically making sure that the centre of gravity (or centre of mass) is on the point that your weapon will rotate around.

I still tend to do mine in a very ugly, binary way. Designing my impacting side first just adapting the counterweight until I get the CoM on the spot.

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My general process is:

  • draw shape I want (with a focus on tooth geometry)
  • look at CoM and if it’s miles off where I want it add/subtract material to get it very loosely where I want
  • scale the shape to the effective diameter I want
  • max zoom in on com and punch the holes through the body for shaft/bearings/mounting hardware

Seth’s video series covers basically the broad strokes on everything you’d need to know

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Thanks for your help, everyone!