[DIY] Soft Handle for Threaded Barbell - 3D Print

 

A threaded barbell is the goto tool for training wrist rotation in my climbing gym. But the thread is darn uncomfortable when using heavy weights. So I designed this thread-on TPU handle that makes workouts much more pleasant.

Fusion360 CAD (messy), STEP, STL and 3MF files are on Github

Feel free to copy, remix, whatever (non-commercially) 

Happy printing to all !

 

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 Settings with Siraya TPU Air filament

• 250°C nozzle temp, 0.74 flow  → 75A Shore hardness
• 0.4mm nozzle, 0.2 layer height
• 2 walls, 2 top, 2 bottom
• Concentric top / bottom surface pattern
• 20% Adaptic Cubic infill
• Infill Combination on 

TPU Air is a great filament. Very grippy / spongey, and its hardness can be dialed from 82A to 66A just by changing the nozzle temp from 240 to 270°C. Initially tried Bambu Lab TPU for AMS and Overture TPU High Speed 95A, but they were way too hard and slippery.

 

Feeding very soft TPU is problematic on my H2S, even more so than on the P1S. So I had to direct-feed the filament, which was eventless thanks to this spool holder hanging from a shelf:

CAD

 

The thread for barbells is non standard. Measurements hinted at 1" ACME screw thread stretched 25% in the Z direction. Worked perfectly.

Also, as TPU Air heavily sags on the thread's steep overhangs, the thread's sides had to be offset by -1.7mm total to get a smooth install on the barbell.

 

Finally, the grip rings on the outside could have been designed in CAD but were added as texture instead, thanks to the free locally-running browser-based BumpMesh tool from Stephan from the great CNC Kitchen Youtube channel

Great tool, will definitely come handy for more complex textures. Until the day slicers integrate texture painting, which would save time compared to using separate applications like BumpMesh, MeshTexture, FormLabs Texture Engine, IdeaMaker, etc.

 

But for now no more excuses, time to hit the wrists hard. On n'est pas là pour rigoler !