Tantillus Reborn

Chapter 1 – Housing

The housing of the original Tantillus from 2012 consists of lasered acrylic glass plates (PMMA aka Plexiglas) which are inserted into one another and then joined together using printed parts only.
This seemed to us to be unstable, untrue to angle and unaccurate to size.

The case of our Tantillus R has been redrawn from scratch. Especially due to its stiffeners and the degree of detail, it differs considerably from the original.

We wanted 5mm acrylic glass. Even if acrylic glass has some small weaknesses, it is a great material, especially since it can be cut very well, cheaply and true to size with a CO2 laser.

There is also a completely printable housing version of the original Tantillus, but we have decided against such a version. Printing time, filament consumption and dimensional stability can be classified as sub-optimal.

Nevertheless, when designing the housing and all components mounted on it, we attached great importance to a possible variety of materials. All modules are designed in such a way that they always refer only to the internal dimensions of the housing.
Whoever changes the drawings of the housing plates minimally can also produce the housing from 3mm sheet steel, 4mm aluminim or dibond or even 6mm plywood.

The housing parts are all provided with pin connections. As a result, they align themselves with each other and, once screwed together, form a stable housing.

Mounting instructions:

remove protective films from the lasered individual parts
carefully and gently insert the housing plates into each other
screw parts together

Carefully and gently treat the individual acrylic glass sheets. Once the housing is assembled, it is very stable.
Tighten screws only until they are tight, do not tighten further by force!
Do not try to tighten gaps between housing parts with the screws!
Do not force plates into each other, it simply works better with patience!
Acrylic glass likes to punish selective overload with a crack.

Variations:

5mm MDF/HDF

Acrylic is unfortunately not a very cheap material. If you are looking for the lower end of the price scale, you can also laser a 5mm thick MDF/HDF housing. The material costs for a housing are only a few €. MDF/HDF lasers itself with almost identical cutting parameters like acrylic glass, the basic costs for the laser remain the same overall.
The boards made of wood fibres can permanently draw humidity, a treatment with oil or wax may make sense. However, nothing usually happens in dry rooms.

6,3 mm Multiplex, milled

Shortly after the release of the TR, the user helijoy adapted the housing for the use of 6.3mm multiplex in the RepRap forum and presented its milled version.
Thank you very much. From such a participation lives an opensource project.