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02 · Press-activated fidget mechanism · printed and fit-tuned

Clicker

A plunger, a guide collar and a flexure leaf: one press, one click, back again.

My own fidget of choice was a clicky pen, pressed under the desk through every exam. The Clicker takes the one part of the pen that mattered, the click, and builds a tool around it.

Download my files How it works

01The mechanism

How it works.

What this one taught me: Compliant mechanisms: a flexure leaf is a spring with no spring in it, and its thickness decides the feel of the click.

The outer housing is a stable base. A guide collar surrounds a vertically moving plunger and keeps it straight. On top sits a wider thumb cap, the surface you press.

Inside the housing a flexure leaf, a thin flexible strip, sits beneath the plunger. Pressing the cap pushes the plunger down its guide and bends the leaf; releasing lets the leaf push the plunger back towards its starting position.

The design is about a single repeatable action, pressing and releasing, and about making a printed part act as a spring.

02Parts

Every part, named.

Dimensions are from my STL files. Parts without a file are printed as part of a neighbour or are plain primitives in the model.

  • Housing55 by 42 mm base with the plunger boreSTL
  • Plunger14 mm diameter, 12 mm travel columnSTL
  • Thumb cap22 mm pressing surfaceSTL
  • Flexure leaf40 by 4 by 1 mm test strip; thickness tuned by printingSTL
  • Guide collarPrinted as a ring; a plain cylinder in the modelNo file

03Files

Print it yourself.

Shared under CC BY 4.0. My Python script rebuilds the assembly in Blender 3.6 or later from primitives and animates it; the STL parts are the printable components and may need fit tuning for your printer.

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Printed one? Tell me.

If you print one of my designs, or change one, send me a photo. Remixes are the point.

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