I had a few requests to publish the model files for my polycarb thickness checking tools for inspection. We’ve been using these for the last season here in Arizona, and they’ve served as a smaller and cheaper replacement for the Ref Tool I published back in 2023 when it comes to measuring plastic thickness. The small size also makes it very easy to fit into even the most crammed area of a robot to check plastic thickness.
There are two versions:
- A smaller version with only a slot for checking a single plastic sheet’s thickness.
- A larger version with a second wider slot for checking the thickness of two plastic sheets stacked on top of each other (0.14"). This was super useful last season as stacked polycarbonate was very common in Arizona. I suspect this may be less common this year though given the plastic limits. Only time will tell.
Printing Instructions
Printing is super simple, just print them upright and you’ll need no supports, and you’ll also ensure the slots are as dimensionally accurate as possible. Infil is variable, you’ll generally want at least 10% and a couple perimeter walls to ensure the part doesn’t deflect super easily. As for material, I generally print these in standard PLA. I have oversized each slot by 0.01" which gives a little bit of wiggle room for slight overextrusion from whatever 3D printer you have. This also has the added bonus of making legal plastic sheets fit easily into the slot, while if a sheet does not fit then it is clearly out of size.
Even so, I highly recommend verifying the dimensions of the slots with a high-resolution caliper before relying on these as a source of truth for inspection. I’ve personally validated that all the polycarb checkers I’ve printed from these models have correctly sized slots.
Download
You can find the downloads for the STL model, as well as editable STEP models, on the printables page: