Nikon TC-E2 Binocular Clamp - Laser Cut

Alternate clamp to mount the Nikon TC-E2 for the popular DIY stargazing binoculars that is fabricated from laser cut material, thickness of the material should be 5 mm. I am using acrylic. The mount is clamping the teleconverters with two M3 bolts. Length of around 10 mm should fit, but there is a lot of space so you can also drill a bit deeper.

The parts have to be cut twice, the second set mirrored (or just flipped around :))

Then glue the two different parts together, so that the gaps coincide. Use a better glue than i did and a bit of pressure, then the parts will stay transparent. For Acrylic, Acrifix 0192 should be good.

After gluing, the clamp part has to be drilled out and tapped for M3. This might be difficult to do and will require a strong glue connection. Since its plastic, i got away by filing a threading tool from an additional M3 bolt instead of buying a tap. For M3 the pilot hole has to be 2.5 mm. For me, 2 mm worked as well with a very shallow tap. It helps to put a piece of plastic inside of the gap to guide the drill and tap.

The hinge requires a 10 mm outer diameter pipe or rod. You can glue it on one side or mushroom the ends a bit. Length either 10 mm, or 15 mm with the adapter for the head mount.

The parts for the GoPro head mount contain longer "legs" and slits than required, so that you can fit and cut them for your own head size and eye distance. If you cut it from the same material as the rest, the les have to be ground down to a thickness of 3 mm. Don't do that if you cut them yourself.

The bino_clamp_laser_drawing_svg.dxf contains all required parts + GoPro head mounts layout out. Rename to .svg, thingiverse does seem to only allow .svg uploads for the thumbnail.

Category: Physics & Astronomy