8mm to 1/4 x 20 TPI Thread adaptor March 20 2004 at 8:12 AM
Colin Kaminski (no login)
After reading Tom's post aobut making a thread adaptor conecting a normal post to a inexpensive magnetic base I realized that with a group buy we could get a large number of these for cheap. I made a drawign and there are som machine shops I work with that can quote it for me but I was wondering if anyone else would be interested in getting some? The more we make the less we pay. I am going to get 20.
I don't need any right now, but if you gat a bunch made, I'd probably want to buy a few just in case those cheapo mag bases ever go on sale again at the local hardware store. Would save me a few additional hours of grinding and filing and cursing ...
Ahhhhh, a magnetic mount and steel table. Dreams to be realized. I think if you post again in this thread the "cheap" magnetic base and what the adapter does you may get some more on board.
A big part of the motivation was so I could use standard 1/2" posts, post holders and swivel clamps from Thorlabs and others - unlike most optical stuff, basic post hardware is relatively affordable:
The web site is pretty awkward - best to obtain a print catalog from them. The swivel clamps can be found by searching for SWC. I'm not totally enamored with these, but they are certainly better than the crap which came with the mag base.
