James' R5-D4: Trading Card Dispenser (version 2)

Back in 2019 I saw a design of a Trading Card Dispenser. It was by a fellow builder over in the US and he was making and selling them on the Astromech.net site. These were great, but for me the wait for ordering & cost was long.

It reminded me of the first card dispenser I saw a few years ago, made by Mike Filippidis, that he brought along to a film screening event we attended [see link at bottom of this post/page].

These two gave me the idea to have a go at making my own card dispenser. Now that I had the use of works 3D printer, I could actually design up and develop something. I searched up online but didn't find much in the way of helpful/useful info, so had to start from scratch. I have the use of AutoCAD Inventor in work, so designing this up was easy [lol].

I needed:

a spring platform
a motor & wheel
a power source
a timer for activating the motor

Figuring out spring location points, strengths, best printing orientations, finding a suitable motor, even harder to find a suitable wheel! Then the clearances needed for smooth operation, with enough grip/pressure for the wheel to move the trading card. I went through a LOT of design changes until I was happy with something that would work with minimal effort.

I released the files on my Thingiverse page early 2020, freely for fellow builders. I also included a full parts list and assembly instructions PDF in the file downloads.

Below is one of my earlier flip top designs. I changed to a solid top, as was concerned that the lid may pop up whilst being driven around in a droid. I was thinking about reliability and confidence in its use.

James' R5D4 - Trading Card Dispenser (early design)

Below is a 'how to video' I made for the

Droid Builders UK YouTube channel.

To be able to 'control' the duration of the motor and dispensing of the cards, I had to build a 'control box'. This contained a remote control receiver, voltage regulator and a timer relay. The activation could be activated by an RC transmitter servo control switch, but at the time, I was just focused on getting it to work on my bench lol. I will be looking at upgrading to this option in the future.