This week I made this fully mechanical toilet paper dispenser. I set the goal for myself to make a toilet paper dispenser that could dispense and cut two sheets of toiletpaper fully mechanical. After a couple of concepts I decided on the large handle with the ratchet mechanism to dispense the toilet paper and cut it.
I like to set goals like this for myself because it challenges me to think further than the most common options. At the same time it also makes it harder but that’s part of the fun I guess..
There are a lot of different solutions to tackle the problem of automatic toilet paper dispensing but narrowing it down to fully mechanical gave some challenges.
The first challenge to tackle was dispensing the two sheets, I decided on a large handle for this but I also wanted to minimise the stroke you’d have to make. This turned out to be about 90 degrees. The second challenge I faced was to keep the rolls steady when moving the handle back. I solved this by using the ratchet mechanism that allows the handle to move the paper in one direction and keep the rolls steady when moving the handle back.
Then the last challenge was to cut the paper: By placing the paper dispensing rolls on a movable arm I could use the large lever to pull them up when the handle is in the top position. When doing that the paper gripper holds the bottom part of the paper and it gets ripped in two.
Check out the video if you haven’t seen it yet and let me know what you think!
Tools used
3D printer
Lathe
Drill(press)
Bandsaw
Track saw
Brad nailer
