As mentioned
earlier I got this small replacement part to design and print. It is an fixture to hold window blinds adjustment rod neatly. This definitely ain't complex part and I know that these are sold at stores. But as an example of a home made thingy.. It's not bad at all..
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| My part at Sketchup |
It took me some time to get the 3d shape in a form I'd like since I'm no expert on 3d cad work. Also I needed to fix the model couple times as the exported stl -file was declared to be non-printable. For printing I used clear PLA so I had to paint the part. Painting itself was not difficult, a friend of mine has nice set of miniature paints and they seem to stick nicely to this kind of plastic.
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| 15 * 20 mm part, ready to use |
During the design process I noticed that by altering the shape somewhat I could make this part much more solid, but I decided to keep changes as small as possible. If it holds, good. If it breaks, well, then it's time to make some modifications to design.
Addendum: I forgot to add the cad files.. Both Sketchup design and stl-export are freely available at:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:14169
Interesting, my first 3D printed object was also related to window blinds:
ReplyDeletehttp://lindi.iki.fi/lindi/hardware/reprap-hook1/
Can you share the cad files your adjustment rod holder?
Sure.. they are at Thingverse, but I'll consider making them available on my own site also.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thingiverse.com/thing:14169
I needed to widen the slot a bit, before the rod fit nicely. Not sure if I designed it bit too narrow, or was it due painting.