Jill and I moved into a new apartment earlier this year, and there have been lots of, uh, opportunities to put the 3D printer to use - both around the apartment and elsewhere. Here are a few (in no particular order):
Cable Stop Adapters
My road bike came with barrel adjusters that screwed into these cable stops welded to the frame. The barrel adjusters broke off long ago, leaving the cables prone to abrasion, not to mention ugly.
These new adapters don’t include adjustment, but they do help prevent cable damage. Later, I’ll add some inline barrel adjusters to the bit of housing between the shifters and the cable stops to restore the adjustability.
Jar Lid Keepers
These addressed an obvious problem in the kitchen. There’s not much else to say about them, other than that the design is parametric, so they can be scaled to any size and number of jar lids. Thingiverse link: thingiverse.com/thing:4642120.
Trunk Divider Clips
Jill lost one of the retaining clips for the cargo cover in her hatchback. I used a caliper for the really important dimensions and sort of eyeballed the rest to recreate the remaining clip in CAD. Unfortunately, the first iteration failed – not unexpectedly. Turns out PLA is just too soft and temperature-sensitive to leave in a hot car without deformation. The next iteration will be in PETG.
Sunglasses Storage + Hat Hooks
Dish Rack Risers
Our new apartment came with a portable dishwasher, but there is no convenient way to use it. It became obvious that a proper dish rack would be important. Unfortunately, when we placed ours next to the sink, the height of the sink prevented the drainage spout from working correctly. The solution was to raise the dish rack.
The weird design accomplishes a few things:
It allows the dish rack to be cantilevered over the edge of the sink
It supports the dish rack at its edges, encouraging the base to bend inward, thus promoting drainage.
The 3 points of contact with the base make them self-stable when inverted and thus easier to glue
Sponge Library
From left to right, this library stores sponges for people, cats, and sinks. It’s mounted to the tile behind the sink via adhesive foam. Sponges tend to move from left to right throughout their life.