My 3rd useful print

[Ender5r]

OK, I’ll be honest, I’m a little bit proud of this one. Finally, after almost 2 months of 3D printing, my mind is starting to get on track with the process, both the possibilities and the requirements & limitations.
I am not an engineer of any kind, and have never had any schooling in engineering but, having worked closely with production engineers ([U]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_engineering[/U]) when I ran a manufacturing plant for 3 years, a lot of their techniques have rubbed off on me.
One of the major things I learned is that a product has to be designed in a way that facilitates its manufacture at the desired scale (i.e. is the product going to be produced in dozens, or millions?). That implies that the production line must be capable of producing the product.

When it comes to 3D printing, a major advantage is that it is almost ideally suited to prototyping and very small production runs, much like what I’m doing (which is why I bought the printer). However, a major disadvantage is that it can’t handle overhangs & spans very well at all.
That has pushed me to accept that I need to design things so they can be printed mostly flat. Some angles & curves are OK, but right angle abutments are a no go. Even worse are overhangs with decenders. There is just no way to print in mid-air.

So, with all that in mind, I started the design of my 3rd useful item: a hanger for our Miele handheld power brush. It was an interesting exercise; it taught me a lot.

Here are a couple of photos of the 2 ends of the hanger that I designed, along with the power brush:

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Now, a photo of the hanger by itself. I left some UHU stick (the white residue) on the side of the right-hand to show what it looks like right off the bed:

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OK, here comes the surprise: each hanger end piece is not 1 piece:

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Ah, but the surprise isn’t finished:

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Yup, each hanger end piece is actually 3 separate prints. This is so it can be printed without supports. I could have used supports, but I do find them a pain. Besides, this was a good challenge.

[Ender5r]

Here’s a closeup of the, uh, I guess it’s kind of a dovetail:

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I used it as the cutting tool in Fusion 360, to create this profile:

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Here are the hangers mounted to the wall of the vacuum cleaner closet:

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And here’s a shot of the power brush in its new home:

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A big reason for the 3 pieces, besides not having to use supports, was my own self-enforced requirement: the hanger had to be mountable using 3M Command Strips. And the Command Strip had to be concealed after installation. The major reason for using Command Strips is to have the ability to easily remove an item from the wall, without leaving a mark. That requires access to the “pull tab”. Hence, the gap at the top of the plate that mounts to the wall.

The middle piece acts as an interface between the wall plate (what I call the Command Strip plate) and the hook (the piece with the hooks on its side).

If I had it to do again I think I could reduce it to 2 pieces by incorporating the middle piece into the hook piece, eliminating the hooks altogether. C’est la vie.

It’s all printed, as were the umbrella bracket and floor brush hanger, in black PETG.

Well, I bope this hasn’t been too boring. In any case, I’m currently printing a version 2.0 of the umbrella bracket, at my wife’s request, so she can get rid of a clunky, broken concrete umbrella base. While that’s printing I’ll start designing the next item on my list.

[irvshapiro-drvax]

Excellent work.