#experiment: Dyson 3D Print
This is not the most fascinating story, but it’s the perfect example of how 3D printing is changing the world and the way we approach problems.
Sometime in mid-2019, our Dyson Animal vacuum took a tumble and the clip mechanism that connects the attachments to the vacuum broke off. The part was damaged and the spring was lost.
What solutions are there? Buy a new vacuum? Search for the specific part and order just one of them?
Without a reasonable option in sight, we had to hold the attachments in place while vacuuming. It worked surprisingly well, but it wasn’t a real solution.
I was challenged to fix it this past weekend.
I spent some time measuring the Dyson vacuum clip area and sketching out the shape. One of my most valuable recent purchases, digital calipers, helped me easily get measurements down to hundredths of a millimeter. For this project, I used TinkerCad and sent the print to my device using PolarCloud.
This was one of the faster measure, model, prints that I’ve done. I think end-to-end, this may have taken about an hour. The print time was surprisingly quick, maybe 20 minutes, but I also used medium 0.3mm settings. You’ll also note that the print is mostly hollow, so the reduced printing time isn’t all that surprising.
The resulting print was slightly off in terms of length to account for the rocker nature of the clip, but it’s definitely acceptable. The fit itself and spring worked perfectly. Found a 4mm spring from a nearby pen with the perfect amount of expansion.
In a world of at-home 3D printing, you start to look at your problems a little different. We no longer have to purchase items that don’t exactly suit our needs when we can print them.
Have a look at the video below to see the final result.
