Author: Kristina Panos / Source: Hackaday
Six weeks ago, we asked you to show us your best 3D printed repairs for a chance to win $100 in Tindie credit and other prizes. You answered the call with fixes for everything from the stuff everyone has, like zippers and remotes, to the more obscure stuff, like amazing microscopes scavenged from dumpsters.
It was hard to whittle down the entries we received into the top 20 because you came up with so many awesome fixes. A few of them had us thinking hard about the definition of repair, but are brilliant in their own way.
So without further ado, we are pleased to announce the winners of our Repairs You Can Print contest. We also want to give honorable mention to those projects that wowed us with ingenuity.
The Top Three Winning Entries
Here are the highest-ranked entries chosen from the twenty winners. Each of these repair projects came with considerable design hurdles, but each of their engineers persevered and came out smelling like a rose (made of melted plastic, of course).
First Place: Fixing a Chewed-Up Remote
When [Alex Rich]’s dog chewed up his $90 home theater remote a few years back, he saw an opportunity to more than just replace the case. Any time the furnace or A/C kicks on in his house, it’s just noisy enough to warrant turning up the volume a little bit. Of course, once it shuts back off, then the volume is too loud.
[Alex] had just enough leeway in the new design—and space inside the case—to add a Trinket that communicates with his thermostat and adjusts the volume accordingly.
He also hid a hardware power switch on the underside of the remote to prolong battery life. Not only does he have an improved and working remote, he has an interesting conversation piece for the coffee table.
Second Place: Replacement Drill Battery Pack
Sometimes it seems that planned obsolescence knows no boundaries. Manufactures will move on to the next design or the newest battery composition without a second thought, except the one where they get to force their way back into consumers’ wallets.
[Larry G] wasn’t going to play that game when it came to his old Ryobi drill. He figured that as long as he could approximate the shape of the old pack and get the connections right, he could replace the NiCad pack with commonly-available rechargeable Ni-MH cells. The new pack is wired such that it only supports the max speed, but [Larry] may revisit the project and try to add PWM speed control with a 555.
Third Place: Microscope Mounting Bracket Repair
What’s the best thing you ever found while dumpster diving? [leumasyerrp] snagged a $1500 Vision Engineering Mantis Microscope that had been thrown out, presumably because the mounting bracket splintered into pieces and made it unusable.
He printed a new bracket in PLA and attached it with bolts and nylon lock nuts. So far,…
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