I bought a Prusa i3 Mk2s 3D printer last year, mostly just for personal fun and utility. I’ve printed a bunch of “junk” from thingiverse so far: small figurines, “jewelry”, game items, etc. But I’ve also printed a number of utility items that helped me accomplish something I would have not been able to do otherwise.
The latest utility part was a knob for the small tripod for my stenography machine. I had called the company and asked if they had any replacements, and they said the only option was to buy a whole new tripod, which is pretty expensive. So last night I decided to design and print my own knob.
After taking measurements and designing what I though was a fairly straight forward knob, I made it in 123D Design (which is no longer being maintained by Autodesk), sliced it for the Prusa, and printed a knurled knob for the tripod. I wasn’t sure it’d even work, but after the 20 minute print job finished, I popped it off the printer plate and tried pushing it onto the “stump” that was left from the previous knob.
I chose gold filament, just because. I made the dimensions of the slot the same as the dimensions of the post because I wanted a good, tight fit. I was pleasantly surprised that it went on without breaking, and was definitely nice and snug!
Problem solved!
I may see if I can get any work for things like this. It’d be a fun way to get some $$ back towards the price of the printer.
The finished tripod:
