Little Tikes Replacement Parts
What better way to utilize a high tech factory at home than to use it to make replacement parts for kid's toys?
The hinge brackets for my son's Little Tikes kitchen broke. These seem like a normal wear item, but they are quite expensive to buy- you can't buy just the hinge bracket, Little Tikes forced you to buy a kit with a range of fasteners. But, with a printer it's cheap and easy to replace. Very easy to draw up in Solidworks and print out... And they turned out really well. But, they aren't "kid tested" yet. That'll be the true test!
The solid models are available on thingiverse
here.
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| "Real" Bracket on the left, new printed brackets center and right |
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| Installed on the "oven" door |
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| Works fine! |
Updated Y Axis
My original Y axis was home made. It worked pretty well, but it limited the Y axis build size to 160mm, it was really difficult to level, and it was solid mounted. The solid mounting might have been the cause of some of the skipped steps, as if the nozzle hit a glob of plastic during a traverse it could stop the traverse. With a spring loaded bed, the bed can flex away from the nozzle. After considering machining my own parts, I decided to save the time and just buy the set from
lulzbot.com. They turned out to be nice high quality laser cut parts, assembled easily, and fit perfectly.
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| New bed plate (and 5mm SHCS heads visible) |
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| Assembly, bottom 3/4 view |
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| Assembled and in MendelMax 1.5 |
I had to mount the Y-axis endstop in a new location- once I have a good mount design I'll post some photos.
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| Printing a spare X-slide on the new Y axis |
