The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

The New Hotness

  • Refrigerator Coil Wand Adapter Rebuild

    After five years, the adapter between the Kenmore Progressive vacuum cleaner and the long wand required to reach inside the refrigerator evaporator coils broke at the latch opening:

    Kenmore Vacuum - refrigerator coil adapter - fracture
    Kenmore Vacuum – refrigerator coil adapter – fracture

    A quick fix let me continue the mission:

    Kenmore Vacuum - refrigerator coil adapter - temporary fix
    Kenmore Vacuum – refrigerator coil adapter – temporary fix

    A better fix required a few minutes of OpenSCAD tweakage and a few hours of hands-off build time:

    Refrigerator Coil Wand Adapter - Slic3r preview
    Refrigerator Coil Wand Adapter – Slic3r preview

    The fitting ID is now 2 mm smaller, the 3D honeycomb infill is 25%, and (contrary to the picture) it now has 4 perimeter threads. It’s a two-line change from the last time:

    OEMTube = [35.0 - 2.0,35.0,41.7,40.5,30.0];           // main fitting tube
… then, inside MaleFitting() …
cylinder(d1=OEMTube[ID2],d2=OEMTube[ID1],h=2*OEMTube[LENGTH] + 2*Protrusion);

    Those will propagate to anything I build from now on, although this is the first latch fracture.

    Gotta love it when 3D printing lives up to the hype!