The New Hotness

This being the end of the humidifcation season, I tried to set the longsuffering Sears Humidifier’s water level float to dry the thing out. After a few days, it became obvious that wasn’t working and I eventually found the clip intended to hold the float at the top of its travel had broken:

Humidifier float clips - on float — Humidifier float clips – on float

Building the retina-burn orange replacement started with a scan of the original:

The black segment at the bottom is a shadow due to the scanner’s light bar being offset from the imaging sensor.

Using GIMP, duplicate the remaining part of the latch, flip it left-to-right, then align it at the proper position:

Humidifier float clip - repaired — Humidifier float clip – repaired

The latch is the only tricky part and the ID of the ring is easy to locate, so (still in GIMP):

Trace the edge of the whole shape
Using Quick Mask mode, remove all but the latch
Convert the selection to a path
Export it as an SVG file

Then import it into OpenSCAD and eyeballometrically translate the shape to put the ring ID at the origin:

  color("Red")
    translate([-23.6,-42.6])
      import("Humidifier float clip - cabinet latch.svg");

Which looks like this:

Float clip - 2D latch — Float clip – 2D latch

Then glom a perfect ring onto it:

Float clip - 2D model parts — Float clip – 2D model parts

Extrude half an inch upward:

Float clip - extruded model — Float clip – extruded model

And It Just Works™:

Humidifier float clip - installed — Humidifier float clip – installed

There being no obvious affordance to get the ring over the two bumps in the float, I applied Channellock pliers to the float while easing the ring into place.

Re-rebuilding the hinges sits behind a few other things going on around here …

The New Hotness

Humidifier Float Clip Replacement