This is my latest major design. An adapter to fight obsolescence, which I think is a great aspect of the evolving maker/3D printing possibilities. This is how it happened.
A friend’s daughter was cleaning her car, and managed to drop their Dyson Handstick vacuum into a bucket of dirty water.
fitzzitzt…the vacuum now sux
- not. So they bought the latest Dyson V8 Handstick.
It wasn’t until they got home they realised the V8 had changed the connectors and so they couldn’t use the variety of additional accessories they had bought for the previous version.
I had previously modeled the old version’s connector to make a range of holders/wall mounts for the accessories/tools. I needed to measure the changed V8 sizes and the new clip mechanism to update my holders anyway, so I though an adapter would be possible. Plug the new measurement into my
OpenSCAD designs, and after a bit of that design magic, blood sweat and tears…, I worked out that Strong and Flexible Plastic (S&FP) would allow me to use ‘flex’ in the design of the release clip.
I often prototype my designs on my personal FDM 3D printer, but that imposes design constraints which Shapeways S&FP doesn’t have, like gravity. However, the bad thing about Shapeways is that it isn’t here in Oz, and a prototype can take some time to arrive. So you have to adapt, firstly make sure it fits, cut out bits which aren’t needed and show the internals; luckily this was doable with minimal support material. The first physical prototype confirmed the fit and the flexi release worked as intended.
(My printer is a bit long in the tooth, it could use some adjustments for better results)
Similarly working out a good way of joining the new V8 tip design to the old receptacle I also considered how I could prototype on my local printer; after careful attention to the angles, I had a design I could print with little support.
It was time for a real Shapeways prototype; finalising the design and ensuring the Shapeways 3D tools were happy, took a few more iterations. Again it was necessary to incorporate cut-outs otherwise you couldn’t see how well the parts will fit.
As, until I sell some more designs, I’m not made of money, I also chopped off bits not needed for testing to save on material and machine space costs.
I chose White & Un-polished S&FP as it saves several days production time, and awaited delivery…
Thankfully my measurements, earlier prototypes, and tolerance guestimates were good, and it fit like a glove. The next step was a final prototype of the complete model. Previous testing with a variety of the Dyson tools showed a small variance in size, so there was a small gap to allow for this. I was concerned how that may affect the vacuum suction, something I couldn’t test with the cut-out prototype.
Not wanting to spend too much on prototypes I decided the design should be finessed for the next order. It needed a seal/gasket/washer, this took a lot of searching to find the most appropriate, cost-effective, and easily acquired solution. The best balance turned out to be o-rings, so I had to find the right size to fit the design and incorporate an appropriate recess to hold it.
It was ready for the full prototype, or as I hopefully like to call it, the first production model. As the design has a friction fit I had always intended Polished S&FP as the production Material, and given the Dyson design, it had to be red.
And so, a
new design is born
As it turned out, it works pretty well without the o-ring, but the capability is there if you want perfection
So after six weeks* from concept to product, it came just in time for Xmas, so my friend can keep his old accessories.
That's how it happened.
(* much of that time waiting on shipments)