I have a cheap/quick/dirty deer and rabbit fence around our vegetable garden. The doors are simple PVC squares with deer netting that used to attach to the fence via hooks at the top. This design turned out to be very fiddly. The new design seems much easier to manage - simply drop the door section into its slot.
Curious what material you used.
I made some similar items, and given the aggregation of exposure to the elements, constant daylight, and strength/the potential to shatter, I veered away from PLA and ABS into PETG (with TPU sleeves on sensitive bits), which I've found worked really well, but my parts don't move as much as yours probably do.
How have you found the results in these regards?
Absolutely love being able to quickly mock up fit for purpose parts and deploy them immediately; great work!
This is ASA. I've had some PLA+ parts that have been outside for 7-8 years and are holding up really well. The old garden gate hooks were PETG and were still in pretty good shape after 3 full seasons and had to flex pretty often.
Granted, I live in SE MI so our sun isn't super duper intense.
And totally agree, once you get in the mode of "I can print something to make this better" you start finding more and more things to make.
ABS has worked out pretty well for me even in direct sunlight.
I designed a fun little replacement for this thing on my parents’ gate and it’s still there over 7 years later in all the weather and even intense heat over 110°F on some days.
Is ABS problematic in sun? I wouldn't think it was, since it's been used for decades in the automotive world on exposed stuff (I have a 90's motorcycle with a fair bit of exposed ABS and it's surprisingly fine).
Maybe the auto world has additives for stability?
ABS generally requires additional additives for UV resistance, and plain ABS will degrade relatively quickly in full sun.
There's a section in this study on the change in mechanical properties of ABS resins in simulated weather environments https://mirror.wide-net.org/pub/b/plastic/abs-yellowing-etc-CIB9222.pdf
Great work!
I never would have thought to print them at an angle like that, but thinking it through, I bet relative to other obvious-ish options, it a) improved part strength (particularly along the axes where you most need strength), b) saved a bit of material, c) improved bed adhesion. Smart move in general. I'll have to keep that approach in mind for my own prints.
Printing things at a 45 degree angle is a magic cheat code for tons of overhangs. It can also help give your prints more resolution as most designs tend to not care if the "tall" layers are diagonally oriented.
I did some testing for some parts for my dad, he keeps bees and lost a shaft support for one of his tools when he was reassembling it, he whipped up a replacement and fired me the stl when I was talking about my printers.
Printing with the shaft in the z needed a lot of supports,
laying it on its "back" was by far the easiest, outside of the support looked a little gross, could have benefitted from supports. Did them all in petg, gave them all to him just so he can get a feel for what 3D printed parts look like as he's interested in getting one himself (trying to sell him on a v0 if he's not sure, but kinda thinking about doing a trident)
Nice work!
One of the interesting things about modeling and then printing replacement parts is figuring out which features matter (like shaft diameters and spacing in this design) and which you can take some liberties with to make printing easier. For example, for the part on the left you may have been able to add tapered feature to the rod insider to let you print the part standing on the flat bit on the far left without any supports. Another possibility might be trying to get the part to lie lengthwise by modifying the cylinder some as arced parts have deceivingly big overhangs. Perhaps you could give it a small flat spot.
Props for proper print orientation for stress distribution.
I love stuff like this, that fits together like a couple of puzzle pieces and uses tension to stay close. Not only is it satisfying to operate, but it's actually super accessible. I will say deer don't play nice, and I have had them hop a fence that was about garden height in the past. Not sure how high this is, but I have also never seen them work a tension lock before. Good job either way, it's nice to make something you feel good about.
The fence is about 6.5 feet tall and seems to keep deer out pretty well. Our garden is near a creek that deer like to walk along, but I've never caught a deer in our garden if I remember to put all the gates on.
Love that! I miss the Midwest terribly, and have been trying to express it's wholesome mystique to my partner to siren song her to move there.
I've lived at this latitude in a couple different states. From what I've experienced, the climate in the mid west is similar to that of PA, NY, NJ, CT, RI, etc. Snowfall changes vary radically based on your proximity to a lake and generally speaking anything west of PA is super flat.
To me, the nice thing about SE MI is it the size of the metro and the quantity of things to do within it. The people are also a bit more friendly than the east coast, which is nice too.
Me too, actually. Hehehehe! To be honest with you, I think my favorite state in the Midwest is WI, gotta love those lakes in Madison. I swore to myself at a young age that I wouldn't "backtrack" which means I want to keep living in new states cause life is short and it's important to get in all you want to get in before you get too old or tied down to do so. Only state I am willing to revist is Eastern PA, cause I lived on the other side and it's practically two states put into one. One of my close friends lives in MI, but we met in IL she's in the Kalamazoo area. Some bent part of me wants to go to the UP, but I think it'd be an easier sell not to look towards the SE side. Especially cause there's puffins, and who doesn't love to see little puffins hanging out? I will say Detroit last time I went through had some of the saddest architecture I've seen in my life (I'm sure you know where I'm talking about). Looked firebombed. I think it's flipping though, and I know there's a bustling art scene. I think my favorite thing about the Midwest as a whole is how kind folks are. It's not always there, but when it is it's real genuine. It's actually that genuine spirit I like about the East too, although it's not the same scene obviously. I just like that organic energy, people acting as they think/want. Of course I tend to stay away from the water cracker folks out East, so that might be different with that old money kind.
A friend of mine who is from MI (but not the gal I am talking about) lamented the winters there. Said the snow never seems to end, the wind is brutal and it rolls off the lake with a fierce misery (because it's to the East, you know). He also hated the basements, most of which are unfinished and dungeonous. Hehehe!
Either way, I hope you're air quality is doing okay. I am not sure what exactly is going on, but these wildfires have been killer for the air. Thanks for responding back by the by =)
Looks good!
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or [email protected]
There are CAD communities available at: [email protected] or [email protected]
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
Do not create links to reddit
If you see an issue please flag it
No guns
No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe/ may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is 
Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible