A year ago I designed (openscad) and printed (seemecnc h1.1) a part for my

3D Printing
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A year ago I designed (openscad) and printed (seemecnc h1.1) a part for my lawn mower. The part lasted a year, and the other side broke as well this year. Printed two more and I’m back up and running without much effort. Took longer to get the lawn mower into the right position than it took to print, so printing time was essentially free. Printed the second whilst replacing the first.

Did not find the old part, it must have fallen out well before I noticed the front wheels askew. Would have liked to look at it to understand the failure mode. Still, one replacement a year for well under $0.50 a part isn’t bad at all.

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Found last year’s printed part in the backyard last night. It had the same wearing that the original part had. No delamination. I’m somewhat surprised. It just wore down faster, which is fine for a thermoform ABS. In a month or two I’ll inspect the ones I just printed and installed so I can examine the wear pattern and see if I need to replace them more frequently than once a year. I don’t think it’s worth the time to redesign them to be stronger or more durable in the wearing areas, given the low cost in time and resources to print and install a new set, but we will see what summer holds.