3D Printed Spring (Customizable)

thingiverse

I needed an oddly sized spring for another project that's probably going to be on Thingiverse in the future, so I decided to give printing one myself a shot. I wrote an OpenSCAD script to generate the spring shape, printed it in ABS, and was pleasantly surprised when it became a fully functional spring. Thin 3D printed ABS parts don't exactly have a reputation for making good engineering parts - and with good reason - they're extremely brittle. If you extend the spring too much, it will break, and if you apply sideways force, it will also break. Furthermore, if you make the distance between loops too big, it will snap as well. However, if you handle it carefully, it's a fully functional spring that compresses and bounces back when released. To print it successfully, I made one side flat for easy printing, used 100% infill, and printed without support - all test prints were done on my Robo3D R1+ without raft or brim. Update: I've had multiple suggestions to print this spring in nylon, which I think will work really well, but I don't have nylon filament right now, so I'm unable to test it myself - if anyone wants to try it and post a "make" with the results, I'd greatly appreciate it.