Baby Gate Latch Disabler

thingiverse

We installed a Perma Child Safety Outdoor Retractable Baby Gate between our kitchen and utility room to keep the dog out due to concerns about her excessive interest in the cat litter. Since this gate is designed to keep babies safe, it features a latch that must be turned to open or close it, requiring two hands to operate. They claim one-handed operation, but it's a hit-or-miss scenario at best. This proves to be a hassle as we often carry items into or out of the utility room. Moreover, this feature is unnecessary in our case since we don't have a baby; only a dog who lacks opposable thumbs and therefore can't open the gate anyway. Initially, I attempted to hold the latch in place with duct tape but the spring was too strong and pulled it off in minutes. Next, I tried printing the design and affixing it in place with duct tape, distributing the torque over a larger surface area. However, the spring still managed to pull it loose within hours. My current attempt involves attaching a bracket to the wall and the print; hopefully, this will prove strong enough when combined with duct tape. I printed at 10% infill, so it may shred the print; if that happens, I'll try printing at 100% infill and retry the setup. If that doesn't work, I'll need to go back to the drawing board.