Baby or Pet Gate for Spiral Staircase (Babepai)

prusaprinters

<p><strong>Disclaimer:</strong></p><p>This is a use at your own risk type thing, only you can determine what is safe for your child or pet.</p><p><strong>Backstory:</strong></p><p>I was dismayed at the available options for baby gates for spiral staircases. I spent many hours searching the internet for solutions but didn't really find anything I liked or worked for our application. I chose a retractable gate on Amazon and then designed hardware to mount it to my spiral staircase. I think this spiral staircase design is pretty ubiquitous in the United States with a ~4" diameter pole in the middle with ~0.75" diameter balusters. So maybe it will work for you, I have also included Solidworks files so you can tweak for your application if needed. I ended up putting one at the bottom and top of the spiral staircase.</p><p>The plastic pieces are definitely not optimized for minimal plastic. I wanted it to be beefy so the kid couldn't break it, and I also only wanted to use one bolt size so I only had to buy one box of bolts, so everything is designed for 1-¼" long bolts. Thus, there is extra plastic in some regions to accommodate both of these design constraints.</p><p><strong>Printed Parts Description, Quantity is per gate installed:</strong></p><p>ClipHolderBackRev1: Need 2x, these have pockets for the hex nuts to clamp the ClipHolderFrontrRev1 over the balusters.</p><p>ClipHolderFrontrRev1: Need 2x, this is what the clip for the gate is fixed on as well as clamping around the baluster.</p><p>GateHolderBotomBack:Need 2x, this is what holds the front pieces to the central 4" pole. I ended up using this for both the bottom and the top and didn't use GateHolderTopBack as the split design was not as solid.</p><p>GateHolderBotomFront: Need 1x, this is what you attach the bracket for the bottom of the gate to.</p><p>GateHolderTopBack: This is a split version of GateHolderBotomBack, not as solid as GateHolderBotomBack.</p><p>GateHolderTopFront REV1:  This is an alternative offset version of GateHolderBotomFront that for my stairacase allowed the use of GateHolderBotomFront for each the top and bottom mount point.</p><p>GateHolderTopFront: Need 1x, this is what you attach the bracket for the top of the gate to.</p><p>GateHolderTopFrontUpstairs: This is an alternative for GateHolderTopFront which I used for the upstairs installation to avoid a bracket on the staircase that was in the way of the original part.</p><p><strong>Hardware:</strong></p><p>Baby Gate: Babepai Retractable Baby Gate (same gate is sold under some other names as well): <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07TFS3V3Z/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_dl_1P0VGGVXW506PGT3QA11?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1">https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07TFS3V3Z/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_dl_1P0VGGVXW506PGT3QA11?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1</a></p><p>Need 20x, 8-32 1-¼" long bolts such as <a href="https://www.mcmaster.com/92949A201/">https://www.mcmaster.com/92949A201/</a></p><p>Need 20x, 8-32 hex nuts such as <a href="https://www.mcmaster.com/91841A009/">https://www.mcmaster.com/91841A009/</a></p><p>I used stainless steel for the nuts and bolts, but you can use any material.</p><p><strong>Print Settings:</strong></p><p>I recommend using PETG for the plastic, it is the most ductile commonly used FDM plastic, PLA while stronger is very brittle. I did 0.3 mm layer height with 20% infill, on a Prusa MK3 with gray Amazon Basics PETG. This worked well and made for a nice sturdy bracket setup. No supports, brims, or rafts were needed.</p>