Chunky lanyard cord end

thingiverse

This covers and secures knots that you've tied in drawstrings, lanyards, and the like. Also known as drawstring nuts, cord stops, cord ends, or cord locks. The piece is 16 mm wide in diameter and 12 mm tall. The exit hole measures about 5 mm, perfect for a lanyard made from a doubled-over shoelace. You can enlarge this hole by drilling or reaming to suit your needs. I added short pillars around the inner edge of the cord end; these keep the knot inside securely in place. This also lets you fill the cord end with hot glue, which will wrap itself around those posts and lock everything firmly together mechanically. Printing Options Rafts: No Resolution: 0.2 Infill: 15 Post-Printing Steps Clean out both sides of the exit hole before use. You can fill this piece with hot glue to secure the lanyard or cord permanently in place. Designing This Object Why record my design process? To provide useful information that's not easily found elsewhere, such as a detailed look at the actual steps involved in designing practical objects. There are many online resources that tell you how to use design software, but fewer articles and tutorials on creating specific products like this one. Even straightforward objects could benefit from step-by-step instructions for new makers who want to learn about designing real-world objects. Measuring My Design I measured the length of my lanyard material (a shoelace) and found a doubled-over section to be roughly 4 mm wide, so I chose an exit hole of 5 mm to allow for shrinkage as it would be internal. I desired a substantial cord end for use outdoors, even though the knot in my shoelace was only about 8 mm wide; I made the inner diameter 12 mm. The base shape I looked through Tinkercad's generators and discovered Cog Ring 2 by Yoda Wars, which I used as a model. The walls did not need to be very thick, so I chose an outer diameter of 14 mm to have 1 mm thick walls. Cog Ring 2 has a bulging middle section, causing the walls to vary in thickness. The base faces were then flattened by adding discs, which serve both aesthetic and practical purposes. Designing the exit hole To make the cord end feel comfortable against my wrist when I used my lanyard, using a flattened dome as the top face was a logical choice. However, adding just a single dome to the top would result in an overhang at 90° that might be printed poorly and could wear down the lanyard material. To address this problem, I cut out a cone-shaped segment about 45° in angle and added it beneath the dome. The whole top face is supported by a smoothly printable, easy to use lead-in that prevents unevenness. Adding the posts To prevent fraying of the lanyard end, I needed a mechanism to stop it from unraveling. To keep this from happening and give additional weight and stability, hot-glue could be used inside the cord end. But I also wanted some surface for the glue to grip onto so that the adhesive bond would not just be chemical in nature but mechanical as well. This is why I searched my design generators and discovered Circular Array by Lars Busack - the shape allowed me to create some pillar-like features which are only partly embedded within the wall thickness of the part. By making these posts relatively short and half-buried in the cord end, I could be certain that any applied glue would stay in place after hardening and never slide downwards. Changes v1 — October 11th, 2015: Initial release. Online version: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/3yYhTiO4XUS-lanyard-cord-end-v1