Coleman Cooler Handle Pin

thingiverse

I hit the great outdoors, pitching a tent at the campsite in one of our favorite pastures, where I had packed all the essentials for an unforgettable weekend under the stars. Among these was my 40qt Coleman cooler, an investment I had made specifically to keep food and drinks at the right temperature. The first sign that something might not go according to plan emerged when a key part - what we'll call the "handle-retaining pin" - simply vanished into thin air while driving down to camp. It wasn't until I went through my box of tools in our camping area that I even thought to try to attach this pin back to the cylinder on which it had previously resided. The handle and the cooler seemed to fit together smoothly, so maybe the design flaw here lies with its assembly rather than the product itself? Still no luck when I turned the handle clockwise and found that it didn't budge at first. A look at some online tutorials gave me hope – many other people have struggled with getting their Coleman coolers' handles working correctly without major modifications or hacks, and these problems range from an incorrect amount of lubricant to completely missing screws. So what did I do? In an attempt to avoid taking the whole cooler apart for the moment (and because time was short), I used a wrench on this part and pushed until something finally popped back into place. And it worked like a charm – no broken pieces, and my food stays at room temperature! When 3D printing arrived in our campsite one morning (using an Ultimaker with the Cura software set to layer adhesion - we did see that first print had good results so the prints look perfect), I tried out something called 30% infill and printed a raft. This gave me an awesome combination of aesthetics, structural strength and low weight in our small portable house which can't carry much load. Now if only those designers from Coleman would release designs like ours into the wild too! Oh by the way - you can download this model so I can see what they've improved or messed up. And yes - there will be future updates when people show off even more fantastic innovations.