Helical hair clip

prusaprinters

<p>WORK IN PROGRESS.</p> <p>My wife had this kind of hair clip (from a popular mass produced brand), but it broke and she asked me if I could make one with my 3D printer. So I took it as a small challenge to try and design a similar one and see if it can work as printed with FDM.</p> <p>I'm a bit skeptical if it will work good made with FDM printing due to the size and shape of this. It might work better printed on a resin printer.</p> <p>I had to look at two video tutorials on how to make helical sweeps (slightly more complex than what the solid Coil tool in Fusion 360 can do) but I was then able to pretty quickly model this first prototype using Fusion 360.</p> <p>I will probably share the Fusion 360 design file at some point when I'm happy with the model. I think I still need to do some tweaks. At the moment this is my first prototype!</p> <p>First I tried printing this horizontally (as designed) using automatic supports in PrusaSlicer, but sadly the small parts on top of supports didn't stay in place this way and I had to cancel the print. Then I tried printing this vertically with a brim and that seemed to work pretty well for a first try (see a photo of my first vertical print) though I had to print it pretty slow (it was about a 30 minute print I think) and it started failing a bit near the top due to sticking a bit to the nozzle it started to wave around, but it still managed to finish though the tip got pretty ugly.</p> <p>You're welcome to try printing this even though it's probably not too easy to make it finish with nice quality all the way. If you manage to print this well, please let me know!</p> <p>Also I'm not sure if this will last real use or will it break very easily, but I think with some good material and print settings it might endure some real use too. At least in a hair emergency. :)</p> <h3>Print instructions</h3><p>WORK IN PROGRESS.</p>