Rain Gauge Heavy Duty Leaf/Needle Guard

prusaprinters

I needed a more heavy duty leaf/needle guard for Rain gauge by DusanJ | Download free STL model | Printables.com. The original guard as provided by DusanJ won't stop pine needles from clogging the bucket, which was a requirement for my use case. I do suspect this guard will skew the amount of rain needed to tip the bucket, as rain will cling to the guard instead of falling through more than the original leaf guard. Depending on the type and amount of rain this might impact the rain gauge readings. Be aware of this fact before utilizing this guard. You might work around this by playing with the infill amount and or infill pattern (see the slicing instructions), but then it might not be so “heavy duty" anymore.MountingI utilized a friction fit by giving it mounting feet that press-fit into the DIN 912 M3 5mm longs/Alan key style screws I used to mount the top of the collection bucket to the bottom bucket. If you are using a different type of screws (like philips or flathead) you won't get a good mount as the guard will “float” on top of them.Slicing instructionsThe guard requires some specific slicer steps to reproduce it by modifying top/bottom and perimeter layers in such a way as to let the slicer generate a nice honeycomb infill that acts as the guard/filter but keeps the amount of “solid” structures in the rest of the model intact. I have provided instructions (for PrusaSlicer) to replicate the result with the given model file.StepsNavigate to Print SettingsSelect Layers and perimeters from the side navigationSet the amount of Perimeters to 13.Set the Solid Layers  for Top and Bottom to 0.Select Infill from the side navigationSet the Fill Density to 30%Set the Fill Pattern to HoneycombSlice the model, make sure the top of the guard is oriented downwards to the steel sheet and the mounting feet are sticking up into the air.Changelog2024-07-18: First version of the Heavy Duty guard uploaded to printables.