Replacement elastic cord for outside tap frost protector

prusaprinters

<p>The elastic cords holding my two outside tap frost protectors perished and left me with no way to hold the frost protection covers on the taps. I copied the shape and size of the original cords and printed in TPU. Having printed the cord, I discovered that it wouldn't fit through the original bung (the liner for the hole in the polystyrene cover), and so I designed and printed two new ones. Then I discovered that the cord lock was missing from one of the covers, so I designed a thing a bit like a camping guy rope tensioner and printed that.</p><p>The cord is a very tight fit through the bung, relying on the 600%-elongation-to-fail of the TPU, and needs lubricant to help it slide through. I used SuperLube with one and washing-up liquid with the other - both fought back!</p><p>I hope that you can work out from the photograph how I threaded the printed lock onto the cord. It's not necessary to fit it this way but it is more compact.</p><p><strong>Print Settings</strong></p><p>Esun TPU<strong> </strong>(shore hardness 95, although probably not that important!)<br>0.6mm nozzle, 0.2mm layers, no retraction, no crossing perimeters.</p><p><strong>Cord</strong>: 3 bottom layers, 3 top layers, 5 perimeters, 100% concentric infill, concentric bottom, concentric top.</p><p><strong>Bung</strong>: as for cord, except 20% triangle infill.</p><p><strong>Lock</strong>: 2 bottom layers, 2 top layers, 3 perimeters, 20% honeycomb infill, rectilinear bottom, rectilinear top.</p>