Rowenta x-force flex - Flex Tube Locking Clip

thingiverse

**NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY - don't even ask and don't even try to sell it anywhere. It was a hard thing to design and it still is not totally perfect. So please respect a mens hard work and wish to keep this free. If you don't respect it, then I'll find you!** Recently the locking clip of our Rowenta X-Force Flex tube broke and Rowenta does not keep this a spare part. So the solution would have been to dump an otherwise perfectly fine vacuum tube just because a 50x20-ish mm piece of plastic broke. So I took the tube apart and tinkered this replacement. It's currently in *beta* stadium. I test-printed it in PLA and it still holds up fine after a couple of uses. Even though I will re-print it in PAHT-CF I think PLA should work fine too with the recommended settings below. To increase strength I recommend the following settings: - Print flat lying on its back with all recesses pointing up - turn 180degrees after importing - Outer layers thickness/wall loops: 3-4 (also for bottom and top layers) - infill: 15% should be enough - Infill pattern: Triangle is strong enough I am torn about supports. You really only need them for the long rear shaft. But the print get cleaner if you also use them for the long sloping part. Caveat: The main axle/shaft might need some minor post-processing/sanding to make it run smoother There are currently two files: - flex tube clip beta (the original one) - I found that the tip might be a bit to short - flex tube clip 2 - an experimental version with a 1mm longer tip that will make it a little bit more stable hopefully. We'll see.