Rubber Band Flashlight Clip

thingiverse

I've designed a number of brackets that work by flexing a bit of plastic & snapping around some thingy. For big boy plastics like ABS or Nylon, this is probably fine! But PLA is pretty soft & tends to creep under load. If you're relying on PLA to act as a spring, you're going to have a bad time, & if you print a flexture-type bracket out of PLA, it's only a matter of time before it loses spring force & unceremoniously drops your thingy. This little bracket is pretty simple, but I'm hoping to gesture at a direction for 3D printed designs that need some sort of flexture or spring: wherever possible, don't rely on the plastic to provide continuous springiness. Use an actual goddamned spring or some other separate elastic component. SPEAKING OF WHICH: little rubber bands. They usually suck! But you know what doesn't suck? Bike tubes! If you blow a standard road bike tire (700x23, for example), a pair of scissors & an hour of time will net you more little rubber bands than you could possibly use in your entire life. Bike tube rubber is super robust, & so are the little rubber bands you cut out of it…which makes them perfect for little flexy devices such as this!