Ventian Blinds Cam Replacement

thingiverse

Our household consists of approximately fifteen wooden Venetian blinds that are quite attractive. However, they all share a common issue: the small plastic cam that controls their rotation mechanism has failed on every single blind. Each blind unit contains up to four of these tiny cams, and upon moving in, we discovered that almost all of them had already broken down and were held together with duct tape. Although this provided a short-term fix, the duct tape would peel off after a month, requiring constant maintenance. Fortunately, my Makerbot Replicator 2 came to our rescue. I extracted the failing part from the blind assembly, designed a replacement using CAD software, and made it thicker in the problem area as well as the walls for added durability. After several iterations to perfect the hexagonal hole fit, I successfully created a reliable replacement. The cost savings from fixing these blinds with this simple part more than covered the Replicator 2's price.