Strain relief for 3mm wire #3DThursday #3DPrinting

from Strain relief for 3mm wire #3DThursday #3DPrinting
by Ben

Shared by zbrozek on Thingiverse:

A machine that my partner needs to use for work comes with really terrible cables that fail all the time due to a lack of adequate strain relief. I tried several methods to reinforce them for her, and while productive, none of them worked super well. So I tried something else and was really pleased with the result.

There’s some built-in support material (brim?) on the bottom that you need to remove. Without it I was unable to get good yield. It’s 0.15mm and therefore 1 layer thick with the settings that I used. It can be trivially broken off with tweezers.

Most other strain relief designs that I’ve found on Thingiverse are fully round and printed with the central axis vertical on the plate. This one is rectangular to provide a build surface, allowing it to be printed with the central axis in XY. Doing that eliminates the need to have support material inside the coils, substantially reducing post-print manual cleanup.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s possible to print it without the brim, but with a stickier build plate. I’ll give that a shot (e.g., with glue stick) and if it works out OK, will post a model without the brim.

Download the files and learn more

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