Broke a soft top clip today...attempting a re-manufacture!

[colonelhogan44]

I broke the first little soft top clip on my 93 this morning putting the top on (winter finally arrived in CA). It was sort of upsetting, as they were all intact to this point.

Of course, the first thing I did was to jump on inventor and model a close reproduction:



I'm going to start the build on my 3-d printer within the hour. If it turns out well, this might be a viable solution for those of us who fall victim to 20 year old brittle plastic syndrome.

I'll keep you all posted.

[colonelhogan44]

It worked! I need to make a couple tweaks, but overall it's better than the brittle clip it's replacing.

[DonD]

I like!....

[Dayton86]

Awesome dude. I bet lots of folks would be interested in some. I know I would. I do a few I pulled from the junkyard but I have had a few break quickly. New is always better.

[Bex]

As an aside, I never snap my fiberglass rod into these clips - I slide it through. This way the clip never expands and weakens. These clips are like hens' teeth. Good luck with the fabrication - will be very handy (to others, as well) if successful.

[Peculiar1]

WAY cool.

[colonelhogan44]

Slipping the rod seems like it would be difficult. I'll have to take another look.

I tweaked the design and am making a run of 4 clips as I type this.





With the first prototype an 80% success (it was a tad bit loose), I'm hoping these will be as good or better than stock after the modifications.

I'll have a few extras when I'm done. If they work really well, I'll put them up for grabs. If enough demand surfaces, I can make a run of them.

[colonelhogan44]

The second prototype clips came off the printer.





I'm very happy with the second design -- they're much closer to the factory clips.

[Bex]

Wow, how cool is that. Aside from the fact that they look really excellent (and loads of people are looking for these), I am interested as to how you actually do this. Computer program called 'inventor'? And then what???

[colonelhogan44]

How I make (nearly) any plastic part up to 4"x4"x5"

1.) Model the part using Autodesk Inventor.

2.) Export the drawing out to an STL file.

3.) Use Replicator G to transform the drawing into machine code which directs the toolpath of the 3-d printer

4.) Prep the build platform by painting it with ABS plastic dissolved in acetone to provide a "sticky" surface to keep the part still while it is building.

5.) Start the build and hang doing other work in a nearby area to be able to monitor the progress, make sure the plastic filament is feeding correctly and the machine is not self destructing from time to time.

6.) Wait. It takes 32.5 minutes per clip at my current settings.

7.) Pull the part off and clean up the edges with an exacto knife.


I'm building with a nearly 2 year old MakerBot Printer. In the 3-D printing world, that's ANCIENT equipment. I'm looking to upgrade to this machine at some point soon: Formlabs - High Resolution Desktop 3D Printer