Yesterday morning I was flicking through Facebook, and I saw somebody had made a holder for anti-roll bars. “That’s a good idea!” I thought. I had been invited to a practice day, but the Mrs. had a day off, so I couldn’t really leaver her on her lonesome while I buggered off and had fun. So I decided to teach myself CAD, and the best way to learn is to do. So I set about designing my own roll bar holder.
I had played a bit with TinkerCAD before, but without a final goal to reach, I didn’t get that far. However, with a clear and achievable aim, fairly soon I had the basis of a tangible design. By the afternoon, I had The Mk1 ready to print.
As anticipated, there were a few issues. The lid overshot the case by an embarrassing amount.
The 2mm Roll bar didn’t sit in the slot because the slot was too small.
And the lid holding indent and sliding rails were way too small to hold the thing together.
So there wasn’t much on telly last night, so I set about on Mk2. I made the lid smaller along the Y axis, made the bar slots a little wider, put in dimples and pimples for holding the two parts together, made the lid rails bigger, realised the dimples and pimples wouldn’t work, and moved them so there was one pair in a better place.
By the time I had Mk2 ready, it was bedtime. But this morning I almost bounced into the loft, eager to see if MK2 was good enough.
1h 10m to print, and I have to say I’m quite chuffed with the result. The roll bars sit nicely in the holes, the lid is now flush with the holder, the pimple and dimple hold them together (a bit too well until it’s been used a few times), and the rails are more snug now.
If you want one, I haven’t decided on a price yet. But there’s a variety of colours I can print in, and I can even personalise it for you if you’d like 🙂