3D Printed “rubber” feet
Hi, Maker Pipe Community!
It has been a while since I visited the community—life gets busy! Today, I have a little 3D printing hack to share. This one is very basic, dare I say “minimalist” rubber foot alternative.
I really love the rubber pipe feet sold in the Maker Pipe shop. They are fantastic. However, for my bird feeder setup which is out in the elements all year, they only lasted a couple years. The snug fit, combined with hot, cold, rain (lots of rain where I live) and sunlight and ozone take a toll. As you can see in the attached photo, rubber that is stretched over conduit eventually starts to crack under these conditions. At least mine did (to be fair, I purchased my feet on Amazon before Maker Pipe had them).
My solution was to 3D print replacements with flex TPU filament. My design uses as little filament as possible resulting a smaller pipe foot. It still provides 5mm of solid “rubber” under the end to give some cushion, but this is definitely a smaller solution than regular rubber feet.
Only time will tell if TPU stands up to the elements longer than natural rubber, but I figured I would share my solution with the community.
Here’s a link to my design on Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5460052
