Conversation

Most complex superglue surgery in my life. Mending a cracked leg sleeve on a tripod. Had to glue 3 shards (still imperfect) and get glue in crack in front, then apply a g clamp while it dries, since it’s in tension and would pull apart.
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This won’t be perfect but should solve the soft play in one leg that makes leveling hard. Should hopefully get telescope alignment work better. Plan B, call maker for replacement sleeve. Plan C, 3d print one 😱.
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I’m making myself do more repair/maintenance these days partly because I think the world needs to return to a repair over replace ethos, partly for fun (replacing the sleeve is the best move here, and replacing the tripod is probably what’s actually possible)
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Gluing a complex fracture in a plastic structural component is simply not something the world economy wants consumer humans to do. This thing is made in China and getting the part probably means an hour in the phone and months waiting for it to be shipped across the world. Silly.
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In a better world, 3d printable CAD files would be available to any buyer. The most environment friendly solution here is 3d printing this at home. You’d fix the problem without shipping a small package from China OR sending an otherwise perfectly fine tripod to the landfill.
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But if you could easily find the CAD file, it should be just as easy to have APIs that have inventory of extras of the components that ship to you via Amazon Prime. ...even paper printers run into problems. You'll never make it as easy as ordering a new thing.
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Except you already have trucks driving around delivering goods so the marginal difference from small plastic components should be small. Centralized 3D print hubs seems more viable. I recently made my 4th sale on this ~4 years in. I undercut Fox by $10.
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Not really. Well known logistics problem of very lightly loaded transportation moving shit around. The trucks already driving around are mostly carrying air around very far from max utilization. Getting emissions-optimal max-utilization logistics going is a Apollo grade problem.
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Doesn't being far from full utilization support my claim? If USPS is already stopping at almost every address with space to spare, then shipping replacement parts from a local 3D printing hub should be fairly efficient.