As someone who likes making things, fixing things and generally tinkering about, a 3D printer is something that caught my eye but couldn’t justify getting myself. However one came into my life (a Bambu Lab A1) with unlimited access and use of so the experimentation and tinkering began.
Over the time its lived in the attic, we have used it to fix our clothes dryer brackets, make clips to stop our blinds falling down, make lots of useless trinkets and another user even had an online shop selling fidget toys printed to order.
But can it be functional for bikes? Well yes I think it can. Over the past year I have learned to use Fusion 360 (a program for creating 3D designs) and designed a number of parts for my bikes. One of the first was an apple tag holder for the omnium cargo. You can buy these for about £30 which seemed well, a lot! So I designed and made my own. At this time I’m pleased to report it has worked flawlessly and is still in use today. The support backrest for my passengers on the omnium were also made by me.
The most recent creation, and the reason for writing this article, is to experiment with some brake cable and dynamo guides for my new to me Genesis Day One 10 frame. It came with simple guides for a single brake cable which meant the dynamo wire being zip tied to the brake cable. This works but seemed rather ugly.
New creations always start as a rough sketch in a notepad that is full of drawings and plans for bike bags, tote bags, cargo bags, and well more bags. This allows the vision to come out of my head and onto something tangible ideally before the mind wanders to a new topic. Some rough dimensions are considered, features added and form planned.
Then it’s simply a case of recreating this in Fusion 360, far easier said than done. Fusion 360 is not one of those intuitive programs, you need to learn how to use it which took time, many errors and lots of frustration at first.
Once the drawing is done, the prototype is exported to Bambu Lab studio which is the program that allows you to prepare and then print the files. It usually takes a few iterations however in this instance, it only needed some minor adjustments and was perfect on the second go.
These are now now on my bike, hold both the brake and dynamo cable securely, neatly and also with the satisfaction that I designed and produced them myself. They will be tested for a few months to see if they hold up and go from there. Any suggestion on how they could be improved? Do let me know in the comments.
So where am I going with this? Well I think it’s just to show how interesting and versatile bikes are and how we can use the tools and resources around us to customise, change and make them our own. Plus learning new skills is engaging and exciting especially when you can see the new opportunities suddenly open to you. I fully encourage you all to tinker, make stuff, add it to your bike or whatever you’re interested in. And most of all have fun while doing it.
I’m keen to highlight makers on here so if you have made anything bike related or adjacent to bikes, let me know so we can feature your creations here! Get in touch via email on DM on instagram.
Has anyone else made anything using a 3D printer? Or have any good ideas to try?
Sounds good but no access to a suitable “cad” machine or 3D printer. A thought and question though.
Have you considered curving the side of the guide that sits against the bike frame for a flush fit? The pics seem to indicate you have “simply” gone with flat guides?
Bugger, can’t remember my question. Give me a minute.
Ah yes. Your pic indicates that you run cable/dynamo on the underside of the down tube. Am I right to think that you added your own eyelets to the tube? I’ve seen articles about drilling and adding Rivnuts for threaded fittings. I’ve always been concerned about weakening the tubes? Thoughts please?
Hi, yes I think in the next iteration I’ll make them curved and fit to the downtube. For this experiment I wanted to keep it simple and see they were strong enough, they were!
Thankfully this frame already had the bosses on the downtube so didn’t need to drill. I have known people do it with great success however I have always taken my frames to a frame builder and got them to braze in the mounts (tomo bikes is my go to but there are lots).