Kelty Discovery sun shade joint connectors by wbphelps

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

I bought a Kelty Discovery sun shade from REI. While camping in Oregon for the eclipse, we had a big gust of wind hit us and one of the plastic connectors broke. I called Kelty and they said they don't have parts for this model! It's a decent shade for the money, so rather than return it I decided to see if I could figure out how to make my own connectors. I use FreeCad - the challenge was getting the angles right, but once I understood how to create a small "helper" object with three surfaces at the needed angles, the rest was pretty easy.
I think the connectors I printed are actually stronger than the original - I made them a little thicker and with much beefier reinforcement angles. They do weigh about 30% or so more...
There are 3 different connectors. A & B are the corners, print two of each. C is the center connector, you'll need two of these as well. All of them have labels on them showing "A", "B", or "C", and the angles 90 and 100 degrees as appropriate.
Update 09/04/17: Added version 5 - slightly thicker tube wall, bottom trimmed flat so they print "as is" without the small bulge on the bottom.
I hope this helps someone else!
As usual (for me), designed in FreeCad and source files are included.
Update 10/25/17: Added version 7 - tubes are now 8 sided instead of round for easier printing, and I fixed the angle on one of the pieces.
If you print these in PLA, be sure to use a higher temperature than normal to get added strength. When I printed them in PLA at the usual (220C) they weren't strong enough and separated at the print layers. Printed at 270 in PLA they are much stronger, although in the end I decided to print them using PETG...