January 23, 2020
Description
The time had come. Our oldest child got his driver's license and we needed a good, safe, reliable car for him. We found a used 2007 Toyota Prius II that was in great mechanical condition but the prior owners... just didn't quite negotiate their garage that well a couple of times.
The front bumper was the worst with a crack running down the front of the plastic and the plug/cap having popped off. The crack was easy to fix with some J B Weld. The hole was a bit of an eyesore, though, and the cap had been long lost.
I grabbed my calipers and took to measuring the hole. That same day, I designed and printed the replacement cap. The first one fit, but the clips were too frail. This is the second version.
It works. What you see in the pictures is the before shot of the bumper, the cap newly installed, and the cap again after having been used in warm weather and VERY cold temperatures in Minnesota, over the span of 7 months. It has held up very well, despite being PLA.
The cap in the photo has the symbol for "Gandalf" from the Lord of the Rings. However, for this upload, I am providing a plain cap. Feel free to use Meshmixer to add your own emblem or just leave it as-is.
I could have worked on the design to have the circle better match the contour of the bumper (the cap is a simple cylinder whilst the hole is more of an off-angle cylindrical cross-section) but this does the job and does it quite well.
If you find this of use, please post your makes! I really appreciate knowing my stuff can help others.
God bless!
Printer: Bob's CNC RP9 v2
Rafts: Doesn't Matter
Supports: No
Resolution: 0.2 mm
Infill: 50%
Notes:
Feel free to use a coarser resolution - 0.3 or 0.4 mm layers should work and might give some additional strength to the clips.
This is a VERY easy print, assuming you have your retraction and cooling settings set well. No supports are needed and pretty much no cleanup is needed either.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial
9
Dan the 3D Printing Dad
