Snowflake Wind Chime Silencer

This is an easy on/easy off item to stop wind chimes from ringing during high winds.

We bought tubular wind chimes from Costco and they are great. The long tubes make a nice, deep tone. However, when a front runs through north Texas and the wind gets cranked up, they can be quite noisy. I used to get out an 8' ladder to take them down. (the nice, deep tones require LONG tubes.) Yesterday, as they were clanging away, I decided to make a snap-on item that keeps them from ringing.

The CAD file was built in Onshape, so the design is parametric and can be adapted to any tubular wind chime (I think). The CAD files can be downloaded to your onshore account here: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/ac46fcae0726b3bb9456d8fb/w/f49ea2a3fdec40da3dec4b45/e/2c5646bacd3d334f4139eb9b?renderMode=0&uiState=6952f0275a4213494df69e35 One of the files is a diagram showing the important parameters.

Two of these are needed for a complete silencer.

As I mentioned, this model is for the wind chimes we bought from Costco. They have six 38mm diameter tubes, hanging in a circular array with a diameter of 180mm. Those are the parameters to easily change this for another wind chime. (see "Arm Variations" image)

The center hole and the slot that leads from it are for the clapper cord to go through. The clapper is the thing that hits the tubes to make sound. I found that snapping both silencers on one tube and then holding the first tube in one hand, snapping the opposite tube into the opposite arm is very easy. The diameter of the center hole us #hole_dia and can be enlarged for chimes that have 5 tubes or more to use less material when printing.