MakerBot Toy Repair

Magnetic Sketcher

I had previously fixed a toy fire truck by modeling a broken swivel and printing a new one.

Today I discovered a handle had broken off a magnetic drawing toy.  The yellow handle is hollow and separate from the red plastic body.  It is held in place by plastic tabs that slot into body and protrude into the handle.  The plastic tabs that held the handle in place were themselves hollow – and cracked right where the handle met the body.

I measured the broken part, modeled it in Sketchup, duplicated it, exported to an STL, put through the brand new RepG, printed, opened the toy, inserted the printed parts, put it back together, and DONE.  Since the printed tabs are on the inside, it is functionally perfect and cosmetically indistinguishable with an off-the-shelf model.

Without a MakerBot, it would have been either cosmetically unsightly or prohibitively expensive to repair.  Win.