richardabeattie
Well-Known Member
Well actually the only bit that's broken is one of the two bits of plastic that hold the battery cover in place. Any body got a dead one in their junk box?
Broken Autohelm Personal Compass
- Thread starter richardabeattie
- Start date
tillergirl
Well-Known Member
Yes - on board at the moment. Do you mean the circular push in and turn thingy?
fergie_mac66
Well-Known Member
3d print it
richardabeattie
Well-Known Member
Tillergirl - yes that's exactly it! I'll pm you.
Lomax88
New Member
I find myself in the same position, and am curious, did anyone manage to solve this without resorting to hijacking another one from another unit? I was thinking if I could get some plastic hack away at it with a Dremel until I get something. Easier said than done.
Fergie, I'm genuinely curious about your post. Obviously you meant for it to be helpful, but the two most critical bits of information were omitted in your post - namely the digital schematics for the battery cover to give to the 3D printer, as well as the place that will do the project for significantly less than the $30 or so that these units are fetching on ebay.
Why even respond? Are you mocking us? It's like telling a frustrated world class runner that in order to break a 10s 100m dash, he should try running faster.
Fergie, I'm genuinely curious about your post. Obviously you meant for it to be helpful, but the two most critical bits of information were omitted in your post - namely the digital schematics for the battery cover to give to the 3D printer, as well as the place that will do the project for significantly less than the $30 or so that these units are fetching on ebay.
Why even respond? Are you mocking us? It's like telling a frustrated world class runner that in order to break a 10s 100m dash, he should try running faster.
lw395
Well-Known Member
If you can find an amateur 3D printer owner, this may well be the kind of thing they could do for you.
There are people on ebay who will take your sketch and turn it into a CAD file.
Print a few, sell some of them on here or ebay to recoup the cost?
Refueler
Well-Known Member
Give me the file and I'll print at cost ... I'm sure many others would do same ...
Lomax88
New Member
This was never about money, I just hate the thought of something that it 99% functional being scraped for such a trivial piece of plastic. My background is engineering, so I could do the CAD myself, but going from sketch to CAD, particularly when the sketch is from memory and a negative battery holder is a recipe for failure. This is the sort of thing that if you designed it, would ideally be done in concert with designing the holder itself, or at the very least reverse engineered from an existing one.
The issue is there is no file. People are just suggesting 3D printing after making a file based on nothing more than memory and a negative for the holder.
Anyways, I just wanted to update it as I was able to solve the problem, and can hopefully help someone else in the future.
Essentially I took a piece of old bike tire rubber, and made a piece that circumscribed the battery hole. I put two more small holes in the sides to put small non-magnetic nuts so everything was level (didn't get a pic, but the're adjacent to the battery clip in pic 3), then JB welded it all together. I put a piece of bike tube on top of it to cover it, also with the idea that a rubberized base may help keep water out. I then took an old brass bike bell, (had a bunch of old bike stuff....) and cut that with two flanges on the sides. I played with some plastic shims made from pop bottle lids to get the height right to apply the right amount of pressure on the batteries, screwed it together, and we were of to the races.
I'm not sure how critical using non magnetic components is, the screws are not, but they're easy to swap out, the batteries are not either, and the compass seems to function well enough. The other thing I didn't appreciate is how sensitive it is to being level, which with this bulge in front it no longer is if laid down.
