I don’t like throwing things away just because some part of them is broken, it’s wasteful and inelegant. So when my under-one-year-old snapped the clip off the tail light of my bicycle, I certainly wasn’t going to throw it away when all the electronics and most of the case was perfectly fine.
3D printers get a lot of attention for prototyping new things and accelerating the design process but they are also great for making replacement parts. I headed over to Robot Garden, my local makerspace, took some measurements of the broken clip and quickly CADed up a replacement. As long as I was making a one off clip, I also made some customizations, making the clip stiffer and giving better access to the button from the top side.
20 minutes of printing and a little bit of assembly later and my bike light is better than new.
