Opening a New Chapter

A few weeks back, the door handle to the parking garage at my apartment broke. The break point is strange–you probably wouldn’t think that a metal door handle could be broken in the middle.

After nearly cutting my hand on the nub of a door handle, I decided it was time to 3D print a replacement.

Handle MK. 1

The door handle was originally broken on 2022-01-28. Handle MK. 1 was designed, printed, and installed on 2022-02-07. I designed the part in Solidworks 2021 and printed it on my Prusa i3 MK3S in PETG. I don’t normally add the date to 3D printed parts, but as the door handle would be a part used by everyone on my floor, I wanted there to be a record of how long it had been there.

It was immediately apparent that MK. 1 would not hold up to the whims of college students, or even regular people attempting to open the door. The hooks that attached to what was left of the door handle would bend easily when subject to any force applied at the tip, such as the force required to open a door.

I crossed my fingers it would be enough to work. It was not enough.

MK 1. Failure

MK. 1 failed in a few areas:

• Low infill at the contact point between the handle and the door nub
• Weak arms that held the handle on the door
• Arms broke from repeated loading

Handle MK. 2

For Handle MK. 2, I increased the thickness of the handle and added a clamp on the arms to hold it on the door. While I could’ve used screws to clamp the printed handle to the metal nub, I opted against it; lately, I have enjoyed designing parts that don’t use fasteners. I decided to go for a rectangular frame that held the arms of the handle together.

As of writing this, MK. 2 is still going strong!

I am hoping that this door handle will mark a new chapter in maintaining my projects, in that I will actually *maintain* my projects on this site.

Update 3/15: Sadly, the handle was not able to survive rambunctious college students for much more than a month. Sometime between 3/13 and 3/15, the handle was broken. I don’t have much desire to make a MK3 handle only for it to break again in another month, so hopefully the apartment complex repairs their door handle soon.