3D parts sharing platforms and repair

This article was written as part of the RE.FAB TOUR project, funded by the Walloon Region. Stay tuned for regular articles on 3D printing for repair. Find the whole series here, as well as resources for further study and training!

As we have seen in this series of articles, and without glossing over its limitations, 3D printing can be useful for repairs, particularly to overcome difficulties in accessing spare parts.

To increase the number of objects that can be repaired in 3D, one of the main challenges is to facilitate access to 3D models. Indeed, the design or redesign of broken parts requires time, skills, expertise and materials, and is the limiting factor for many repairs. To share a 3D model, two solutions can be envisaged: “official” platforms, or collaborative platforms.

The current solution: collaborative platforms

There’s a fairly active online community when it comes to sharing 3D models. Below is a list of the main websites where you can download 3D models to repair objects. Most of the parts you’ll find there are free to download, and shared under Creative Commons licenses. Others may be available for a fee, in which case you’ll need to pay a few euros to access the part.

These platforms bring together an impressive number of parts designed and shared by users from all over the world, and also, increasingly, by (semi-)automated 3D model generation systems. Of course, only a small number of these parts are repair-related. On these platforms, you’ll find a huge range of gadgets, decorative parts, figurines, games and toys, mechanism demonstrators and domestic storage systems.

Fortunately, repair parts are not excluded from these platforms. Use the keywords repair or spare-parts to find a large number of them. Similarly, typing in the name of a vacuum cleaner with a broken trigger is likely to find the part if it’s a common problem! Here, for example, are the main categories of 3D models for repair found on the Thingiverse platform:

In addition to these spare parts, there are also a multitude of tools for disassembling, unclipping or assembling objects to be repaired, as well as certain standard components, such as connectors or large nuts.

The limits and prospects of collaborative platforms

So far, so good: freely available parts for repairs for which there is no alternative!

Yes, but… In addition to the usual limitations of 3D printing for repairs, we can cite the following limitations, specific to the parts found on these platforms:

1. It’s not always clear whether the part you’re looking for exists, and finding it can be time-consuming: there are several platforms on which it’s not always easy to find your way around, and you have to find the right keywords, often in English, to have a chance of finding the part you’re looking for!
2. The choice is very limited compared to the number of parts likely to break in our appliances. Only very common parts for recent, popular appliances, and for frequent, well-known breakdowns, will be found on these platforms. In fact, the items we want to repair may have been in use for decades, before a worn plastic part finally gave out.
3. The existing part is often a pure copy of the part to be replaced. But redesigning is not copying! A part designed for 3D printing repair almost always needs to be modified and adjusted, to enable printing (avoiding certain geometries that are impractical or impossible to print), to limit printing time, and above all to reinforce it where necessary. Indeed, compared to the original part, a different material is used, a different manufacturing method, and if the part broke, it’s perhaps because it had a weakness!
4. These are not official 3D models released by the manufacturer, but 3D models drawn by people with varying degrees of experience, and the quality varies greatly from one model to another.
5. The quality of the part is sometimes questionable, as in the case of a part that has been (badly) scanned, and which, even if it looks correct at first sight, does not respect the dimensions of the original part.
6. The parts available for download are often in .stl format, i.e. they cannot be modified. However, we often need to adjust a dimension or enlarge a hole in the part, or even improve the part after an initial repair attempt!

In short, even if the right reflex is to spend a few minutes looking on these platforms to see if the part to be repaired can be found there, it’s hard to rely solely on them! Repairers using 3D printing often start from scratch to redesign the part in their own way, to be sure of getting the part they want, and to avoid wasting time on a potentially fruitless search.

Tomorrow’s solution (?): official platforms

While collaborative platforms are still showing their limitations, manufacturers have many cards up their sleeves to facilitate repair using 3D printing.

The Seb group, for example, made a series of parts available for free printing via its Happy 3D platform. While the initiative was commendable, as it gave everyone access to original 3D models, the platform has been deactivated for some years. Other manufacturers and distributors are considering similar initiatives, sometimes sharing models on request. But between questions of intellectual property, quality control and liability in the event of a problem, the model is still in its infancy, and there are few concrete solutions available today.

The other approach, which we are beginning to see, and which seems to us far more promising, is to integrate the possibility of repair using 3D printing into the design and business model. Examples include Mekanika, which produces open-source machines, or the mixer re.mix, where sharing 3D files is part of the business model. These new models have great potential, but are still fairly confidential today.

What other avenues are there?

Between these collaborative platforms and the official ones, there are still many obstacles and difficulties to overcome to really facilitate access to 3D models of spare parts for repair. We’re still dreaming of a platform dedicated to repair, with labelled and verified parts, shared on an open-access basis. There’s room for such solutions, but they will require a great deal of creativity! What’s more, despite ongoing discussions at European level, there is a degree of legal uncertainty surrounding the distribution of 3D models, which are subject to the manufacturer’s intellectual property rights. If you’re protected for private, non-commercial use, this is a factor not to be overlooked in the context of these platforms.

Finally, it’s important to remember once again that 3D printing of spare parts by individuals is not a structural solution. It enables repairs to be made for which there would be no alternative, for example if the spare part is non-existent. But 3D printing in a Fablab or Repair Café will never solve the problem of access to spare parts! We mustn’t let the emergence of this technique, which is still rather anecdotal, be used as an excuse to stop producing spare parts.

What’s the bottom line?

In conclusion, while more and more solutions for accessing 3D models exist today, none of them fully satisfies the needs of citizen repairers. Having some 3D modeling skills, which can be a big step, is still unavoidable when it comes to repairing with 3D printing. As a repairer, it’s also important to share the parts you’ve made privately and for non-commercial use (e.g. in Repair Cafés) on the collaborative platforms mentioned in this article, in order to strengthen these 3D model banks with quality parts, and enable even more repairs!