3D Printed Watch Band Retainer

This tiny project was my first print with a flexible filament (TPU) to fix my son's $4 thrift store watch.

Being somewhat trivial, I'm not quite sure why I made a video and post out of this. I have some more interesting projects in mind and I guess I'm just starting small. I'm hoping that the things I share inspire people to fix things on their own, and exposes a bit of the process of designing and printing parts.

After modeling the part in OpenSCAD, I realized that the BOSL library includes a rect_tube function that can do this in one line of code, but I also noticed that it renders a lot more slowly than my simple implementation.

I used Overture TPU Filament and it printed very nicely on my Prusa Mini. I made sure to set a fairly low print speed, as TPU does not print well when the movement is too fast. I also used a glue stick on the build plate to prevent it from adhering too strongly.