The Fly – Spring Clip

Perfect everywhere you need strong single point compression. Hanging cloths, closing bags, you name it.

Two sizes, no teeth, dual spring design with cylindrical inserts. Fast print – small clip is only 7g of filament and on Bambu Lab A1 MINI it prints in 20 minutes!

Why inserts?

Typical clips use metal springs. The springs are tensioned so the clip works from the very beginning. 3D printed spring is not pre-tensioned at all. There is no initial compressive force. Thats not all, it’s even worse. Plastic deforms during the first few uses, which creates a gap between the ends of the clip's jaws. You can counteract both of these effects by printing the clasp jaws at a greater angle than they will be used and then inserting elements between them that will pre-tension the spring. Otherwise, add inserts!

If you are not convinced, print the clip without inserts, use it 10 times and then try to grab a piece of paper with it’s tip. Good luck! ;)

If you want to increase the grip of this clips – print inserts with TPU! My last clip design used inserts with quite complicated shape, hard to print correctly using TPU. I decided to sort this problem out by simplifying the inserts shape to maximum. There is nothing easier to print than cylinder :) Try it out – TPU works great!

Print this clips using PETG. IMPORTANT!!! Do not print bigger version with 2 walls as it will create infill gap inside spring. That can lead to less springness, faster deform or break. Please use at least 3 walls.

If you like the model and you want to give it thumbs up, please also consider downloading it. It cost you just one additional click and it’s very important to me. Also check my other models, maybe you will find something interesting :) Thank you!

Happy printing!