Fusion 360: Designing a Replacement Trigger for a DeWalt Clamp
A colleague who teaches science came to me with a DeWalt trigger clamp that had lost its trigger, and he asked me if I could print a replacement since trying to order one through official channels could take months or a full school year. Fulfilling this request would be a small coup for me as I was trying to show staff the direct benefits to them of having 3D printing in house.
A quick look on Tinkercad and Printables showed no existing designs, so I got started creating my own in Fusion 360. Since I’m still learning CAD, any opportunity to practice designing different objects is welcome. I took some reference images and started with a sketch, as I’m working on understanding constraints better. The rest of the design was pretty quick, and I was able to print a prototype in PLA on one of our Prusas that afternoon. Testing showed it fit and performed its action well and only needed a little tweaking, so I thickened the geometry that performs the action a little, and then filleted to my heart’s content and printed a final version on PETG on my Voron. In the final print, I changed the orientation to make the filleted parts that the user’s hand touches print smoother. (The moire pattern on the print was because bolts on a part connecting a Z belt to the gantry were coming loose.)
Check out the design timelapse below or download the design files from Printables.