Microwave Door Release Button
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Published on March 9, 2012
Description
This is a door release button for a Panasonic NNSD277B/W microwave.
I bought the microwave a little over two years ago. Since then, I've had both plastic retention tabs at the side of the button fail, and ordered a replacement part.
After a little over a year, one of the replacement part's tabs has already snapped off and the other is sure to follow soon.
I decided to reverse engineer the part in FreeCAD today before the other tab breaks off (they get lost inside the microwave making them virtually impossible to retrieve) and share it here in the event I need to print myself off a copy at some point in the future.
Panasonic: Shame on you for designing such a crummy part and charging your customers ~$50 to replace it every ~18 months.
I bought the microwave a little over two years ago. Since then, I've had both plastic retention tabs at the side of the button fail, and ordered a replacement part.
After a little over a year, one of the replacement part's tabs has already snapped off and the other is sure to follow soon.
I decided to reverse engineer the part in FreeCAD today before the other tab breaks off (they get lost inside the microwave making them virtually impossible to retrieve) and share it here in the event I need to print myself off a copy at some point in the future.
Panasonic: Shame on you for designing such a crummy part and charging your customers ~$50 to replace it every ~18 months.
Instructions
For production with a 3D printer or 3D printing service.
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License
Microwave Door Release Button by isolationism is licensed under the Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share Alike license.
More from isolationism
This sort of situation is exactly why I built a 3D printer. Nicely done! When I'm in the market for a microwave I'll consider this one, knowing that printable replacement parts are available ;)
Thanks very much, polymaker! It was a gratifying project to work on as I was constantly learning (both how to quantify the real-world part in digital units, and struggling with the software). The microwave itself seems great, but what a terrible button design! At least soon, a replacement part will only cost a few dollars and be a button-push away.
It is my first model of any kind in FreeCAD; I consider it a qualified success considering I haven't done any 3D work in 7 years, and never really used CAD before (although my 3DS MAX background likely helped a bit).
My part isn't *quite* perfect as there is a bit of tesselation on the two push
rods (visible as a slightly mottling in the rendering) but that appears to be an artifact from modeling using the "create a ruled surface" modeling method, followed by converting to a solid. I probably should have created a profile shape and revolved it instead, but since the tesselation is minor an
d not visible in the installed part, I think I'm going to leave it as-is and remember to investigate a bit more when I have some free time.
I don't own a 3D printer yet and I confess the thought of assembling one myself is a bit daunting; the RepRap sure has a lot of parts! The MakerBot variety see
m a little more manageable for me (if only because of the pre-assembled option) but the price is quite hgh. The MakiBot idea is interesting (and will be amazing if it actually works for anything close to that price) but it doesn't even exist yet, so not worth betting the farm on that one, either.
I
think for now I may take the plunge and send it to a service like Shapeways to have a nice one printed as a backup (as my current part probably only has another month or two left to live) unless I can find someone local with a printer that'd be willing to print me a part for a few bucks until I get
my own.
I had a quick peek at your blog and it looks very interesting; thank you for writing about your experiences! I'll be doing a bit of reading soon to see why you chose what you did, and what the ups and downs of your project were.