Godammn vacuum cleaner broke. Took it apart, its just a part of the brush roller that is broken. Should be an easy fix. But they don't sell spare parts for my vacuum. They never have, they just want you to buy a new one. So one little easily replaced plastic bit makes the whole thing into non-functional mostly plastic waste. The vacuum is even clearly designed to be easily repaired, it's one of the most intelligently laid out appliances I've ever seen.

But it's not profitable to sell spare parts, so I have to send this thing to a landfill if I can't figure out some ghetto fix. This intentional wastefulness is one of the things that pisses me off about capitalism nearly every day.

    • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Unfortunately I don't think 3d printing a part would fix this. The assembly with the brush roller includes a bearing, a gear for the belt drive, and plastic piece to hold it aligned in place. This plastic piece is broken and can't be removed from the assembly without permanently damaging other parts.

      It's a pretty slick design, two screws and it slides out. It seems the idea is it's like wiper blades, you buy the new wiper and the parts needed to hold and align it as one unit and replace it as one unit. Other more expensive vacuums from the same company work the same way, but if you can't afford the $500 models you don't get spare parts. And unfortunately it seems the sizing of the roller is different on these models and they aren't compatible with the one I have.

        • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          It's a shark zu620. Only way a printed part could fix this is if I could remove the gear and reattach it non-destructively. It seems like it's riveted or ultrasonically welded onto the metal shaft that goes through the brush roller, I've seen this construction method in a bunch of stuff before, but I'm not sure exactly what it is. I don't even know what to Google to see what this is called.

          I wonder if any of the parts not listed as being compatible with my vacuum actually are? That would be great if that was the case.

          • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            So the plastic part is broken and you can't get it seperated from the shaft? Could you just cut the plastic part off and put a new one on if it was in 2 parts?

            • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
              ·
              4 years ago

              I thought about doing that, the gap you have to work with us so tiny there is no way to do that without damaging the gear. Might be possible to melt a hole through with a red hot punch or something, but I think it's more likely I'd make it unrecoverable than fixable. Might try it if I run out of options though.