slama.dev

Fixing a Broken Blind Holder

27. 8. 2025 · · [edit]

A blind holder, as pictured on the image below, recently broke in our appartment. Naturally, the only reasonable thing to do was to go to Obi and buy a new one for 3 euros

• take ~80 images of the working one from various angles,
• use colmap to reconstruct the 3D model,
• use Blender and MeshLab to clean it up, and
• use Prusa to 3D print an exact replica.

Suddenly, something that would take other people minutes and very little money to purchase and solve, took me only 2 hours on a Sunday, and all I needed was relatively expensive specialized equipment. 😎

Initially, I tried to print with PLA, but unfortunately it is too rigid to work well for situations like these. Instead, I opted for TPU, which is significantly more elastic and thus more suitable for this use case; it is still a bit too elastic, but I don’t own any other filament types, so this will have to do.

While the model itself could be cleaner (the Meshlab/Blender post-processing was rather hasty), the important part is that the component functions as it should, and that this approach works really well if small things around the house break.

Stay tuned for the next post, where I 3D print a blind holder holder, which will hold up to 7 additional blind holders, in case we decide to obtain more blinds. 🙃