Contests

Dare to Repair Contest Winners

When something breaks, what prevents you from trying to fix it yourself? Maybe you don’t have the right tools and guides to help you figure out the problem. Or, even if you do, you might have a broken part on your hands—but nothing to replace it with. Few manufacturers sell spare parts directly to consumers, which means you can get stuck with a broken device with no option to fix it. But what if you didn’t need to depend on the manufacturer for the part? What if you could print your own part on demand?

Repair, making, and tinkering depend directly on the quality and accessibility of manufacturing—and 3D printing is well on its way to becoming a part of everyday manufacturing. So, we decided to help speed up the process by teaming up with HP, Philips, and IKEA for the Dare to Repair 3D-Printed Parts Contest. Back in February, we asked users to design a 3D-printed replacement part for a product of their choosing. Then, they printed their design, repaired the product, and shared it all in an iFixit guide! Fast forward to today, and now we have our winners!

First Place: Anthony Kouttron

Anthony Kouttron is an electrical engineer, tinkerer, camera aficionado, and scooter-man. He started a legacy computer collection when he was ten years old, using computers his neighbors had discarded on the street. He went on to study electrical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. You can check out his repairs and other projects at SalvagedCircuitry.com

As a film hobbyist, Anthony decided to create a 3D-printed prototype for a hinge cover replacement on his Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH3 LCD camera.

Camera part made from 3D printing

“I took a liking to this camera and have a few of them, but when I found out that I couldn’t buy a replacement hinge cover, I was quite frustrated,” says Kouttron, who runs his own business designing power systems and accessories for cinema cameras. Anthony has contributed even more guides on iFixit.com—here’s what he’s been fixing.

2nd Place: Pieter, Mansour, Yvo, Suzanne and Rebecca are students from Delft University in the Netherlands. They teamed up to 3D-print a brake handle, swivel wheel lock, and handlebar clip replacement for the Bugaboo Cameleon. (Turns out, Bugaboo offers a ton of replacement parts on their website—now that’s what we like to see!) Now, trendy moms and dads can fix even more parts on their baby carriers for free.

Stroller part made by 3D printing

3rd Place: Battling a stuck drawer at home can be so frustrating. That’s why Bryan Arrington 3D-printed a drawer track alignment spacer. He’s got prototype files for six different size spacers included on the guide, so you can download, print, and fix your drawers today.

iFixit repair guide

If you like 3D printing and fixing, create a 3D-printed repair guide on iFixit.com! You can even upload your prototype files to the guide—so the whole world can access your part for printing. Get started at iFixit.com/new.

Happy printing!