20mm conduit Tee connector for garden net/frost cover frame

thingiverse

This is a T-connector to use 20mm electrical conduit for garden/frost cover/netting/hoop house framing purposes. DO NOT USE THIS FOR ELECTRICAL PURPOSES, THE HOLES WILL DRILL THROUGH THE WIRING If you're looking for a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and even 10 way connector, have a look here: 1- Way "Stake styled" Anchor found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6228095 1-Way "Screw down" anchor found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6228135 2-Way "Straight" Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6187349 2-Way "L" or "Right-Angle" Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6188056 3-Way "Y" Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6181085 4-Way "Cross" Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6163584 5-Way Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6181104 6-Way Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6181111 7-Way Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6187567 8-Way Connector https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6167506 Half 8-Way Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6195584 Quarter 8-Way Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6196723 9-Way Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6190630 10-Way Connector: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6182651 Are you a gardener, market farmer, or looking to make/fix a hoop house cheaply? Do you use frost covers and netting to protect your plants and/or crops? Then using the freely available, relatively cheap 20mm electrical conduit as your framing material may be the ideal solution. However, while you can absolutely use saddle clamps, and star pickets with twine/wire to anchor each end of the arched conduit, connectors to make better, or more complex designs aren't available, or aren't designed for load bearing stresses and strains. Unfortunately, the conduit manufacturers (Like the DETA brand found here in Australia) simply don't make a viable connector for this purpose, (literally all of mine broke on a gusty day) so I have designed one. So here's my Tee-connector, T-connector, T-shaped connector, or whatever it is you prefer to call it. :-) My design has three things going for it: 1. It can be easily printed without ANY supports whatsoever. 2. It is FAR stronger, and takes advantage of "laid flat" orientation to minimise the weaknesses involved in layered FDM printing) and if that isn't enough... 3. I included M4 bolt holes so you can simultaneously: a) Lock the conduit into the connector using the bolt. (Drill a hole through the conduit first, obviously) b) Use the M4 bolt to ensure the layers of the connector are held together, even under significant strain. NOTES: While I don't recommend PLA for this purpose, (It's exposed to UV and water after all) I chose to use PETG and protect the conduit from UV by wrapping it in duct tape. It's working well so far, but we'll see how it's going after a couple of seasons.