Aldi Mower Fuel Cap

thingiverse

Using my brand new Aldi mower for the second time, I noticed that while mowing, the fuel cap had come off and was hanging by the cord. Upon inspection, one side had broken off (the one with one of the 2 lugs), and after that, it wouldn't stay on properly any more. I thus created this mower cap replacement. It fits an Aldi mower where two lugs are used to secure the cap after it is pushed on and turned by 30 degrees. After searching the web for filaments that are fuel safe, I decided to use Taulman 645 nylon for this job. Apparently common materials like ABS, PLA, etc. are prone to deterioration from fuel. I have not tested this, so I can not say for certain about other materials failing, but the nylon is working very well and seem unaffected. If you are an expert at nylon printing, use your normal settings and go for it. If you have had limited success in the past, and are unsure of how to get the best results because you don't use nylon regularly, I have found the following tips to be good value for me, on my Prusa. Make sure the Nylon is dry. I place it in a dehumidifier the night before I start printing, and I keep it in the running dehumidifier while I am printing, pulling the nylon out of it. I made a custom dehumidifier from a food dehumidifier and a bucket, printing some spindles to go inside the bucket, so that I can run it while printing and feeding the filament out of it. Moist nylon hisses, spits and steams as you print it and will not create a great result. Print slow and thin. Nylon is elastic and printing it fast causes it to warp and potentially delaminate (at least for me). I print nylon at 25 mm/sec at 0.1 mm layer height. Print it hot. I found that printing the first layer at 250 degrees and then the rest at 270 on a 100 degree print bed works well for me. Use a single layer of glue stick to help the adhesion. It really only needs a very thin layer of glue and being too generous doesn't work for me. I print a 20mm brim which I have found also helps with bed adhesion and reduction of warping. As the material cools, it has a habit of wanting to shrink a little. The thicker it is, the more it wants to warp and lift. Thus by adding that single layer brim, the corners are unable to lift and warp up.