Spare parts & where to get them
When parts fail you can replace them with spare parts. You can find many resources online where spare parts are being sold, but when spare parts are unavailable, what can you do? For one you can try to recreate the spare part, using either handcraft tools, but you can also make use of additive manufacturing techniques, like 3D printers.
This article will help you out in finding spare parts in the field or reproducing your own spare parts when they are missing.
Before hitting the computer and start modeling your spare part, first, start out by searching for what’s already out there, spare parts in the fied.
Spare parts in the field
Original part
When a component or part is broken, you can replace it with available original spare parts. Buying an original part gives you the highest chance that the part will correctly fit the device. There are many resources for parts available on the web. A google search using the strings like “spare part” or the specific part in need (e.g. pump), together with the brand (Philips), product category (coffeemaker), product type (Senseo), and/or the type number (HD7800) will give you web shops which sell spare parts for the concerned product.
For instance googling: “spare part” AND “Philips Senseo”, will return you loads of available spare parts at different web shops.
Did you know, Since March 2021, manufacturers have been required to make spare parts available for certain products such as washing machines. It is an EU obligation that manufacturers must meet under the
Third-Party Parts
Where original spare parts are not available, third party parts often are, with smartphone screens being a good example.
Some third party spare parts are identical to the genuine article and even come off the same production line. For example, a smartphone screen or battery manufacturer may simply continue a manufacturing run after satisfying the original order. However, the source of a spare part may be impossible to ascertain without a visit to East Asia, which some reputable parts suppliers may actually have undertaken!
A lack of accountability can be a problem when buying third party parts, as it can be difficult to determine in advance if a spare part will be fit for purpose. Depending on where you buy, warranty and refund options may be limited.
Repaired and Remanufactured Parts
Repaired parts are spare parts that have been extracted from a used device and were made functional again. It can be difficult to tell what to expect from a repaired part. Some might have been fixed in an unreliable way (e.g. reflowing a chip on the motherboard), others might have required only small repairs like a software reconfiguration and might work very well.
“Remanufactured" is a protected term though, which means that the product meets all specifications of the original new product.
Remember, whenever buying spare parts, it is good to look for a long warranty period and to buy from a reputable and accountable manufacturer.
Salvaged Parts
Salvaged parts are parts that you, or someone else was able to ‘save’ by taking them out of another—often discarded—’donor’ device. Contrary to repaired or remanufactured parts, salvaged parts are usually not verified or tested.
From some devices it is easier to salvage parts than from others. Desktop PCs for instance, are designed to be more modular for the end user and individual parts are designed to adhere to widely adopted standards. So, individual working parts from a desktop PC can typically be used as spare parts.
In other devices, end user modification or salvaging is not promoted and reusing parts is more difficult, as they are more often bespoke for that particular device. For example, many televisions would have their own unique power supply and motherboard that could only be directly used again in that same model of TV.
Salvaged spare parts will have individual components that can be used again in other devices, such as resistors, capacitors, diodes or transistors, though individually, few of these would be worth salvaging except by an electronics hobbyist. A few local repair communities (with other partners) have started creating physical spare parts libraries, making it possible for Repair Cafés to have a few popular (or rare) spare parts ‘in stock’.
Bear in mind that it is not always allowed to use donor parts in your product without being a WEEELABEX/CENELEC certified repairer.
3D printing to the rescue
With the help of 3D printers, it is possible to produce simple plastic spare parts at low cost. If there is a Makerspace near you, you can produce the parts over there for a small fee. For example, mechanical parts such as gear wheels or levers, lost parts such as clips or covers, accessories such as nozzle attachments for hoover pipes, can be solved using a 3D-printed spare part.
We will point you to resources for available spare parts, video tutorials to create your own by digitizing the original using manual scanning and recreate a digital twin using Computer Aided Design programs.
The most commonly used 3D printer is the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) printer, where plastic filament is heated and deposited one layer on top of the other, creating an object in three dimensions. FDM printing is able to create carbon copies, but these will never be stronger than its original counterpart. It can therefore be used for non-engineering parts like casings and aesthetic parts, but need to be optimized when applied in engineering parts like gears and other force-transmitting parts. We will show you how to address these issues, stretching the boundaries of FDM printed spare parts. Other printer technologies, like Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and Stereo Lithography (SLA), can create stronger parts, but these techniques are less common at home or in Makerspaces but can be ordered at printing services like i.Materialise.
To help you out we have developed a video tutorial and a 3DP4Repair guide.
Print-ready spare parts
Ok, you haven’t found your spare part anywhere, now what? 3D printing could be a solution, preferably when the part consists of a single material and is made out of plastic. Original metal parts are strong and it is not recommended to replace them by plastic substitutes. You can, though, print metal parts in 3D at rapid prototyping service providers like i.Materialise for very reasonable prices.
Before starting up your CAD program, check out whether your spare part is already created by a member of the community. Within this project we have recreated several parts for coffeemakers, headphones and other devices, which can be downloaded and printed on any FDM printer. You can find our database on MyMiniFactory which is constantly updated with new awesome parts developed by our volunteers at the Delft University of Technology, Prototyping Collective, and the Manchester Metropolitan University:
Other resources where you can find spare parts are for instance:
Just search the databases using the right queries and maybe you are lucky!
Create your own spare parts
Want to know more about how to decide whether 3D printing can offer a good solution to your problem and make your own spare parts? Read more about it in this article, and check out the book and accessible video tutorials on 3D-printing for repair, created by experts from Manchester Metropolitan University and TU Delft.
Print-ready spare parts
Ok, you haven’t found your spare part anywhere, now what? 3D printing could be a solution, preferably when the part consists of a single material and is made out of plastic. Original metal parts are strong and it is not recommended to replace them by plastic substitutes. You can, though, print metal parts in 3D at rapid prototyping service providers like i.Materialise for very reasonable prices.
Before starting up your CAD program, check out whether your spare part is already created by a member of the community. Within this project we have recreated several parts for coffeemakers, headphones and other devices, which can be downloaded and printed on any FDM printer. You can find our database on MyMiniFactory which is constantly updated with new awesome parts developed by our volunteers at the Delft University of Technology, Prototyping Collective, and the Manchester Metropolitan University:
Other resources where you can find spare parts are for instance:
Just search the databases using the right queries and maybe you are lucky!
Create your own spare parts
Want to know more about how to decide whether 3D printing can offer a good solution to your problem and make your own spare parts? Read more about it in this article, and check out the book and accessible video tutorials on 3D-printing for repair, created by experts from Manchester Metropolitan University and TU Delft.