I have an old vertical blind system that uses one of those metal ball chains to control the angle of the blinds. After so much time, the gear has stripped and become semi-non-operable so I modeled this replacement based on the original and it actually works (got it on the first try, no less!).

Anyways, sharing it with the universe so someone out there doesn't end up throwing away their vertical blinds just because of this one failed part.

If you found this useful, it would bring me great joy to see your work - so be sure to share. :)

Or, better yet, please feel free to dump a bitcoin or two here:

1Py3TUeR8noBN2giHyFV1GfB6x3Kh2WEVv

... include a note to the effect of "Hi 3E8, thanks for the gear for vertical blinds thing... my life has improved five-fold on account of it and please accept this paltry amount in gratitude".

You're welcome! (in advance) :D

Also, feel free to peruse my other submissions which are almost as varied as they are many:

http://www.thingiverse.com/Julius3E8/designs

Enjoy!

July 5th, 2022 update - I noticed the originally designed gear starting to slip a little after a few days and to went through a few trials to make this more improved. It came down to enlarging the 'cups' (or holes?) that the bead rests inside of and reducing their number from 12 to 10. Now it moves way more smoothly and I think it has years instead of days of use. So if your beaded chain has 4.4mm beads and they are spaced 5.8mm apart, use the VertBlindGear10Hole.stl instead of the original file which was just a copy of the factory part.

Category: Household