Downspout Needle Filter

Most of the downspout filters I've seen other people post seem to work on leaves, not fir needles. We live in an area filled with fir trees, and in the wind, they blow off the trees and on my deck. Then when it rains, they fall between my deck boards and into the water management system I have under my deck, it's not practical to use a gutter protection system, so I let the gutter flow with needles, and catch them as they come down the downspout. The photo shows that this really does work! This filter was empty until we had a 2 week period with wind and rain, and all this came down in that 2 week period.

The design has 3 parts. One part above the filter, one part below the filter, and the filter itself. The top and bottom parts are to distribute water, and collect it again after it passes through the filter. The filter is based on a slope - the needles and water hit the screen - the water goes through, the needles do not, and they congregate at the bottom (where they will either fall out by themselves, or you can empty the filter). Once printed, you have to glue (or use a filament pen, like I did) a piece of window screen to the structure of the filter. I used aluminum window screen because it seemed a better idea than the cloth type, but the cloth might work just as well. It's the same basic idea as a gutter protector, but with a much steeper slope so that the needles will clear the downspout area. I thought about printing a screen vs. using a window screen, but decided that would be hard to make small enough passages with small enough connectors.

When you mount the pieces to your post or wall, make sure to leave a little gap above the filter so that you can remove it for cleaning.

Print Settings

Supports:

Yes

Notes:

The only place I printed with supports is the wings for the lower piece (the piece with the screw holes to mount it to the post). All items are printed in the orientation shown. Make sure your build plate is clean when you print the top piece - there is a serrated edge around the output - I put this there because I was getting drips that ran around the edge, and the serrations help the drips go straight down, however, until the serrated parts are joined at the top, there will be a lot of little pieces that need to stay attached to the build plate.