The injection molded knobs on my GE gas stove/oven failed within a year. The ridiculous price GE asked for a single knob (~$15 or more) compared to a set of generic alternatives (5 for $25) resulted in simply spending less for the same outcome - Loose and dangerous knobs!
Well if I am going to have to replace these once a year I may as well print the f&*#ers myself for about $0.50 each! And f*#k GE and the copycat/generics for their designed to fail parts (I disassembled them, they made choices that had little to do with cost that resulted in a less reliable component). Knobs shoudn't be a consumable on a home kitchen stove, man! This will not stand, you know. This aggression will not stand, man.
I have included a step file of my labeled model and a plain version to make remixing (or embossing with PrusaSlicer) easier for people. For example, you may need to align an ignition, high or low in a different orientation. Or maybe you want numbers, the sky is the limit!
Some printing recommendations:
- Can easily be printed with a 0.4 or 0.6mm nozzle. Small details may become an issue with a larger nozzle. Pictured knobs were printed with a 0.6mm nozzle at 0.2mm layer height.
- At a minimum ensure there is enough walls/perimeters to have solid material around the D cavity/shaft that will be pushed on the potentiometer.
- This is obviously where most of the torque will be applied in use and any weakness in slicing choices to save a few grams may result in printing a whole new knob sooner.
- The first layer is the “face” of the knob so you want a perfect first layer.
- Watch your overhang speed/cooling, the major chamfer angle is 50 degrees which shouldn't be an issue for most modern machines. You're going to be looking at them a lot so slow down and make them nice.
- If you want to get fancy throw in a color change to highlight the top marker.
- A real Filament Bae will sprinkle on some first layer settings modifiers for a single perimeter to optimize the monotonic line evenness (c'mon Joe get it into PrusaSlicer, it has been in SuperSlicer forever!)
- I don't have a multimaterial printer so I have no advice for you folks, you do you boo.
- The pictured knobs were printed in Overture PLA Pro on a modified Ender 3. I have had surprisingly good results using this filament in printer cooling ducts so I will see how they last on my stove under general use.
- I will most likely remove them prior to any high temp cleaning cycles.
- YMMV with any PLA and your stove/oven. PETG, ABS are the obvious alternatives, but get as exotic as you want I guess. I'm not your supervisor!
- Additionally, you may find the knobs are easier to clean if you apply some kind of external smoothing coat (e.g. epoxy, resin, etc) I have not done this… yet. I don't know what would be most suitable… yet.
Didn't design this for the competition but it was lucky timing :) Don't like this or vote for it though, it was stupid simple with some basic skills in Fusion 360, and took no time whatsoever :P