Introduction: Open Doors With Your Feet! WE NEED YOUR HELP
The world is in a strange place right now but the maker community has been very reactive globally.
3D printing, above all, has proved to be very efficient and to quickly react.
Lots of new designs have emerged like visors, masks or objects to avoid touching door handles.
We like the idea of avoiding touching door handles upon opening. But the solutions we saw (though effective and well designed) didn't really suit us. You either had to open the door with your elbow (in which you are supposed to sneeze) or you had to fiddle around with some sort of hook attached to your key ring (thus indirectly touching the door knob).
We came to the conclusion that using one's foot would be a better way to open a door.
So we got to design a 3D printable door pedal.
Supplies
- A 3d printer and filament (you could also order the parts)
- About 110cm of string
- At least 4 M5 bolts and nuts
Step 1: Idea
We asked ourselves how a door could be operated thanks to a pedal. We wanted our design to be easily fitted on most doors and require no modifications (holes, screws...) on the door itself.
We decided to attach our pedal to the opening system already in place (AKA the handle).
Since the handle already has a spring in it and we wanted to attach it to the pedal thanks to a string, we figured out our pedal would not require any extra springs.
We quickly sketched the idea and then jumped into Fusion 360 to start modeling.
Step 2: Design and 3d Printing
The design includes 7 parts : the base, the 2 pedals and the 2 parts forming the attachment for each door handle.
Therefore, a base, two pedals and four handle attachments need to be 3D printed.
PS: You should scale the base up a tiny bit to fit the pedal better.
NEW : Updated base files now available to better fit doors from 2 to 6.5 cm thick thanks to an adjustable design (better tolerances also included so no more scaling up needed).
The updated base is made of two parts: the front and the rear.
(Renders made in Fusion 360)
Step 3: Assembly
To assemble the pedals, you will either need a threaded rod and M5 nuts or screws and M5 inserts or simply a 5MM diameter cylinder also included in the 3D files.
Once the pedals are assembled (as shown in the animation), insert a piece of string (about 110 cm or 43 in) in the hole at the top of each pedal and knot it to the door handle attachment which goes around the handle thanks to 2 screws and M5 nuts (the attachment works like an action camera handle bar attachment).
(Animation made in Fusion 360)
Attachments
Step 4: We Need Your Help!
This design is still in its prototyping stage and unfortunately, due to the ongoing pandemic, our 3D printer has not been delivered yet, so we were not able to test our design in the real world.
That's why we need your help :
If you have a 3D printer and are interested in the project : please send us your feedback as well as photos and/or videos (instagram, e-mail) of the pedal in order for us to get to see how it all goes together and how it looks like in real life.
If you don't have a 3D printer but are still interested in the project, please don't hesitate to share our project so that it reaches more people.
Thank you very much in advance, looking forward to here from your feedback!
