Drum Casing Failures (and solutions if helpful to anyone)

[dmlove]

Dear all,

My son is a very keen drummer.  He loves his Speedlight kit and plays it pretty much every day.  We have, as a result, had a few issues with casing failures.  On the HiHat, the the internal screw posts ruptured and the lower casing came away.  2Box were very good and replaced this (the first time), but exactly the same thing them happened again with the replacement, and we felt it would be a bit much for them to step up a second time.  With the snare, the internal plastic bracket and clamp fractured meaning that the head itself came away from the frame. 

(Image) Ruptured HiHat casing

(Image) Broken snare bracket (internal to casing)

I do not share this as any form of slight on the kit - it gets extremely heavy use and, by their very nature, will be prone to fatiguing and cyclic ruptures.  The reason I am sharing this, however, is that I opted to repair both of these failures by redesigning parts for each and I am more than willing to share these fixes if they are useful for anyone else.

For the HiHat:

I opted to design and 3D print 6 external fixings in PLA that would allow me to screw into the underside of the HiHat and into the wall of the lower casing to fix it in place.  I also inserted rubber pads between these to absorb more of the shock and reduce the stress at the points where the screws pass through.  The images here only show screws going into the lower casing, but I added screws into the main body of the HiHat afterwards to complete it.  Seems to be working very well so far.

(Image) Fix for re-attaching lower HiHat casing

For the Snare:

This was a little more involved and required a full redesign of the internal clamping system.  I designed a new bracket system to fit the existing internal geometry of the enclosure.  I opted to make this much heavier duty than the original and 3D printed a solid bodied housing that would accommodate the hexagonal mounting bar, the threaded clamp and the existing piezoelectric sensor assembly.  I anchored the whole thing in place with 6 M5 nuts and bolts.  The clamp is absolutely solid and performs outstandingly.  Snare is solid and the wider surface area of the bracket and the spread of fixing points means that the impact forces are far more distributed that with the original design.  Images of the redesigned 3d printed clamp are show below (on its own and mounted in the enclosure).  I have also included an image of the finished bracket attached to the hexagonal mounting bar. 

(Image) 3D Model of updated bracket design

(Image) 3D printed bracket

(Image) New bracket fitted to snare casing

(Image) Completed snare repair

If anyone does run into similar issues with casing, I am more than happy to share the 3D printing files and offer any advice that may be helpful for printing these off and fitting them yourself.  Even if you don't have access to a 3D printer, you may be able to find someone who does (even a local maker space, high school or collage might help).

Anyway, I thought I would share in case this is helpful to anyone.

Kindest regards,
David.