A complaint we heard from several Podders was critters, wasps, etc getting into the open R-Pod frame rails. We decided that we’d plug the rails on our Pod before the critters struck.

A quick and easy solution is to buy some spray foam and spray it in there, but when you have a 3-D printer, everything must be printed!

The rails are a standard dimension, and the plugs are pretty straightforward. A flat face with an extruded insert that goes inside of the frame rail, then fillet off all the square edges. 30 minutes of design and 17 hours of printing later, and the plus are good to go.

A quick drop of adhesive on one or two of the insert walls before sticking them into the frame rails and these should last the life of the Pod. I also used ASA instead of the normal PLA due to it’s higher resistance to weathering.

R-Pod Frame Plugs Printed

Frame plugs fresh off the printer. They do take a long time to print!

Open Frame Rail

The open R-Pod frame rail shows just how nice of a cozy home this is for bugs and critters.

Plugged Frame Rail

And the frame rail with the plug inserted.