Camera Strap Split Ring Protector (Peak Design)

Okay so you know how when you get a new camera they include a couple tiny split rings that mount to the microscopic camera strap mounting points on the camera body and connect to your strap? Well sometimes they have little plastic bits that slide over them after you mount them to the camera to protect them. They seem frivolous, until you realize that without them the ring can spin, get caught on your Peak Design anchors, and start to open the split ring up.

Want to know what happens when your split ring opens up good and wide while your camera has a super telephoto rental lens attached? In my case, I got very lucky—the split ring caught my shirt, tore a hole in it, cut me open, and gave me a split second to catch the very expensive bundle of magnesium, silicon, and glass attached to the other end before it met asphalt.

It turns out that these tiny bits of plastic slip over the split ring to keep it from spinning in the slot. I learned this when I reached out to Peak Design (who, by the way, is the best company on planet Earth and if you don't believe me just call and chat 'em up) and told them what happened. They sent me a packet with replacement anchors, rings, and these plastic bits that I wasn't using. Problem solved.

Except for some reason, they don't ship by default with some Peak Design products, and they didn't ship with my fiancée's new strap. I don't even see them mentioned on the Peak Design website, and rather than waiting until Monday and asking PD what the deal is, I figured I could print a couple to avert a future crisis.

Oh, and if there's a name for these things, I don't know it. Drop a comment in the box if you've got some knowledge or if you use another name that I could tag this with for visibility. Cheers!

Print instructions

These things are really small—less than 10x10x5mm—so there isn't a lot of material for adhesion. I printed mine using PETG on a textured powder coated sheet and had a couple failures when running at the default speed. Turning the speed down to 50% using the “Tune” menu and adding a single-layer raft resulted in successful prints, so that'd be my recommendation for where to start.

Even at a fairly small layer height (I used 0.15mm) and 50% speed they only take 5–6 minutes to print.