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Great Example of a Thoughtful Product Design Improvement: The 3D-Printed Pellet Pal

A useful aid for barbecue smokers

By Rain Noe - January 22, 2021

in UX | Digital Fabrication | Food

Serious barbecuers use different wood species for smoking, to impart the desired flavors. A problem can arise if they forget what species they last loaded into their smoker. That's why barbecue supply company The Pit Bros sell magnets like these that you can slap onto the side of the hopper:

It's effective, if inelegant. A huge design improvement is this 3D-printed Pellet Pal:

Takes up less space, uses less materials, and cheaper than buying the individual magnets. Win-win-win.

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Michael DiTullo

3 years ago

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Why not align the orientation of the type so they can both read horizontally?

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Dee An

3 years ago

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The user could just print a list of woods, glue it to the smoker, and then place a small red magnet on the appropriate wood name. Ink and glue chosen to be UV and heat proof respectively, of course.
This would be quicker to 'set' the desired wood, and use fewer resources than this 'pellet pal'.
Even better- the manufacture of the smoker could just print a list of woods on the smoker in the factory, and supply a coloured magnet with it.

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Dee An

3 years ago

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If the cover plate was translucent so that all the text could be read, the user could select a wood more quickly.

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