This insert is used to attach a cold or hot Grohe faucet handle onto a Grohe ceramic disk cartridge (such as 4588200 or 4588300).
It may fit several faucet handle models, mine is Grohe Talia.
If you are missing the central brass screw as well, you may want to purchase “Grohe 45186000 Handle Connecting Set” instead.
I am not an expert on Grohe products and model numbers, and my internet search led me to suspect that there may be several inserts with different number of gear teeth. Let's count the teeth for this insert:
Large bottom gear (used to connect my faucet handles) | 60 teeth |
Tall mid gear (not used by my faucet) | 21 teeth |
Inside gear (used to connect to the cartridge) | 20 teeth |
I printed with NinjaTek Cheetah TPU (shore hardness 95A). Layer height was 0.24 mm, nozzle temperature 220℃, bed 70℃, no fan, 95% infill. It turned out great, took one hour at 40 mm per second, was easy to print. The teeth make a good contact with the handle (which is made of ABS, most likely). They do not slip. I am glad I went with the TPU, it was not an obvious choice. TPU can get stringy. I recommend printing one part at a time, else you will find that multiple parts are connected with a web of strings.
If you print with harder plastic (nylon?), the model will need some tweaking. For example, the springs that snap into the handle are currently 1.25 mm thick and can be too thick for the spring action if printed with hard plastic. To remedy this, change the inner diameter of the springs from 11 mm to something larger (11.5 mm? 12 mm?) without changing their outer diameter. This will make the springs thinner. Although they will be prone to breakage: this is what happened to the Grohe originals. This is another reason to go with the TPU.
The author marked this model as their own original creation.