Do you trust suction cups?

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account

Aunt Carol

four-letter word for a female
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Feb 25, 2021
I like to think I learn from experience, but every few years I fall for it again.

Whether it's holding a pot holder on the stove hood, a toothbrush on your bathroom mirror, or a compass ball in your car, the only constant of suction cups is that they will fail. On a day with no temperature or humidity change, you'll suddenly hear a crash from the other room: the suction cup holding up your stained glass hummingbird has failed and it's broken in the kitchen sink.

Not even the lever-activated suction cups live up to their promises--all the lever does is add something else to break when it inevitably falls to the floor.

The only implementation of suction cups in this household is keeping the shower mat from sliding around horizontally. Make your own decisions, but for myself I choose magnets and foam mounting strips, not the failure and lies of suction cups.
 
Solution
We use air-powered suction cups at work to pick up ~200 pound objects. It fails sometimes and we get to dodge 200 pound objects falling up to 5 feet.
RIP my little shaving mirror in the shower.
And you didn't mull over your options and decide to buy suction cups to install the mirror, I'd bet. No, it shipped with the suction cups included, so why wouldn't a reasonable person expect them to work?

Pic related.
35d6301e-3df9-4b12-9382-2def2b04d9c1_1.70ac891449bdb48405b81aed0900e245[1].jpeg
I've currently got suction cups on tile in my kitchen... they're holding so far, but there is no way in hell I'd put anything breakable on them.
Be sure to let them know you have your eyes on them. NO SLACKING.
 
We use air-powered suction cups at work to pick up ~200 pound objects. It fails sometimes and we get to dodge 200 pound objects falling up to 5 feet.
 
Solution
The only time that suction cups worked was when that crazy dude tried to climb the Trump tower with suction cups. Based on my experience with them, I am amazed that the guy didn't die due to them failing. I just use nails, glue, rope, magnets or thumbtacks if I need to hang anything from the wall.
 
I believe in suction or actual wall anchors.
But it's as OP says - when you use them, you know they'll fail and you just have to live with it. My soap/shampoo holder falls every year around christmas when I'm out visiting relatives and that's okay - everyone needs a vacation off work sometimes.
 
+1 anti-suction cups.

RIP my little shaving mirror in the shower.
Reminds me of an old unit I lived in quite a few years ago. Around 6:30am on Saturday I heard a crash, woke up, didn't hear anything else, figured it was from next door and went back to sleep. I woke up properly around nine and staggered into my bathroom.... and there was fucking shards of glass everywhere. The mirror over the sink had parted company with its wall glue and fell. The sink was full of shards of glass as long as my hand, and there was more glass pretty much all over the fucking bathroom. It was an extremely fortunate thing it fell on the weekend, because it fell at the same time I'd have been in there getting ready for work.
 
There's a guy at my work who has this suction cup mounted roof bike rack on his car and it frightens me. I believe it's this thing.
At home, even the little sponge holder in the sink never sticks and needs to be mounted on the tile over the sink. The shower racks are crap too. They always fall, especially right after you put them back up after cleaning the shower, usually within a day and probably because of the moisture. The ones that hook over the shower head are where it's at.
 
Suction cups will hold forever, as long as they are leak-free. A leak-free suction cup has never been invented. I don't think they exist.

But suction cups are good for temporary holds. Like handling glass-panes and such. They can also be very good, when connected to a vacuum line, like on a crane or robot arm or similar. They also works out all right for squids.
 
Back
Top Bottom