Positubes! (Single, Multi, and Assembly!) (Patreon)

Hey there, wonderful people!

Could we make a non-squishy form of the squishy tubes that are everywhere in the modern world, I wondered?  And then print it in flexible filament anyway and make it squishy!  This one was quite a journey!

Here's what's filling up the folder on Dropbox:

A) Three sizes of wide-mouthed tubes and a matching lid.

B) Three multimaterial print versions of those tubes with stripes meant for MMU, Palette, etc.

C) One tube that prints in parts, in different colours, to be glued together

D) Experimental versions of the tubes with internal threads and nozzles, meant for flexible printing!

A) Tubes!

These tubes are fashioned after conventional squishy squeeze tubes, but they have much larger openings than usual so that you can actually put stuff inside.  The lid looks quite conventional with its textured outside and conceals the unconventional craziness inside.  

B) Multimaterial!

(My multimaterial gear is playing up, so we only have a render, not a photo!)

Yes, it's a multimaterial print!  Same models as above, but with stripes diagonally across them.  The smallest tube has a single stripe, the medium has two, and the tallest one has three.  These are intended for multimaterial printing using something like a Prusa MMU, Palette, or similar, and I'm going to assume that if you have those kinds of setups that you already know how to use these files!

C) Assembly!

This is a more elaborate version of the tall, striped tube above.  Each segment is in its own file, and there are locating ridges to help keep the pieces together while they're being glued.  The fit is relatively loose, however, and is not intended to actually keep the model assembled - you're gonna need that glue.

D) Nozzles! (experimental)

This is where it went down a rabbit hole, and these files should be considered entirely experimental!  

These versions of the tubes have a second thread on the inside of the opening, and nozzles are provided to screw into that and (hopefully) form some kind of seal.  Two nozzles are provided - 1mm and 5mm diameters, along with a tool for assembly and disassembly.  The idea is that the nozzle can be removed in order to fill the tube, and then replaced.  Obviously the tube itself will need to be printed in a flexible filament in order for this to be in any way useful!

However, 3D printing has some distinct limitations, which is why this is all "experimental."  Liquids and semi-liquids are liable to seep between walls and layers, and there's only so much pressure that the interface between nozzle and tube can take before things start to leak there, too.  There's a dedicated cap provided that includes a pad to be printed in flexible filament for a better seal, but that, too, is only going to provide a certain degree of sealing in the face of pressure on the tube!

Print Description
These are all regular-mode prints.  Infill doesn't matter overly much, and in fact the tube itself will print without infill just fine, which will make it even squishier in flexible filament.

Print Dimensions

The largest tube occupies 54mm x 43mm on the print bed and is 131mm tall.

Supports Needed?

Nope!  Designed for straightforward printing!

Scalability

These should scale reasonably well up, and to some degree down, as threaded connections are good at handling arbitrary gaps between parts.

Print Orientation

The tubes print opening-down, and the lids print upside-down, like so:

The assembly version prints in a bunch of parts like so:

File location

You'll find this one at at 645 Positubes

Link to dropbox post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/31697592

Further Thoughts

I'm pretty sure that most of the design time on this one went into agonising over what curve to use for the basic shape! :) 

Happy printing! :)

xoxo

Sven.