A short while ago I decided to design a small container with a sliding lid that could be 3D printed easily, and would require no fiddly supports or anything.
A dovetail design for the lid and container was something that can be printed with no supports, but I wanted a way for the lid to be held shut without making it overly tight.
I also wanted to keep it simple, not depend too much on fiddly tolerances (there’s a very fine line between “tight enough” and “too tight”), and I wanted to keep the “easy to 3D print without supports, etc” angle. I didn’t want to add any external parts or hardware, either. This was actually quite challenging!
I settled on what you see in the header image: a type of spring that pushes up on the lid, keeping it tight by friction, but with enough wiggle room to not be too picky.
The leaf-spring-looking bits are printed separately and slot into the holders. I’d prefer a print-in-place solution, but this is necessary to have the parts turn out right.
I considered just using two segments of filament, which I think has potential but I saw two problems:
- It increases the amount of work (I’d need to cut segments of filament to use as parts, instead of just printing the parts I need), and
- It would be picky about the exact length.
While I think using bits of filament to make pseudo leaf springs has potential, I went with this solution instead.
(The texturing on the models is from Stefan of CNC Kitchen’s fantastically-useful Bump Mesh tool.)
I am pretty happy with this design, although I would not be surprised to discover it is something I independently (re)discovered while dealing with this problem.
What’s useful about it?
- The carrier prints easily on a filament-based printer without needing printer settings to be tweaked.
- Prints without supports.
- It isn’t picky about filament type, so it’s a good print to use up spare filament.
- The two leaf springs aren’t under a lot of stress, so they should last.
- While I would prefer zero assembly required, this is a reasonable compromise. (At least there is no glue, hardware, etc.)
- The texture on the outside (a work in progress) is nice.
What’s it actually for?
It’s an experiment in printing a combination shipping / carrier case for Blood Spatter Tokens (which I designed, make, and sell online.)