advice on miscellaneous Making Shit

[kaberett]

Say, hypothetically, you have a MediMemo pill organiser. Say that one of your lids is cracking, and you've previously established that superglue doesn't work, but you'd prefer to replace a single lid than buy (another) whole new set, but using one of your spare lids won't work because you don't have a spare lid for the relevant day of the week and you're That Kind Of Person.

... erm.

Okay, so, you've measured up the lid, and you've established that it's 1.5mm thick all the way along, and other than that broadly a long thin rectangle: 92mm long, with three sections 17mm, HAHAHAHAmm, and 20mm wide.

The HAHAHAHA section is 17mm wide at the top surface and 18mm at the bottom, giving you a trapezoid cross-section.

I am poking at Blender (and goodness but this is Up There with complex but inadequately documented software I Have Known) but I suspect the 3D printers I have access to are not going to be very happy about the required resolution, even if I manage to coax Blender into giving me three rectangles of varying widths and then gently sand the middle section's edges down to triangles. I have limited patience for painstakingly cutting shapes out of plastic sheets and inevitably getting them wrong because my hands aren't steady enough.

Anyone fancy suggesting alternative approaches to solutions? Back of a postcard, etc etc. <3

Comments

[kaberett]

I have no idea why I'm apparently going through Sunday lids faster than ANY OTHER DAY OF THE WEEK.

[davidgillon]

Off the wall suggestion (and more work with Blender if you go the 3D printer route rather than embosser): rather than making lids, make embossed labels to overwrite all of the days of the week, then you just need any seven working lids.

[kaberett]

Pretty sure the inevitable peeling labels would upset me enough that that's not worthwhile, alas :-(

[wohali]

Can you get access to a laser cutter instead of a FDM-style 3D printer? Or how about an SLA printer?

What would Shapeways charge you to send you the lids?

[ewt]

Shapeways was going to be my solution suggestion.

If it really is basically just a sortof-centralised, they have a "3D image popper" which might do the trick if you can make a 2D image. But this may turn out prohibitively expensive; I'm not sure if you can use the image popper, then download the design.

[ewt]

I have no idea what my phone turned into "sortof-centralised" but hopefully the usefulness or otherwise of the image popper tool they have is clear, at any rate.

[kaberett]

Plausibly "rectangle"? Maaaaaybe "trapezoid"?

[kaberett]

Peut-etre -- my concern is the weird trapezium cross-section middle bit, which appears to be of structural significance and which I suspect a 3D popper would alas inevitably miss...

Thank you lots for the encouragement to check them out, though!

[ewt]

Unless I've misunderstood the description it should be fine? (I may well have misunderstood the description.)

[kaberett]

Maaaaaybe, re laser cutter. Need to actually get inducted at my institution's hackspace, but unforunately I'm not doing well at the necessary stamina...

Haven't looked at Shapeways & should!

[jesse_the_k]

I have no answers but I can empathize with your frustration.

[kaberett]

Ha, thank you.

[silveradept]

Try a different program, perhaps? We have been suggesting both OnShape and TinkerCAD as cloud-based modeling solutions, and TinkerCAD apparently works on the model of "shapes and holes", so it might work.

[kaberett]

Thank you, I'll see about having some more of a poke at TinkerCAD :-)

[vass]

Higher tech than superglue, but lower tech than 3D printing: would Sugru work? (Or generic equivalent self-curing polymer modelling clay.)

Alternatively, gently sanding off or turpentining off the days of the week and repainting them/writing in permanent marker/getting someone with a steadier hand to stencil them on?

[kaberett]

Pretty sure Sugru wouldn't, alas (we have some in the fridge because A thinks it's important to have multi-coloured Sugru in the house); you make an excellent point re sanding off Incorrect Day Names, and I thank you.

[sebenikela]

How thick/sturdy are the lids? It's hard to tell from the picture, but you might be able to get/repurpose plastic sheets (I'm thinking about maybe those plastic sheet cutting boards, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Flexible-Textured-Non-Slip-Resistant-Approved/dp/B075C3PSBC was the first one i found)

You (or someone who's good at precise knife work, anyway...aka not me) might be able to cut that to about the right size with box cutters or similar, and then you could probably sand it to the right shape (and clean up the edges).

It's definitely a kludge, but it might work?

NB: there are two kinds of engineers: the "you're exceeding the tolerances!!!" kind, and the "if you can't fix it with duct tape and baling wire you're just not being creative enough" kind. I am the latter. I am glad that the former are running nuclear plants and spacecraft engineering :-P

[kaberett]

They're 1.5mm thick and rigid -- but finding a suitable sheet of plastic is kind of on the to-do list...

[sebenikela]

gotcha. the cutting-board plastic still might be the right thickness (no clue on rigidity, i know they're sorta floppy at full size but once they're cut down they might not be). But there are probably better options :)

[jedusaur]

I am probably missing the point here but the page you linked to indicates that the thing... is pretty cheap? why not buy another and keep the old one for further potential replacement lids?

[kaberett]

More-or-less because I already have one box I've set aside as spares, I appear to be going through "Sunday" in a statistically improbable fashion, and I'm curious about using this as an impetus for skill acquisition! I might yet end up giving up and taking the path of least resistance, though :-p

[davidgillon]

{Blue Peter}Sticky-backed plastic?{/Blue Peter}

You can buy A4 printable sticky-backed plastic - I got 100 sheets for a tenner. Print labels for each day to get a matching set and stick on, but to avoid peeling wrap it completely around so that the seam is on the reverse side, and then potentially seal across the seam with superglue and more sticky-backed plastic, or paper, or whatever.

[kaberett]

ooooooh. actually. sticky-backed plastic on the BOTTOM of the partially-split lid might be the way forward...

[davidgillon]

Not to mention being simpler!

[cesy]

I have access to a 3D printer at work and have been looking for an excuse to try it out, if you're still interested in that route.