Thanks for all the nice comments chaps. Rik's gave both of us a laugh!
Peter Butler wrote: ↑Sat Sep 15, 2018 8:23 pm
I can't imagine how you came up with the design.
Peter,
Like most of my idea's/projects it just sort of growed.
I was contemplating some sort of clip to hold the 38mm ID flexible supply pipe to the top of the tray edge and wondering if I could print something, but in the back of my mind I thought that a 38mm (44mm inclding wall thickness) lump would be too difficult to disguise, so I started wondering about going to a flatter but wider profile with the same cross-sectional area to avoid throttling the flow.
Before getting too complicated a design, I started to think about how it could be drawn. The Sketchup drawing program has a tool called "Follow Me" which I have used a number of times previously for producing things like chamfers. Basically if you draw, say, a diagonal across a corner, highlight the adjacent edge and click "follow me" it automatically runs the triangle to the end of the highlighted line, which can be any shape, like round a door frame for example and you get a chamfered edge to the frame. Well, I had a brainwave at this point, but tested it with something fairly simple. I drew two concentric circles, 3mm apart and removed the centre to give the end of a tube with an external diameter of 38mm. I then drew a line from the outer edge at right angles 150mm long, added a 90deg curve to the end and drew another straight line from the end of the curve. So far so good, but nothing I haven't done before, so now for the bright idea. I highlighted the three lines, hit "Follow Me" and clicked on the face of the tube end, and in a split second it did just that, and I had a hollow tube with a bend in the centre! I then used "Follow me" three more times round the circumference of the pipe to produce the triangular barbs to grip and stop the flexible tube. Finally, because it is easier to print without overhangs, I split it lengthways so eventually I will print 2 open half-tubes, which is the first drawing above.
Following that, I worked out the dimensions of the flattened tube to hook over the tray edge and drew the shape as a long rectangle with one inner curved end and one flat end. I then drew the adjacent lines, similar to the first pipe( different dims obviously), hit F-Me again and got the hollow hooked shape. This was then copied and mirror-imaged so that when glued together flt-to-flat, I will have the area to cope with the same volume - actually I rounded it up slightly to make some notional allowance for friction flow losses in the narrowed pipe.
All I now needed was a piece of pipe, which I'm calling a manifold for want of a better term, with a long thin hole in one side and a fitting to take the two hook pieces. This was drawn using similar techniques.
I hope all that makes some sense if anyone has been daft enough to try reading it!
Tom,
I shall print it in ABS and use Plasticweld to stick it all together.
Finally, SWMBO says I ought to point out that I've been doing this whilst sitting near the pool in our hotel overooking the Nile in Luxor! (Sorry !)