AAA Cell Battery Box with Snap Lid, 1x AAA to 4xAAA Sizes

thingiverse

These battery boxes have been engineered with the goal that you will integrate them directly into your project's three-dimensional design, or you could simply cut a hole in your project and secure them with adhesive. Each box is composed of three parts: the box itself, the lid section, and the catch which gets attached to the lid via glue. The catch is a separate piece because it must be printed "side on" so that the filament lies along the profile of the catch, otherwise it would snap along the layers when used. Be sure to print the box with support touching the build plate only and with the cavity facing upwards, printing support in the tab or catch receptacle would be difficult to remove. Each box has a 2mm lip around the edge (actually 4mm but the inside 2mm is a fillet for strength) if you want to cut or design a hole and just secure a separately printed box to your project. I used CA glue (superglue) to attach the catch to the lid, works just fine. Note: Printed in PLA. The positive and negative terminals I used are these : http://sparks.gogo.co.nz/AAA-Battery-Cell-Terminal-Pair-p669.html but you can probably get them elsewhere too. They have a backplate which is 9.6mm wide and 9.6mm high (not including the leg), the spring is about 8.7mm extended (measured from back of backplate) and 3mm compressed fully. These terminals simply press into the provided slots (it's a tight fit, use a screwdriver or something to press them down fully). Naturally you can place the terminals in any way you wish, series, parallel, whatever, the positioning and wiring of the terminals is your business. The catch and lid retain the cells very strongly, I could not shake them out. Post-Printing Attach Catch After printing the three components, put a drop of CA glue (cyanoacrylate / superglue) on the underside of the lid where you will see a small indentation that the catch is to be attached to. Clamp the catch on until the CA sets. You may find that the first time the catch isn't well glued, I find that the CA I use tends to wick into the PLA on the first application, so just add a fresh dot of glue and try again. How I Designed This This was designed in OnShape you can view/copy it here. https://cad.onshape.com/documents/be6d5f907bc0e83693f00d8c/v/349eb710b3e66a7457e40bf4 These Boxes For Other Cell Sizes I made these boxes in a somewhat parametric way so I can easily customise for cylindrical cells sized from about 14mm up to about 20mm diameters, currently I have generated the below. AA (aka 14500) 1x to 4x 18650 1x to 4x AAA 1x to 4x