Ball lock drying post

thingiverse

As a craft beer homebrewer, I have a lot of hoses for various tasks (cleaning, transferrring, carbonating, etc). These hoses need to be cleaned and sanitized after every use. Hanging them somewhere to dry has always been a pain in the neck. I wanted something that would also hold the valve open for drying. I've come up with this. It will fit both gas and liquid ball lock connectors. You need a 1/2" thick board (3/4" may work too) and drill a 1/2" diameter hole through it. Screw the bolt in from the back to fix it in place. Hang up the board and connect your hoses. The bolt has a through-hole in it to allow for air to get in and dry the line. I don't know if this will be inviting to insects or not. If you are concerned about that, some mesh on the back side of the mounting board should help. The bolt prints best with the knurled side down (probably obvious) The connector printed best for me with the threaded end turned up (opposite of what is in the picture) I had to fiddle with the layer height and filament temperature to get a decent print. For me, this was about 195C for the filament. Layer height was .2. The threads are 1/2-13 UNC. If you don't want to print the bolt, a regular 1/2-13 bolt should work fine but you won't have the drying capability.