First-Surface Drain

pinshape

Summary This is a bulkhead fitting I designed to add drains to a series of buckets/troughs. It attaches lengths of garden hose to outlet barbs. The drain fits through a 3/4 to 1 inch hole in any flat container wall up to 1 inch thick, including swimming pools, barrels, ponds, fish tanks, and more. I call it "first surface" which means it looks interesting and prints without additional supports. Instructions This model was successfully printed on Makerbot using PLA with 20% infill, 2 shells, and a 0.30 layer height. Cut off the support fin(s) from the barbs after printing with a razor blade and/or file (see photo). What is "first surface"? The original design featured a dome with holes but was plagued by printing problems and messy attempts at slicing. I then used vertical fins to prevent material from dropping inside, providing their own support. I created an algorithm to determine the number of fins needed based on the maximum hole size (2mm). Circumference = num_fins * (fin_width + min_hole), so I back-calculated and doubled the number of fins when the gap was too big. (What more does a nerd need than an interesting geometry problem, right?)