Hygienic vaccum bag adapter (using IKEA SÖTVATTEN)

thingiverse

Using a standard vacuum cleaner to remove air from a storage bag isn't revolutionary. However, when dealing with fresh food, it's crucial that the nozzle is hygienically clean to prevent contamination. Both PLA and PETG are generally considered food-safe materials, but bacteria can still grow in micro-cracks on printed objects. IKEA has acknowledged this issue by providing disposable food-safe suction nozzles under the brand SÖTVATTEN. Most people don't understand that these nozzles were designed for a specific purpose and use them as drinking straws instead, which is not ideal but works nonetheless. To put these nozzles to their intended use, I created an adapter that fits a 1.25 inch (31.7mm) vacuum hose. I tested the design and it performs well: simply insert the SÖTVATTEN nozzle deep into the bag and pull it out while the vacuum is on. Close the bag quickly once the nozzle has cleared the bag to preserve most of the created vacuum. The only disappointment was with my zipper bags, which slowly lost their vacuum over several minutes after being sealed. Moving on from healthy food, I'm sure what most of us really care about is keeping our printing filament dry for perfect prints. I've also tested this use case and achieved comparable results.