Integral Mesh Vent Cover v2

prusaprinters

<p>This is an updated version of my original vent cover. This one has been converted to openSCAD for ease of modification/customization. The default values are also optimized for a vent that works well when printed in a semi-flex material.</p><p>---</p><p>This is a mesh vent cover that can be used for small invertebrate enclosures. It is intended to be printed with a fine mesh fabric embedded into the ring after the first layer.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>Instructions</h4><p><br>After slicing, insert a pause after the first layer. You can do this directly in prusa slicer, or by manually editing the gcode.</p><p>Start the print as per normal. Once the first layer has printed, the printer should pause, and you can cut out a piece of the fine mesh fabric, and drape it over the first layer. You can hold the fabric down and stretch it out via magnets, binder clips, tape.. whatever works.</p><p>After that, resume the print, and then once it has finished printing, use scissors to cut off the extra fabric outside the ring.</p><p>For best results, this should be printed in a semi-flex material. I used sainsmart tpu with a shore hardness of 95A. I use a .2mm layer height. The snaps do have an unsupported overhang, but it's small enough that it seems to print fine even without supports.</p><p>For the mesh material, I just cut up some cheap $5-$6 sheer curtains that I bought from my local big retail store.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>Customization</h4><p>&nbsp;</p><p>If you need to customize the model for a different diameter hole, different wall thickness, etc. you can either download openSCAD and use that directly, or you can upload the .scad file to <a href="https://models.makewithtech.com/fileupload">https://models.makewithtech.com/fileupload</a> (requires free account), and modify the parameters and generate a model.</p><p>The 2 main parameters that you may want to change are</p><p>&nbsp;</p><ul><li>vent_diameter: which should be set to the diameter of the hole that the vent cover is going into</li><li>wall_thickness: the thickness of the material that the vent cover is being placed into</li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p><p>But feel free to play around with the other parameters to change the number and size of snaps, etc.</p>