Stacking Magnetic Epoxy Soap Dish and Travel Container

prusaprinters

<h3>Backstory</h3><p>I recently bought a set of soap, shampoo and conditioner bars under the assumption that they would be easier to transport for traveling. However, I soon discovered that if the bars are not dried properly, they will smear in any bag or box I put them in. Even worse, if the conditioner bar is not allowed to dry, it leaks oil. To prevent these problems, I envisioned a hexagonal soap dish that could double as a traveling container, and it has been a long journey to get my design to its final form.</p><h3>Features</h3><ul><li>Angular design - it looks cool</li><li>Draining - each bar is supported by a hexagon mesh</li><li>Sanitary Base - each soap dish only touches the ground at three points, leaving no place for trapped water to rot.</li><li>Water Proof - No more worrying about micro-pores collecting bacteria</li><li>Parametric - adjust to your specific soap and magnet dimensions, as well as you personal sense of aesthetics.</li><li>Locking - good to throw in a suitcase</li><li>Compact - fits closely around the soap</li></ul><h3>Design Challenges</h3><ul><li>Epoxy coating prevents me from using common ways of closing a container, such as hinges, latches, snap fits, or threads. I decided to use magnets embedded under the surface of the epoxy</li><li>Creating two objects that sit flush against each other when coated in a layer of epoxy is non trivial. Two planes can sit flush against each other, but more complex geometry can cause gaps. The inner height of the wall is slightly shorter to make the top and bottom faces of each dish in the stack match perfectly.</li><li>OpenSCAD isn't great at creating the very exact geometry I needed for the above point. The software is great for assembling parts from primitive geometry, but generating solids from points is lacking. I had to draw the part on paper and label points by hand, and the resulting code is unreadable.</li></ul><h3>Results</h3><p>My soap is dry. My soap is happy. I am happy.</p>