Sturdy Tube Squeezer - various sizes

prusaprinters

Inspired by sns13s toothpaste tube squeezer on Thingiverse, I created my own version of a tube sqeezer which is more sturdy and easy printable. I liked the exlicit lock of sns13s design (much better and more reliable than printed ratchet design), but the gear shaped lock enforced upright printing, which was bad for stability and I broke serverl rods after a while.I decided to use a simple polygon as lock and chose a heptagon (more lock in optons than a hexagon, but still printable without support unlike octagon) and flattened the rod a bit so that it can be printed flat. And to avoid support, I cut rod, lock and handle into three pieces. Now it is easy printable, sturdy, and can be assembled by simply snapping all parts togehter. I didn't need any glue (at least glue is optional).I offer several different sizes, categorized by length of the slot (= width of the tube end) and the max. diameter of the coiled tube. The slot is 1.8mm for all models and the rod is always 10mm thick. I.e. the end cap is the same size for all models, the rod scales with the slot length and the handle and lock with the diameter. The body of course scales with both.For a small toothpaste tube 55x20 should just be enough, but with 58x22 you'd probably feel more comfortable for standard sized toothpaste tubes. And for other tubes (paint or in the photo example caulk (Fertigspachtel) 80x30 is needed (photo) or even 85x30.If you need different dimensions, please let me know in a comment.The different sizes are always available as a set (with "mouse ears" to pin the thin rod base to the bed, can easily be peeled off) and as separate files. E.g. the 58x22 set consists of body-58x22, rod-58, handle-22, lock-22 and an end cap. I printed quite a few with only 20% infill. If still concerned that the rod might break to early, increase the infill for the rod (at least the middle part with the slot) - up to 100% if you like, the additional amount of filament is not really relevant.