tissue box with awe-inspiring insert

thingiverse

This is mostly just a straightforward "make" of https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2594893 (Ultimate Box Generator, UBG) to make a tissue box. I did make a couple of changes to the SCAD file and submitted them as PRs to the author. Those changes have now been integrated into the original design files, so be sure to get the SCAD files updated on 7 August 2022 or later if you care about either of these changes: - Coinslot was not completely centered for some lid types - Coinslot can optionally have rounded corners The files uploaded here are the parameters I used to create a tissue box using the Ultimate Box Generator. It consists of 3 pieces: - the main box with a solid floor and honeycomb sides (the "bottom" or "box" in UBG terms) - the lid with a honeycomb pattern and large, rounded coinslot from which the tissues emerge (the "top" or "lid" in UBG terms) - a lid-like insert with a honeycomb pattern and large, rounded coinslot (also a "top" or "lid" in UBG terms) These are all rather large for a basic 3D printer, but they can be printed on a Creality Ender 3v2 (you might have to adjust settings on your slicer if it believes they won't fit). I printed them with JAYO PLA+ filament, in white for the bottom and lid, and in a color I don't care about for the insert. Even with the honeycomb pattern, these all take a fairly long time to print. I used a 0.24mm layer height and 15% infill to speed things along a bit. Why make a tissue box in the first place? I'm not fussy about the brand of tissues we use, but the market leader and most store brands come packaged with a small piece of thin plastic guarding a hole in the top. That works OK until you get about half-way through the box. After that, the plastic will often release the tissue, letting it fall back into the box. Then you have to jam your hand through the plastic and fish around to get the next tissue out. The act of groping around widens the hole in the plastic, and the rest of the box is pretty much doomed from that point. I'm pretty sure this shoddy user experience was part of the reason for the fall of the Roman Empire. (The one exception I know of is Puffs tissues, which do not have the little piece of plastic and which are not fan-folded. Instead, they are C-folded and have an opening large enough to conveniently grab every last tissue. It's very civilized.) When I was a lad, tissue boxes did not have that bit of plastic guarding the hole. Instead, they had a piece of thin cardboard inside the box, resting on top of the tissues. As the tissues got used, the cardboard insert went down with them. It was always there to position the next tissue in a place where you could grab it. Those were the days. The little piece of plastic glued to the top of the box these days is supposed to do the same job, but it's not very good at it. This re-usable tissue box brings back the experience of that well-functioning insert of bygone days. In this design, the insert is just another copy of the lid made with smaller length and width so that it fits inside the main box. Depending on how much oomph your tissues have, they might tug a bit too much on the insert and cause it to get out of kilter. The cure for that is to make it heavier. One way to do that is to alter the honeycomb pattern or the infill percentage to use more filament. My slicer predicted these weights for variations of the insert: - honeycomb 15% infill: 31g - honeycomb 100% infill: 36g - solid 15% infill: 45g - solid 100% infill: 64g Another way to add weight is to tape coins or something similar on top of the insert. Since it's inside the box, it won't really be visible. A US penny weighs about 3 grams, and you can tape a bunch of them in place until you are satisfied with the action. I currently have 12 pennies helping out and haven't yet decided if I need more. No matter what, the insert will sometimes lift up, but it is stopped by the lid and will drop back down after the tissue is pulled out. I put a 10mm lip on the lid so that it fits very snugly into the box and won't be pulled out with the tissue, even if the insert bumps into it. HOW TO USE: 0. If you want exactly what I printed, you can just use my 3 STL files. Otherwise, 1. Download Ultimate_Box_Generator.scad from the github or Thingiverse location. You do not need Box_Template.scad to make the tissue box, but you might want it for other things. 2. Put the 4 tissuebox-honeycomb-*.scad files in the same directory. Each of the files -boxonly, -toponly, and -insertonly includes the -common file. The -common file, in turn, imports Ultimate-Box-Generator.scad. Make any changes you desire. 3. Open each of -boxonly, -toponly, and -insertonly in OpenSCAD, render them, and export the STL files. Because of their relative positions, you might have to zoom out to find the top and insert in OpenSCAD. Rendering can take a while because of the complexity of the honeycomb pattern. 4. Slice the STL files in your favorite slicing engine, print, and enjoy. To use, buy some tissues that are fan-folded, which most tissues are these days. Each tissue is folded in half and is attached with a perforation to the next tissue in the stack. Take the stack of tissues out of their original cardboard box. Remove the lid from this project, remove the insert, place the stack of tissues into the bottom part, place the insert into the box while threading the top tissue through the slot, and then replace the lid while threading the top tissue through that slot. Laugh maniacally whenever you see anybody groping around inside a cardboard tissue box to find the next tissue.