For those who read the prior post on my 3M Bair Hugger project for my wife I have an update:
Since that post they were using the 2 versions of the Bair hose adapters (they were designed to mix and match). However I failed to account for the fact that her staff are neanderthals and managed to snap a 1/4" (6mm for non imperial types) thick piece of PETG with 4 perimeters. So they wanted stronger (seriously) but then they cited a second problem (not with my design with 3M’s products) which was that normally in a human hospital we put the Bair heater on the floor next to the bed and connect the hose over the foot of the bed and the blanket covers the patient. Which is great, humans and big and the hoses don’t reach much past the foot. However for smaller patients (cats) or tiny dogs the coiled 3’ hose (1m) is bigger than the patient and actually makes it hard for the animal to fit. So the request was make them unbreakable (not a thing) and make custom hose lengths, and so the design project from hell has been happening, which looks like this:
(colors are just to make the separate parts visible they’re all black except the foam). Improvements now include they are printed in CF-PA (CF reinforced Nylon although I may switch to K-PA if the CF doesn’t handle abrasion as well as I hope). The cam lock now firmly locks the hose in place and prevents the pressing on the latch button. Next there is a mechanically trapped TPU Oring that is printed in place (because they were worried about air leaks - eye roll) And the cam-lock tightens the end of the hose adaptor to the TPU. Next is the hose clamps because that part is now attached to a custom hose (the static dissipating steel reinforced hose) so we can make that hose any length we want (like 1’ or 30cm). So the part above is only in inside of the cage adapter there is the outside one which is for the Bair connector I talked about in the prior post, except that will be in PA-CF. I am slightly worried (haven’t tested it yet) that the self-tapping screw inserts I drive in won’t be able to cut through the PACF as it is so abrasive.
To print that it takes 3 extruders (thank goodness I have the XL 5T) since it has PACF on 1, TPU on 2 and BVOH on 3 as dissolvable support for the cam lock parts