Pedal Pop Lid Box

Hi, most wonderful people!

Being able to prototype and test things so easily is one of the huge benefits of 3D printing, and it really shines when developing mechanical models that involve numerous moving parts. The thing about printed-in-place mechanical designs is that they necessarily require gaps between moving parts so that they don't just fuse into a single object during printing. These gaps mean that parts can move in all sorts of unintended ways - up, down, backwards, sideways, who knows! Things can twist and jam up! So, being able to easily run off a proof of concept is immensely useful for identifying those bits where the aggregation of unintended movements causes problems. You could argue that the technology is really useful for exploring the problems caused by the technology :)

And, this design - oh yeah, I should mention it's a box with a pedal-style lid lifter! - has a set of moving parts to transmit motion from the lower front edge to the upper rear of the lid, so there were plenty of problems to solve, and plenty of experimentation to find pivot points that made the lever and lid actions feel satisfying!

By the time this linkage was firmed up there was a graveyard of skeletal minimalist versions littering my work area, but the mechanical design aspects were solid!

Print Description

This is a print-in-place articulated mechanical model, so ensure your first layer is nice and neat, and that there aren't any print issues like stringing or overextrusion that might bind moving parts together.

Print Dimensions

The box occupies 90mm x 92mm on the print bed and is 97mm tall.

Supports Needed?

Not at all!  Designed for straightforward printing!

Scalability

You could certainly scale this up or down, but naturally the tolerances between moving parts will be affected, and as discussed above that can led to unexpected behaviour!

Print Orientation

The Pedal Pop Lid Box prints on its back with the lever up and lid closed.

Further Thoughts

My favourite unexpected discovery when prototyping this was that at one point if I pushed the lever a bit too hard - but then let it go - I could get the lid to flip around and drag all the linkage components out and bend them in unintended directions. It didn't quite break anything, but it looked very sad and the lever did nothing until it was carefully refolded into its original state.

You'll find now that the lid itself is constrained by its hinge to stop a little way short of vertical. Apart from avoiding the unpleasant situation above, it also means the lid and lever will return to their original positions thanks to gravity alone! Is that now store-bought pedal bins work, I wonder?

Happy printing!

xoxo

Sven.

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487 Pedal Pop Lid Box