PTFE Tube Cap with Filament Label

When building my filament dry box I needed some end caps for the reverse bowden tubes. In addition to a grabbing mechanism that prevents the filament from being retracted into the tube I also wanted some clip-on labels to know what filament is in the tube.

Therefore I created some pluggable text-labels for the most common filament types. For most filament types you should be able to print them with the actual filament that is on that spool and the label will also serve as a filament sample. Anyways it will allow for quickly finding the correct tube.

There is also a label without any text for you to easily emboss your own if you like.

The cap is made for PTFE tubes with an outer diameter of 4 mm.

Model Details

• The standard cap does not have a phase at the flat bottom surface, which makes it a bit tricky to clip the label on especially when they are printed with hard material like PLA. Still it should work without much hassle and I visually like this cap better (if used without a label).
• The phased cap version has a small phase on the bottom surface which makes it a bit easier to get the label on. And if a label is clipped on there is no visual difference anyways.

Both versions have zero tolerance on the interfaces between the two parts, which works as intended if your printer is set up correctly. However if you have any issue with the label to clip on the cap just scale the label in the slicer by a few percent in x/y direction and you should be fine.

Standard Version

Phased Version

Filament Grabbing Mechanism

How to Use

To clip on the label, make sure to fully insert the cap on one end and then press on the other side until it clips-in. To remove the label it seems to work best to put pressure somehow at the end of the long edge (e.g. exactly under the “P” from the PETG label). I know it is not perfect to remove, but as I rarely need to change them I decided to make them like this. 

Before inserting the filament (especially after pulling it out-off the hotend) you should make a clean angled cut. To get it out of the cap, just spin it a bit while pulling.

Printing Instruction

Material: Use a material that provides enough strength and flexibility. For me PETG works perfectly

Layer Height: 0.2mm

Perimeters: Cap 4, Label 2

Support: No

Attribution

Before I designed my own parts I bought the design for the Anybox V2 from Marian. This is a great and cost-optimized box, with perfectly designed parts and documentation. The outer dimension of this PTFE Tube Cap matches the cap from the Anybox. Many thanks to Marian for that he has agreed to sharing the modifications here for non-commercial use.