I designed a little pill box, for anti-conception pills. The box is ring shaped and can contain 21 pills (if you count correctly, you will see there are 22 slots, therefore the box doesn't require a closing cap The clearance between the parts was 0,1mm . It required a bit of forward and backward turning to make the ring rotate, but after that, it works surprizingly well.
I like it! Too bad you didn't enter this in the moving part contest I would have some concern about using it, as Shapeways has stated they cannot yet guarantee the "food safety" of their plastics. Let me just caution you, before you use it, to make sure absolutely all the powder is out of the model. It's very hard to tell sometimes, because powder can stick quite tenaciously in corners. Take a finger nail cleaning brush to it while it is dry, and then under running water, and then dry again just to be extra safe. Great model and great thought process! -Whystler
Maybe for a pill box it is no problem after good cleaning, because the material itself may be safe, but you can't be 100% sure, because of the additional materials used during printing.
Thanks!, about the safety: yes I did clean it thoroughly. I am not sure about using it, because I expect this material to absorb water. This means that the pills, that have a sugar like layer on the outside, to become sticky. I am not so afraid of food safety though, I think we eat a lot more toxics we don't know of every day...
Isn't WSF formed by SLS, so the support material is just more of the same inert powder? So far, I'm resisting the urge to chew my WSF offcuts until we get the final word.
Yes, it may be inert, but it's plastic powder folks You don't really want to breath or ingest it, because it breaks down much slower than things we normally put in our mouth and airpipes. The could easily cause irritation or immune responses in the lungs and throat. -Whystler
Very true. Hormones, antibiotics & heavy metal in the water, low-grade non-stick coatings, various unpleasant compounds leaching out from food storage inners & bottles, etc. Putting it into perspective, it's all relative. Would WSF be potentially less harmful than the solvents and organic volatiles we work with? Cyano accelerator? I'm not being deliberately naive when I say I'd consider chewing WSF. It might be better for you than the petrochemical base and artificial sweeteners in the gum I'd otherwise be consuming. Hey kids, don't chew WSF. Have an apple instead.