My entry to the contest is an older design i did; many of you already have one of these. early on when i was using pandas i was infuriated by the broken spouts; once the spout broke off the flow of recovered solvent was uncontrollable, messy, and quite frankly quite dangerous. So i came up with this design as a means to both control the flow the solvent and add a small element of “relative safety” to the system.
a year later i have sold over 300 units to labs on 6 continents; and i have to thank the community for the support in making this possible. anyways here are some images of the spout;
The unit indexes into the opening into the pandas sheet metal body via two clips; this centers the spout perfectly everytime so when you go to screw it in; its easy. There is an O’ring grove around the periphery of the spouts mating surface that helps assist in sealing. The spout was designed to be open ended; so that one could control the flow of solvent; but still be able to access to clear out any blockages. There is a spill way relief on the very front of the spout; the bottom of the spill way becomes the lowest point in the system so that you cannot flood the internal cup of the panda, and have solvent pour onto the motor. I hand tapped each unit(I dont trust 3D printed threads) sold; the female thread body supports 3/4" NPT threading for a polymer hose barb.
I printed my prototypes on my personal FDM machines; but printed the final versions of an industrial SLS machine; in a special chemical resistant nylon. The print quality off that SLS rig would blow your mind.
all in all 3D printing is cool af; been printing since 3d printing was a thing; i built my first FDM machine almost 10 years ago after i saw the early repraps release.
i wana get back to design; but chemistry hooked me in.