CuPC - CUstomizable Pipe Cap

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M4x
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Posts: 1472
Joined: Sat Mar 11, 2017 9:23 am
Location: Germany

CuPC - CUstomizable Pipe Cap

Post by M4x »

Hey everybody,

I've been looking for a way to securely close the end of a pipe but still be able to easily access it again (= removing the pipe cap). I needed this for a bigger project - a lantern stick using WS2812 LEDs (I'm working on the documentation). I think this pipe cap could be useful for other projects too. Therefore I've decided to finish the documentation for these parts first and publish it as a separate project.

In this post, I'm focusing on the FreeCAD part of the project. For further information, please have a look at the README. I'm also happy to answer any questions here which may arise.

The project is published under the CERN-OHL-S license. All files can be found here: https://gitlab.com/M4x__/CuPC (I've made a set of technical drawings too if you're interested in these things ;) ).

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A customizable, 3D-printable pipe cap. Adaptable to fit any pipe size. Easy to mount and dismount via a screw. Furthermore this can be used as a base to attach "stuff" to pipes.

It consists of two 3D-printable parts, a screw and a nut. The size of the screw and nut have to be chosen according to the user-defined parameters.

Image

Image

Structure of the FreeCAD files
  • CuPC_components.FCStd: All single components and the corresponding TechDraw Pages
  • CuPC_assembly.FCStd: The full assembly, the BOM , the corresponding TechDraw Pages and copies of the cut through assembly and exploded assembly. The components are linked into this file using App Link
  • CuPC_assembly_frozen_views.cam: The frozen views used to create the screenshots
Workbenches I've used (sorted alphabetically)
  1. Assembly3_Workbench
  2. Part_Module
  3. PartDesign_Workbench
  4. Spreadsheet_Workbench
  5. TechDraw_Workbench
Macros I've used (sorted alphabetically)
  1. Macro_EasyAlias
  2. Macro_Screen_Wiki
  3. Macro_Snip
  4. Macro_TechDrawTools
  5. Macro Vision color plus
Things I'd do the same next time
  1. Use the Spreadsheet_Workbench and Expressions to make calculations and keep the design as parametric as possible.
  2. Use the Assembly3_Workbench.
  3. Export all drawings to PDF.
  4. Export all components to STEP.
  5. Make nice drawings using the TechDraw_Workbench and think about when it's a good idea to reference copies of bodies (Part_SimpleCopy) instead of the parametric (and therefore possibly changing) bodies when create drawings. :-)
  6. Convert images (screenshots in this case) to SVG and use these files to place images in TechDraw Pages. SVG-files are getting "implemented" into the FreeCAD-file. This is not the case for PNG-files for example. For those, TechDraw_Workbench uses the absolute path to the PNG-file.
Other thoughts / general information
Usually I'm giving the advice to center all models around the center of the coordination system and / or position models in a way which makes it easy to make use of the axis of the coordination system regarding mirroring a part. This time I didn't do all of it.

Instead, I've positioned the parts in relationship to each other like they're already assembled. And I've used one axis to make the modeling of the flange easier (one axis lays between the flange and the rest of the body). I did this because the parts aren't that easy to assemble within an assembly workbench (because of there shape), it made it easier for me to check if everything "fits" and the assembly is technically pretty straight forward.

Thank you!
Thank you very much for this awesome software and very helpful community. I hope that I can give something back by sharing my files / this project.

Designed in FreeCAD v0.20. Last used version:

Code: Select all

OS: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS (ubuntu:GNOME/ubuntu)
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.20.25943 (Git) AppImage
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: a65464b722a846bd2999aa2fecdff1132b15b297
Python version: 3.9.7
Qt version: 5.12.9
Coin version: 4.0.0
OCC version: 7.5.2
Locale: English/United States (en_US)
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