Reusable Rubber Cable Tie

For our Automated Insect Monitor project (https://digital-naturalism-laboratories.github.io/Mothbox/) we need light-weight ways to quickly seal boxes. We have been using 1/4 bolts (widely available, but heavy), re-usable zip ties (not as easy to find around the world), and silicone zip ties ( also not as ubiquitous, pictured in green in the photo, like these: https://www.amazon.com/AYWFEY-Management-Organizer-All-Purpose-Household/dp/B07ZNV7SFP?pd_rd_w=54bvw&con ). 

UPDATE: I might slightly better tolerances for printing with a .8mm nozzle (and possibly others). Plus I made them a bit longer and spacing a tad more compact. Try it out and tweak as you want!

They have all been working quite good, and I was impressed with the silicone zip ties! They make a nice tight bond that is easy to attach or disconnect. I was worried that we might be working somewhere (like the rain forest) where we cannot find these silicone zip ties. 

So I made my own using TPU!

I was worried the TPU wouldn't be as flexible as the silicone (and it's not), but it still works quite well! I use it for cables, for our Mothboxes, and for holding the tubes out of the way on my Bambu printer when printing in TPU.

Print Quality

You might notice my prints are pretty stringy and not great looking. That's because I was too lazy to switch out my fat 0.8 nozzle, and also we are printing in the rainforest in Panama. This is good news for you, because if these prints work under these terrible conditions, they should work amazing for you!

License: Not for Mr. Prusa

It's all open source, because everything we do at our lab is open source. Since this is printables, however, and Prusa seems to be into trying to redefine "open source" to mean "not actually open source," I will introduce one small caveat: everyone on earth is quite welcome to use, remix, sell, whatever they want, except for Josef Prusa.