Print In Place Beer Tap Handle

Introduction:

A print-in-place beer tap handle! The threads print fine on my Prusa Mini, so there's no need to fiddle with inserts or tapping threads into the handle. Print it, use it! It's that easy!

Threads are 3/8" UNC. From some quick searches, beer taps (in the US at least) have either a 3/8 or 5/16" thread. Let me know if you need one with 5/16" (or metric or other threading) and I can (probably) model one up quickly, though it may take a couple attempts to verify tolerances.

Expect more tap handles in future from me, that aren't just a bare-bones handle.

Printing Instructions:

0.2 mm QUALITY in PrusaSlicer with 0.4 mm nozzle is what I used. Print vertically. I think setting top infill to “concentric” is best for cylindrical models, personally, but that's just visual.

I think setting the seam to “aligned” is best. I tried the “random” option as Prusa says it can be best for objects with no edges, but you end up with a bunch of “pimples” all over the handle. If your taps are like mine, you can hide the seam by rotating the bottom metal piece the handle touches up slightly if the seam is visible when you tighten the handle down. Just tighten the handle down, if the seam is visible, back it off until it's hid, then back off the metal “nut” below it until it tightens against the handle.

Lower layer heights should be fine, though I haven't tested them. Bigger layer heights and/or larger nozzles may end up having tolerance issues that don't allow this to be threaded onto the tap without tapping the hole with a tap…

I recommend using the .step file for slicing. In general, these can hold tighter tolerances than .stl files. However, I did test print the .stl and it prints fine, perhaps just a bit tighter on the threads.

PrusaSlicer warns me that there is low bed adhesion. I regularly ignore that warning, but I don't seem to have the bed adhesion issues some people have. If you have any sort of issues with prints not sticking, use a brim and/or some sort of adhesive and/or supports. Otherwise, this printed just fine on my smooth Prusa PEI build sheet with none of those.

P.S. Clean build sheets and proper first layer heights are critical to proper bed adhesion. If you have bed adhesion issues, check and double check both of these.

Background (Why I Designed This):

After a move, where I disassembled my kreezer, followed by dismantling the kreezer and selling the chest freezer as a freezer, followed by another move and building a new kreezer, I somehow lost my tap handles.

Now, a normal (smart) person would just go buy the $5 plastic handle. Someone with a 3D printer and FreeCAD will make the poor decision to spend hours designing and print testing a tap handle instead.

To be fair, it's not just that I decided on a poor use of my time. The long-term goal is custom and/or customizable tap handles. So my figuring out how to print usable threads, I can make custom tap handles in the future without figuring out some potentially complicated way of attaching them.

Final Notes:

I've included the FreeCAD .FCStd file, if you'd like to use it as a starting point for your own epic tap handle!

With this and every other printable file, please respect the owner's choice of license agreement. I've selected Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution—Share Alike. This means you're free to use, modify this design, sell the design, sell parts printed from it or the modified design, with two simple requirements:

1. Attribution - You say this design is mine, or if you modify it that you based your design off my design (preferably by linking to my design).
2. Share Alike - You release anything changes to my design under this same license agreement.