Silica Gel Container Funnel

I printed out several of the Inside Spool Silica Gel Containers but needed a way to get the loose silica beads into the container with out making too much of a mess. I knew a funnel would be perfect, but I didn't want to use my kitchen funnels. (Probably not a problem, but I don't like using my kitchen food tools for non-food applications.)

This funnel has a nozzle OD of 30mm and a cup OD of 100mm, so it should fit any container with an opening between 31mm and 99mm.

So, I grabbed my calipers and fired up FreeCAD. Et voila! I modeled this funnel after canning funnels and even gave it a small handle with a hanging hook.

I've included my FreeCAD file if anyone wants to see my poor FreeCAD skills. Note, I'm using the 0.18 beta versions so have used diameter constraints. If you load this into 0.17 or earlier the two elements in the handle should still be the right size, but the sketch won't be fully constrained. It is fully constrained in 0.18.

My pictures are of my first stl export and is a little more faceted than I wanted. While I printing the funnel I (finally) discovered how to increase the tessellation for the FreeCAD .stl export. This is the version of the .stl that is included here.

I recently re-printed in NinjaFlex and this seems to work better for silica gel. The gel bounces out of the PLA funnel, but the elasticity of the NinjaFlex funnel doesn't let the gel bounce.

Until PrusaPrinters supports the FreeCAD file format, you will have to go over to Thingiverse to get the FreeCAD file here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3412655/files
For now, all PrusaPrinters imports from the .FCStd file format is the thumbnail image.

Edit (2019-10-18) Added STEP file to make remixing outside of FreeCAD easier, and updated the .3mf file for my NinjaFlex 85A profile and Printer file for flexibles using PrusaSlicer v2.1.0. I could probably make my profiles for NinjaFlex better now that PrusaSlicer has filament profile overrides for retraction.

Edit (2022-03-30) Realized that I hadn't uploaded the original FreeCAD file once this site supported that filetype. Just added the original FreeCAD file.

Print instructions

Licence: Creative Commons - Attribution Category: 3D Printer Accessories Print Settings

Printer Brand: Prusa

Printer: i3 MK3

Rafts: No

Supports: No

Resolution: 0.16

Infill: 20% Line

Filament: Prusa PLA Silver
Notes:

Use enough perimeters (I used 3) to build the funnel wall fully with perimeters. Any infill will only be between the bottom and top layers of the handle.