Pill Pulverizer

This thing worked surprisingly well for me, so I figured it was worth sharing.

I take a big daily vitamin, sometimes difficult to swallow, and one time it got stuck in my throat. So I break them up as best I can, and "drink" them. But a powder would be better.

Searching online, I see plastic pill crushers of this design. A close fitting mortar and pestle. Some double as pill containers.

Quickly whipped this up in Blender but didn't think it would work. But it does fine on these big vitamins. Pulverizes them to dust in a quarter-turn or two.

Overall dimensions are near 2" x 2 1/2" (50x60mm).
50g ABS, 1 hour, 40 min. for a set, using Afinia default settings. I printed my "grinder" file upside down, as shown, to get a smooth dome on top.

With the first try, fresh off the printer, there were a couple bits and hairs of red plastic in the crushed powder. Second try had none. It might be best to run some spare aspirin, vitamins or something through it, to break it in, before using it on real medication.

There is pill dust left behind in the creases and layering. I wouldn't try to clean it beyond brushing the dust off. With meds that cannot be mixed, printing one for each medication is probably worth the effort.

Arthritic hands may have a problem turning it, but the grips can easily be modified to accommodate that. Leave a comment or message.

Metric files included.