Parametric aquarium filters elements

This elements were orioginally designed to expand on a small internal filter Pat Mini, with a small container for biological filter medium. By default it only came with a sponge, and attaching a giant container from a larger filter didn’t made sense for a small aquarium.

For some time I’ve used a bought print but never really liked the way it closed - the lid could pop off way too easily. Also there was only cube shape available, while cylindrical would look better with also cylindrical sponge.

This project includes parametric models of:

• box filter
• cylindrical filter
  •  

• pipes
• rain pipes
  • to block the water stream on the final pipe use PipeBlock element
• curved pipe
• basket pipe 
  • can be used to attach a extra sponge below the filter box
    •     
• short basket pipe 
  • used to close a pipe or filter, so smaller medium won’t fall out (eg. zeolite)
  • 
• control valve - very simple attachment meant to regulate water flow
  • valve was intended to work with 5v filter pump project, so it likely won't scale well to wider diameters.
  • printable in place
    • 
• 5v pump face cover
  • it's made to work best with pipe diameter set to ~8mm and will often throw errors when parameters are set too high - which can be ignored.
    • 

Parameters

Most objects re use the same variables to calculate their width, depth, diameters. Updating single parameter will affect other models, most cases correctly, but sometimes an unreleated  thing we did not meant to scale, nor use, might throw errors - eg. pipe dimension and lengthwill scale correctly, but a curved or rain pipe might brake. Usually it’s because some values are unpredictably small or large. Within range typical for aquariums they should scale fine.

There's quite some parameters spread across different components and honestly their become cumbersome to use. So I've tried applying experimental naming convention - I needed something readable and easy to filter, navigate, reuse values to calculate various measurements. Sadly the parameters window in F360 is pretty horrible in that regard. Filtering is crude, non persistent, converting unit to unitless finicky at best. Thus this approach, loosely inspired by BEM methodology used in web development 😀

Setup parameters

Filter Box parameters

Filter Cylinder parameters

Pipe parameters

(these apply to filters and are automatically calculated in a way they ought to fit eachother)

Various Pipes elements parameters

Parameters naming convention

FilterBox__PipeBottom_offsetFromCenter_mm

• FilterBox
  • Name of component - PascalCase
  • components or important objects are separated with __ (double underscore)
• PipeBottom
  • Name of important object / sketch
• offsetFromCenter
  • descriptor - camelCase
    • it’s either dimension, measurement, value which affects something concrete in the project
    • eg. width, height, thickness, diameter, count, tolerance
  • descriptors are separated with _ (single underscore)
• mm
  • unit - lower case
  • separated with single underscore like descriptors
  • seems redundant in the parameters window, but when creating formulas it’s immediately clear what unit the parameter represents.

_CeramicMedium__Cube_width_unitless

• _
  • parameters starting with single underscore denote values that aren’t used directly in the project, but are rather configuration or used to formulate concrete parameters values.
• CeramicMedium
  • descriptive name, or component name
• Cube
  • important object name, type
• width
  • descriptor
• unitless
  • unit

FilterBox_$_width__contains_CeramicMedium

• FilterBox
  • component name
• $
  • similar to parameters starting with _
  • used to calculate concrete paramters values.
  • separated by singe underscore
• contains
  • descriptor
• CeramicMedium
  • unit
  • but references important object / parameter
    • it could be read as:
      • FilterBox_$_width__contains_CeramicMedium__Cube_width_unitless
      • but it’s cumbersome, way too long, and redundant, as the context is more or less clear.

Printing

• use PETG - or any filament that’s food safe and won’t leak anything toxic into the water.
  • Be sure to confirm with you preferred manufacture documentation the filament is food safe.
  • It’s just my opinion so do as you think is best for your aquariums - the prints might not neccesarly need extra processing, like coating or sealing - as compared to prints inteded to be used with food like cutlery, storage and so on. In this case unsealed layers just create more room for nitrification bactera to grow.
    • It worked for me and aquariums are still alive and look fine, but as always caution is advisable.
• The best looking pipes should be printed vertically.
  • The horizontal orientation is doable with supports - and they print much faster. BUT each end is a bit malformed, and the tolerance between insert/socket ends of the pipes were made with verticall orientation in mind. So in case of horizontal, make sure to increase the MainPipe__Top_diameter_mm.
  • Vertical orientation will create pipes more resistant to compression, like inserting in one another - they will not brake that easily compared to horizontal.
    • But it’s completely opposite when it comes to flexibility. Vertical layers will more likely brake when flexed.
• Valve was designed to  be printed in place - it should be printed in horizontal position.