Earplugs Case with separated left and right compartments

A friend asked me if I could design an earplugs case for her custom made concert/party ear protection earplugs. She has difficulty recognizing left from right of her custom earplugs in a dark club or venue, so something with separate compartments was desirable. 

Since we both regularly visit Techno parties in and around Amsterdam we both make use of these earplugs to protect ourselves from getting hearing loss from the loud music.. An extra observed benefit is you do not have to worry about dropping one of the 2 plugs when you open the lid, since one is still securely stored in a closed compartment. 

I made this a multi-material design, since so many people these days have printers capable of printing multi-colour or multi-material. 

I print my cases in PETG and use TPU for the hinge parts for the lids. The clasps are printed separately to get the benefit of a different layer orientation and thus adding much more strength, creating a far more durable end product.

I incorporated a support structure in my design to get a nice and smooth surface finish for the lids. As the support interface layer I chose TPU instead of PLA, since this gives a far better adhesion to the PETG, while still being relatively easy to remove from the lids. 

The “Prusa XL Slicer ready Earplugs Case” is a project file ready to print on a 5TH Prusa XL. It has some height range modifiers and material speeds modifiers embedded in the file.. You might need to change the tool head allocation to print with the desired tool heads. 

In the photo above you can see the different layers for the TPU as “Hinges” and as the interface layers between the supports and the model. You can of course change the TPU interface layer to PLA if you so desire! Only the hinges are required to be printed in TPU!

After you have printed both the earplugs case and the two clasps, you will need to glue the clasps onto the lids. I used Cyanoacrylate or superglue for this. 

Since clasps, lids, lower case and hinges are all separate objects, you can freely chose your own colour combinations to give it your own personal touch. 

The files can always be separated as .STL or .3mf files by exporting them from your slicer program!

Enjoy!



      Print settings: 

• 0.2 layer

• 4 walls

• 8 top and 8 bottom layers

• infill 20%

• interface shells ON (to make sure you get solid infill between materials!)

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