Garden Ant Bait Station Stake

Ants-Be-Gone parametric model was created in OpenScad using the BOSL2 library. The design is inspired on an existing commercial solution, Ants-No-More®. All dimensions were based on the product descriptions that I've found over the internet, and some parts of the design were adapted for 3D printing. 

This bait station is quite effective, it's pet safe, waterproof and allows the use of two distinct bait products (either liquids, gels or  granulates) in the same cup which can target different ant spices at the same time. Out of all the other solutions available, this is the most adequate to use near pet or farm animals, since it won't spill the bait when touched or walked over. 

Usage

Fill with your preferred bait(s) up until 5mm bellow the center pipe pockets, close the lid and bury the stake in the ground, near the nest entries, leaving some of the openings free for the ants to access the bait chamber. 

Bait

If you have an ant issue/nightmare, whether you use this model or other,  you'll find a plethora of commercial baits available for sell.

Not all baits will work with all ant species. There are several ants species that will prefer to eat protein, others that will prefer to eat sugar. There are tiny ants and big ants, hence some granular bait might not work to destroy a tiny ant colony, since they will not be able to carry it to the nest. 

There are effective ways of creating an homemade bait that will work for both protein and sugar ants, regardless of their size, either by using a recipe based on boric acid (more effective but less human/animal safe) or baking soda (less effective but safer for humans/animals).

Recommended print settings

• Use dry filament to prevent stringing: ~30% hummidity
• Material:
  • PLA (for indoor/in-shade use) - Layer height: 0.1 - 0.3
  • PETG (for regular outdoor use) - Layer height: 0.1 - 0.2
• Wall loops/perimeters: 2
• Infill: 15%
• Supports: none

Notes

• Print time:  ~3h @ 0.24 layer height
• Filament used: ~47g
• Model height: 220mm (this can be tunned in the included .scad source file)