1.25" Telescope Eyepiece Case

thingiverse

We printed and built the Hadley Telescope build by Maffif successfully as a family. It turned out well, but I found myself fumbling in the dark with lens caps for several eyepieces as we explored the sky in different ways. It left me desiring a case to put them in and being new, I didn't think to order eyepieces as a set. So, I designed one to work with my dobsonian plywood base. I cut 95mm handholds into the plywood sides and made the case to hang off one of the handles. The mount holes are spaced accordingly.. This could be remixed with keyholes in back to mount on screws, but our base is painted and I didn't want to cover the artwork. This worked for us. Like the Hadley, I tried to design most pieces to print simply without supports with a couple exceptions. The main body, the lid, the rack, the rack spacer, and the barlow support collar all print without support. I have 4 eyepieces and a 2x barlow. The eyepieces all had a similar 1.25" tail except the barlow. The extension collar is to support the barlow and can easily be adjusted to fit a different model as needed. More eyepieces could be squeezed in with a remix, but this left my fingers room to reach. The rear hooks do benefit from support. I built those to work with the long 10-24 socket head bolts also used to mount the secondary mirror on the Hadley build ( https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5408737 ), trimmed to 1-5/16" length and nylon lock nuts. They were leftover from the build, so decidedly convenient. If you chose different bolts or yours are a different size, remixing the hooks to fit your hardware will save you some filament. Guides on the case back capture the nylon locknuts. Tighten them so light pressure swings the hook arms in place. On the case itself, I designed the lid buckle to fit a small rare earth magnet to be captrued in place with silicone glue. Similar story for the case body, but a larger diameter to fit another magnet I had on hand. I had planned a steel washer, but the two were a little too far apart and didn't grab enough. A magnet on either side worked well. I placed a microfiber lens wipe on the bottom of the case placing rack pieces sandwiched by the spacer above. I glued the rack and spacer together along with the barlow collar. I did have to smooth the bullets of the main hinge for smoothness along with trimming one of their tips to aid with assembly. The body doesn't need too many walls since it is 3mm thick. The only piece that really needs attention to strength are the hooks. I printed those with 65% infill so I didn't have to worry about an accidental knee bump breaking them loose. Our Hadley build for reference is here: https://www.thingiverse.com/make:1051559