Bowden Tube Clip

thingiverse

Update 12/21/2016: Uploaded the FreeCAD file. My Cobblebot has a large print area and the bowden tube is about 3' long to accommodate this size. With the twist that comes from the tubing being coiled during shipping and the twisting caused by the filament it would create too much back pressure and my extruder couldn't push the filament through the hotend. Picking up the tube and holding in "straight' would alleviate the problem. While the tube could be shorter I like the smother radius of a longer tube to minimize back pressure on the extruder. While it is minimal if you use a tube that's just long enough to cover your bed area it will increase the work on the steppers. They need to overcome the resistance of the tubing as it bends. I also seen twisting/bending in much shorter tubes causing high resistance to the extruder drive. I designed this clip to align the Bowden tube using a large (in this case 36") tie wrap as a support. I originally tie-wrapped the tubing to the larger one but that was a pain to take out when I had a plugged extruder or do other work. The before picture of my tube is straighter than it was before this solution. It has be tie-wrapped to the the large tie-wrap for a couple weeks and was still holding some shape. This is for a thinner tie-wrap a bit less the 2mm thick. It won't work on the thicker Thomas and Betts (T&B) tie-wraps as they are significantly thicker. Also buy tie-wraps that are packaged without coiling. The coil stays in the plastic and won't be a good support. I did this in OpenSCAD but the code isn't pretty so I didn't include the source. Lot's of trial and error to make a clip that fit. I can provide the source if anyone is interested. Update: This was designed for 4mm diameter tubing and the large tie-wrap has a cross section of 2mm x 8mm. Print Settings Printer: Cobblebot Basic Rafts: No Supports: No Resolution: 0.2 Infill: 70% Notes: Probably doesn't need this high of infill but clip shouldn't break when snapping onto the tubing. I show seven printed, six should be more than adequate for any shorter tubing.