High Flow Adjustable Shower Head

thingiverse

This is a fully functional shower head with ball joint for adjusting the direction of spray. It is designed to be used with standard 1/2" threaded pipe which should be the most common found in showers in the US. It also has a removable end cap so that caps with different spray patterns or flow rates can be a used. The cap included at this time has 7 openings each 2mm wide. I created this to replace a shower head that just didn't put out enough water. This isn't the best place to teach hydrodynamics, but most problems people have with shower heads have to do with flow rate and volume rather than pressure. Virtually all heads on the market today trade volume for pressure. The reason behind this is mostly environmental protection laws and are designed to make a shower feel just as vigorous without using as much water. When you have a flow problem like I did on my upper floor you cannot solve your problem with a head designed to increase pressure because this will reduce an already low flow even further. I needed one that increased flow without the need to increase pressure much if any. With 2mm holes, I get plenty of flow (maybe too much) and I can finally rinse the soap out of my hair! I plan on experimenting with different hole sizes and patterns to find an optimal solution for my situation. I will make these caps available to you as I complete them. For this to work properly you will need a #15 o-ring SAE (22mm i.d. - 3.5mm wall) and a 1/2" hose pipe washer. Wrapping all threads in teflon tape is also a good idea. NOTE! - I have yet to print a totally water tight print and even when all joints are sealed, water may "sweat" out between the layers of the print. I have not had any leaks larger than a slow weeping. Update: I have found the hole pattern and size that I like and have made a head that is solid (without the screw on nozzle pattern cap) to eliminate some of the leakage that happens around the threads. I have included this file as well if you want to just print the solid version.