Bento Ball

Bento (弁当 bentō) is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. Sometimes served in a box, with a fox, or kangaroo.

Containers range from mass produced (disposable) to hand crafted lacquerware. Somewhere in the middle there are 3D printed ones to be had.

What goes inside... food, marbles, electronics, etc. - whatever you like!

Step 1: 3D Printz

Fire-up your printer... we're about to print some great balls with fire. Use white, black, blue, red, green, yellow, purple, or whatever colors suit your fancy.

The hemispheres will take a while to print and will require support material. Set one to print before you go to bed and again the next morning before you're off to work for the day. Remaining parts print fairly quickly.

This archive contains all the files you need.

Step 2: Assembly

Other than your plastic parts, you'll need a few bits of hardware. If you like shiny things, go for the stainless steel socket cap screws. Old school... you can always choose classic black. One of the following will do.

22X Stainless Socket Cap Screw

22X Steel Socket Cap Screw

And, you'll need a couple of these to secure the button.

4X M3 10mm Screws

Oh! ...and the spring from a clicky-click pen - sandwich that between the button and the mounting plate.

Step 3: Single-portion Takeout

Now to the hard part... what are you going to fill it with?

Comments

[Tsonga87]

Love it!

Any info for the printing itself? Infill %, Shells etc?

[onkelgeorg]

nice work. but unfortunately the links to the screws are dead. it would be nice if you would substitute the dead links with a proper description of the used screws.

anyway, I have already printed all parts and will start assembly soon.

thanks for sharing :)

[rwinscot]

Links restored!

[rwinscot]

Yep... it looks like the Amazon Supply links are dead. I'll update and add links to McMaster Carr as well.

Thanks for the heads up!

[Moerdith]

Awesome!!!

My only concern to point out is that 3d prints are not food safe. The voids between the layers are prone to bacterial growth. So I encourage coating the surfaces in a couple layers of a food safe resin or similar if they are to be used for food.

Again, great idea!

[rwinscot]

No doubt!

Taulman t-glase filament is "FDA approved for direct food contact / containers."

http://www.matterhackers.com/store/3d-printer-fila...

[pizzidave]

Nice work!! Goes well with this.......https://www.instructables.com/id/Ash-Ketchum-Pokemon-costume/

[rwinscot]

Great way to make the jacket!

[pizzidave]

Thanks!

[leash9418]

sweet! luv it!

wait...fill it with candy

[rwinscot]

Excellent idea! (sweet)

[nlmaca]

Like this. Im new to 3dprinting though. Can you tell me what kind of printer you used? Couldnt find in your instructions

[rwinscot]

Any printer with a 6x6x6 platform will work... I used a Lulzbot TAZ 4.

[Diparna]

looks like a pokeball

[joele2]

Yeah I too felt like tha

[rwinscot]

Coincidence... pure coincidence... wink-wink.

[craig3]

this is great, I love it, what a great idea!

I like the blue, a little bit more than the original red one as well.

[rwinscot]

You could do purple... and call it a "Master" Bento Ball.

[NathanSellers]

My son would totally geek out over this! Super cool.

[Atrocitus]

Awesome! thanks a lot for this instructable; now I can make pokeball everyday objects from these containers - like some cool speakers or something