Screw on Bottle Citrus Juicer (3D Printed)

by tammo66

6.6K22426

Intro: Screw on Bottle Citrus Juicer (3D Printed)

Being healthy begins with eating and drinking healthy

I personally love drinking orange juice but a lot of people think it is to much of an hassle to juice the oranges themselves. Therefore they just buy it in a supermarket. But often there are a lot of added sugars in these drinks. So not so healthy anymore! I wanted to make a citrus juicer that is easy to use so people will drink healthier more often.

The idea was born! Take a regular citrus juicer and modify it so it fits on a bottle and the juice automatically flows into the bottle. By doing this you can serve the drink very easy or take it anywhere you want!

After some design iterations I came up with this fully 3D printed design. You can use it straight of the printer and it's very easy to use:
- Screw the juicer on the bottle of your choice
- Cut the oranges in half
- Juice the oranges
- ENJOY your drink

In this instructable I will go over the print settings and other important things to take into account when printing this juicer (step 1). After this you will have all the information for printing the juicer.
For the ones who are interested in my design process: This is also covered in this instructable (step 2-4).

For as far as I know the size of the plastic bottle thread is pretty much standardized. None the less the juicer is test fitted on bottles from the following countries by me or other awesome users who made it themself:
- The Netherlands
- Germany
- Norway
- Czech Republic
- Belgium
- Sweden

By being a little creative you can also fit the juicer on bottles or jars that have an opening bigger than 50 mm (or 2 inch). For instance a Mason jar.

Final notes

Please let me know in the comments if you made this juicer and if it fitted on the bottles you use in your country! You can help expand the list above and help other makers by doing this!!!

This is my first instructable; please let me know how you liked it and how I can improve! Also if you have ideas on how to improve my design I would love to hear from you!

STEP 1: How to Print It (print Settings)

In this step I will go over some print settings and some other things relevant to printing this design.

Make sure the print is watertight: When printing this thing you do not need a 100% infill. This means it is partially hollow in the inside. When some juice manages to seep into the print, it will stay there. Over time it will become mouldy. Of course this is something you want to avoid when using it with foods/drinks. I used 3 shells, but it of course depends on your printer.

Remove any strings that are formed: Sometimes when the extruder doesn't retract enough plastic or not fast enough, some plastic fill flow out when not intended. This will form so called strings. These plastic strings need to be removed before you use the juicer. Otherwise you drink will contain plastic parts.

Don't use support material: This juicer is designed with 3D printing in mind. This means there are no overhangs greater than 45 degrees. In theory every printer should handle this design just fine. Of course you can still use support material but I highly recommend not to do so. Because the support material has to be removed and it is easy to forget or overlook some small parts. These parts will eventually make it in your drink.

Plastic food safe? Commercially sold kitchen hardware that will come in contact with food are thoroughly tested to be food safe. 3D printing plastics usually do not go through this process. It is often not clear if these plastics are food safe. I printed it in Pla and had no problems with it. But of course it is up to you to decide if you want to use your plastic.

Don't put it in the dishwasher: The 3D printed citrus juicer will not be dishwasher safe! The high temperatures used in the dishwasher will soften the plastic and it will not be able te retain its shape. Wash it thoroughly by hand in water that is not to hot.

My print setting (Velleman K8200 (using Slic3r)):
- no support, skirt or brim
- Infill 20% (rectilinear)
- Vertical shells/Perimeters: 3
- Horizontal shells/Solid layers: 4 (top and bottom)
- layer height: 0.18
- Material: PLA (Velleman 3D printing filament)
- Nozzle temperature: 190 C
- Bed temperature: 50 C

Don't have a 3D printer?!
No problem! There are some 3d printing websites where you can upload the .STL files and let them 3D print it. One of these websites is 3DHubs. Via this websites the design will be printed by a "hub" nearby you. You have direct contact with the creator and can pick it up locally. I highly recommend this website if you do not have a 3D printer yourself. Make sure to visit: www.3dhubs.com

STEP 2: First Design

I began designing the first juicer from scratch in a program called Solidworks. I used a traditional citrus juicer I found in my parents kitchen drawer as a reference.

While designing I kept in mind it had to be 3D printed. This meant that there were no big overhangs allowed. There is only a little bridging where the stand-offs are (between the main juicer and the bowl). These bridges were small enough to be printed without support material, So I had a go with it!

The design came out great. The threaded hole fitted great on the plastic bottle and the juice flowed nicely into the bottle. But after I juiced a couple of oranges i noticed that the pulp didnt flow through properly. This caused some blockage and the juice couldn't flow through anymore.
Besides this there was also a little bit of juice leaking through the threaded hole. Also the overall design was quite bulky. So I decided to redesign my citrus juicer.

STEP 3: Second Design

With the changes I wanted to make in mind, I went back to my designing software and came up with this new design. I scraped the traditional look and went with something quite different.

I tackled the problem of the pulp blocking the flow by not only making the holes wider but also taller. This mend that when some pulp would get stuck the juice could flow over it anyway. This also made the design less bulky and there was no more bridging at the holes, which is very useful when 3D printing. I also liked the overall look better.
I also modified the threaded hole by making a tab so the juice could not flow in between the threads.
As a final touch I made the bowl a touch slimmer to safe on plastic when printing

So I turned on the 3d printer again to print this new design.

STEP 4: Third and Final Design

I was very happy how the juicer turned out so far. The only thing I still wanted to modify was the tab I added in the previous model.

This tab improved the flow tremendously but it introduced a overhang in the design. Altough it was only a small overhang (4mm), I still wanted to change it so every printer could print my design. This was actually the easiest change I had to make in the whole design process. I only needed to change the overhang to a 45 degree overhang. No sooner said than done. I was ready to print the new design!

This design turned out great thanks to all the changes I made in the whole process. I learned a lot from the mistakes I made while designing this. One of them: 3D printing opens a whole new world, don't stick with the traditional designs. With that said I would like to end my instructable.

ENJOY YOUR DRINK!!!

26 Comments

mrsmerwin 1 year ago

does it strain out the seeds?

desarmador 4 years ago

PLA is not food safe, plus the nooks and holes caused by the 3D printing process makes for a good festering ground for bacteria and other nasties. However, there are foods that are naturally resistant to this, hopefully orange juice would fall into this category. I would be curious to know how long you used one of these juicers and if you noticed anything growing on the walls that couldn't be washed off. Right off the bat, the sugar in the juice might cause problems.

tammo66 4 years ago

Hello, Thanks for your comment. I have this juicer for 4 years now and have not noticed anything nasty growing inside. Although I am no expert on food safety and my findings do not neccesarily correspond to other people's findings.
Please use your own caution and findings to detimine if you want to use this design with a 3D-printer.

Paperclip72 7 years ago

Wow, this is a good idea! Nice job! (I made this but don't have any pictures ;) )

tammo66 7 years ago

Many thanks! Did the juicer fit on the bottles you use in your country?

ossum 7 years ago

Such a clever real-world use of a 3d printer!

JON-A-TRON 7 years ago

Well done! I would suggest using clear PLA to make this. It's totally food safe whereas any color PLA is dyed and therefore has chemicals you might not want in your body.

tammo66 7 years ago

Thanks for the comment! I didn't think about that! That is very usefull information that will also help others who want to print this!

Nate5b 8 years ago

Great idea, thanks for sharing!

headslant 8 years ago

Cool, Our school has a velleman k8200 as well. I am not sure if we really screwed up while building it, but did your printer only end up with a 20x16x20cm print area instead of the advertised 20x20x20cm?

tammo66 8 years ago

Hey! great to hear that schools are getting into 3D printing too! On my printer I get the advertised dimensions but I'm not sure which dimension you are referring to, but I attached a picture witch may clarify some.

If your width is not right, the problem may be that the extruder head is not at the right position. You may try to losen the screws and slide the extruder over the arm until it is on the right position.

If you depth is not richt, your bridge may not be on the right position. You may want to try to slide the bridge back and forth until in the right position.

Velleman also has a great forum community, so you maybe want to ask your question there if this didn't solve the problem

headslant 7 years ago

Oh, It is the depth. When it homes, the extruder is at the corner of the bed, yet if I use manual control, it shows that the depth only goes to 155 mm before the liner bearings hit the end of the carriage. Il ask on the forum, I didin't know they had one! Thanks

fxblf 8 years ago

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! LOVE this idea. I've got a suggestion. Is there a way to make a removable screen or plastic mesh that you could slide through one of the legs on top that would sit over the hole? That way, the seeds are removed before you drink it. I've never done 3D printing so I don't know if this is possible. Voted for you - hope you win the contest!

tammo66 8 years ago

Thanks for the awsome comment, and of course also for voting! I will definitely will look into your suggestion and experiment a bit. This may be a great way to keep the seeds out of the drink!

heinz240 8 years ago

I honestly think you should patent this and sell it, this could be a huge marketing product if you look at the whole healthy/superfood trend that's going on now!

tammo66 8 years ago

Thank you for this huge compliment!!!

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