I was having trouble with my chicken waterers. The buckets all eventually crack where the threads of the watering nipple pull against the thin wall of the bucket. I designed this contoured plate that goes on the inside of the bucket so that the nipple threads engage the plate rather than the bucket.
Instead of the recommended 11/32 (9mm) holes, I drilled the bucket with slightly larger 7/16 (11mm) holes so that the nipple threads won’t engage the bucket, just the plate. The plate evenly compresses against the bucket wall and the exterior gasket.
I designed this using both Sketchup and OpenScad. I like Sketchup because it is a graphical user interface. However, the default circle tool is not high enough resolution to accurately represent the curve of a five gallon bucket, so I started by creating a high definition cylinder in Openscad, and exporting it as an STL. From there, I imported the file into Sketchup and modified it to create just a small plate with the hi def curve. The design is published on Thingiverse as thing 4262960.
NOTE: This needs to be used with a new bucket. It does not repair cracks, but it will prevent the new bucket from cracking.
#Abstract2Actual : 55 minutes
Instead of the recommended 11/32 (9mm) holes, I drilled the bucket with slightly larger 7/16 (11mm) holes so that the nipple threads won’t engage the bucket, just the plate. The plate evenly compresses against the bucket wall and the exterior gasket.
I designed this using both Sketchup and OpenScad. I like Sketchup because it is a graphical user interface. However, the default circle tool is not high enough resolution to accurately represent the curve of a five gallon bucket, so I started by creating a high definition cylinder in Openscad, and exporting it as an STL. From there, I imported the file into Sketchup and modified it to create just a small plate with the hi def curve. The design is published on Thingiverse as thing 4262960.
NOTE: This needs to be used with a new bucket. It does not repair cracks, but it will prevent the new bucket from cracking.
#Abstract2Actual : 55 minutes
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