All of the commercially available weekly pill organizers I found online are pretty bulky. The 3D printable ones I found didn't quite meet my needs, either. I was worried about the box staying securely closed and being able to get the pills out of the compartments easily. So I design my own that's functional and looks sleek.
The box measures 16 x 120 x 60 mm (68.5 mm, including the hinges/latch) (0.63 x 4.73 x 2.36/2.70 inches). Each of the 14 compartments measures (W x H x D) 14.8 x 12.5 x 25.7 mm (0.58 x 0.49 x 1.0 inches).
This has some nice features worth highlighting:
- Print-in-place hinge design
- 2 compartments per day, labeled with the day of the week
- Fillets in the front of each compartment make it easy to get your pills out
- Secure latching mechanism
- Tight tolerances mean that you can flip and shake the box, and your pills will stay in their compartments
- Two versions: a simple single-color version, and a dual-color version with a geometric pill design in the top
This is also available on Prusa Printers.
Files
There are two versions of the box. For each version, I have included the STL, Prusa Slicer 3mf, and STEP files.
- Single-color version, with an indicator on the lid (so you know which side goes up) (
pillbox-single-color
) - Dual-color version, with a repeated geometric pill design in the lid. You don't need a multi-material printer to print this! See below for instructions, or use the included .3mf file. (
pillbox-dual-color-box
and pillbox-dual-color-inset
)
Multi-color Printing with Prusa Slicer
This technique is taken from Malolo's screw-less / snap fit customizable Raspberry Pi 4 Case & Stands. In Prusa Slicer, do the following:
- Under Printer Settings > General > Capabilities, set the number of extruders to 2, and check the box for Single Extruder Multi Material
- For each extruder on the left side of the Printer Settings, change the color so you can tell them apart. In Printer Settings > Custom G-code > Tool change G-code, add
M600
. That’s the code for manual filament change. - In Print Settings > Multiple Extruders > Wipe tower, uncheck the enable box. (You don’t need a purge block if you’re changing the filament manually.)
- Under Print Settings > Skirt and Brim, set the skirt height to at least 2.
- Import both STLs at the same time. Because you have multiple extruders selected, you should get a prompt asking if you want to treat it as one multi-material object. Select yes.
- In the plater, check the right side bar and verify that each part is set to use a different extruder. Hit “Slice Now” and you should see the multi-color g-code preview for printing.
- You can tell which color will print first by looking at the color of the first layer skirt. If it’s not doing it in the order you want, just swap which STL is printed with extruder 1 and 2. I suggest printing the inset part (the pill design) first; it will stand out better in the final part.