Here in the UK, it is the time of year when the flocks of seagulls appear, indicating that swarms of ants are making their nuptial flight; an event otherwise known as 'flying ant day'.

Those wishing to establish a colony of ants as pets, may choose to keep a newly caught queen ant in a 'test tube setup' for a few weeks or months until her first set of workers arrive, before transferring them to a formicarium (or 'ant farm').

This fully customisable design allows you to store one or more test tube setups in ideal conditions; horizontal and dark.

This design can be customised to store other cylindrical objects too, such as pens.

This design is completely free and shared under a permissive license. Your support is hugely appreciated.

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OpenSCAD Customizer Options

We recommend you use OpenSCAD to customize this design.

This design has the following Customizer options:

General

• Part - Part to display
• Material_Thickness - The thickness of the material

Base

• Test_Tube_Diameter - Diameter of the test tube holder
• Test_Tube_Length - Length of the test tube holder
• Test_Tubes - Number of test tubes
• Test_Tube_Gap - Gap at either end of the test tube(s)
• Rests - Number of rests

Lid

• Lid_Gap - Gap around all sides of the lid
• Lid_Height_Percent - Height of the lid as a percentage

Preview

• Show_Test_Tubes - Show test tubes in base (preview only)
• Lift_Lid_Percent - Amount to lift the lid (preview only)

Design Considerations

Given the primary intended use of this design, the purose of the lid is just to block out light. Hence, it is loose fitting by default. If you require a tighter fitting lid, you should decrease the Lid_Gap value.

Material

This design is perfect for printing in many filaments, including PLA, PETG and ABS.

Versions

• 1.0 (15 Jul 2022) - Initial version

Printing

Recommended slicer settings:

• Resolution: 0.1mm - 0.2mm
• Infill: ~20%
• Supports: Doesn't Matter
• Rafts: Doesn't Matter

License

The "Horizontal Test Tube Holder Box" models (.stl) are licensed under the CC BY license by Code and Make.

The "Horizontal Test Tube Holder Box" code (.scad) is licensed under The MIT License by Code and Make.

Note: 'BSD' license has been selected as it is the closest available option in the list.

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