Feeding cap products were launched in the hope of making new hind cultivation more convenient.

Unfortunately, it did not satisfy everyone.

Many of the comments on feeding caps are more

"It doesn't work", "The test tube broke", "The cracks are too big for ants", "It's not ventilated, it's foggy", "The feed leaks out easily", "The food bowl is too loose and too tight."

 

These are the facts and there is no way to defend them. The product does not reduce the difficulty of feeding, which is contrary to the original purpose of the Ant Trapper brand, and the feeding cap brings a very different experience to everyone; some of the ant farmers are even disappointed by this, I have let down everyone's expectation of this product and their trust in me.

 

The root of the problem is the material and structural design of the feeding cover.

20200711 img 8742 scaled

 


 

All feeding caps on the market are printed by FDM (Fused Deposition Molding), which has the advantage of being fast, simple, and extremely low cost, but the disadvantage of being very inaccurate and having strange edges and corners.

Using this method to produce ant feeding related products, the tolerance and defects of the finished products will be too large to be ignored. Large tolerance means the size of the finished products are not uniform, which is also the reason why the test tubes are broken, the food bowl is too loose and too tight, and there are gaps in the food bowl.

20200711 IMG 8753

 

Secondly, the design of the ventilation holes is not good. I did not consider the efficiency of air circulation, and it is obviously unrealistic to rely on only one or two small holes to complete the humidity diffusion through a 0.5cm long pipe; not to mention that defects in the production will block the ventilation holes.

Function 3 scaled

The design of the food bowl also needs to be improved, about 1~2 drops of feed will be filled up, which is not enough to feed the ants. The surface tension will make the feed slightly convex and higher than the food bowl, therefore, when pulling and inserting or shaking during the feeding time, there is a chance that the feed will contact the feeding lid channel or the wall, which in turn will lead to the overflow of the feed, and the accuracy of the FDM is poor, which can be directly seen in the bottom of the food bowl is not printed well, and the transmittance and so on are more often occurring.

Function 1 scaled

 


 

To solve these problems, we tried many, many ways; adjusting the printing parameters, fine-tuning the model, etc., but with little success, so we decided to cut it out and start over.

We spent at least 850 hours on the original design with more than 50 iterations, tweaking and optimizing it, and finally improved all the previous flaws.

 

1, replaced by a new production method, changed to SLA light curing molding, which is highly accurate, small tolerances of the production method, the finished product can be said to be perfect, after the actual test, the error is only 0.02%, the future, no longer difficult to install, broken test tubes, gaps are too large and other problems.

 

2, replaced with a new raw material, changed to photosensitive resin, and commissioned a manufacturer to produce a special formula, the finished product is non-toxic and hard, in the future, the feeding cover will be able to be reused many times; the food bowl will be easier to clean and clean.

 

3. Redesigned the structure of the feeding lid, greatly increased the ventilation area, and adjusted the capacity and shape of the food bowl. In the future, the test tube will no longer be stuffy, there will be no more gaps for ants to burrow out, the capacity of the food bowl will be greatly increased, and the chance of feed overflow will be reduced.

 

These changes have increased the production time for each feeding cap set to 17 hours, increased the cost of materials to 5 times, and brought the production process to 11 steps, but if it helps you; to nurture your new queen more easily and more readily, then it's all worth it.

 


 

If you've ever been dissatisfied with the feeding caps, then this new version is sure to change your mind.

If you like the design of the feeding lid, then this new version will bring you a significant enhancement of all the features.

 

As long as you have purchased the feeding caps before, Ant Catcher will provide you with a set of 18mm & 15mm feeding caps for free, and will bear all the shipping cost. If you like the caps after re-experiencing them, you can buy them at a very favorable price if you need to buy them again in the future.

Registration form:

https://lihi1.com/rCQFN

 

 

Thank you for reading this.

Catchers will continue to grow and improve.

"Progress Should Not Be Kept Waiting"

 

How do you feel about this article?

Click to rate

average score 5 / 5. Statistical Results 5

No ratings yet—be the first to rate!

Thank you for liking this post!

Why don't you share it with a friend so he can see it too?

I'm sorry you didn't like the article.

Let's improve him together!

Where do you think it could have been written better?

發佈留言