What to measure
Metric pressure pipe labelled 50 mm is 50 mm outside. Sink and bath waste pipe sold as 50 mm is a nominal size and usually measures about 54 to 56 mm, and inch-based pipe near this size is 48.3 mm or 60.3 mm. Flexible dust hose is the hardest to read: measure over the ridges of the spiral, not in the grooves, and measure the rigid cuff separately if that is the part the clip will hold. A caliper with 150 mm jaws reaches; otherwise wrap a paper strip around the pipe, mark the overlap and divide the length by 3.14.
Clearance, wall and material
Long arms need room to move, so this page uses 0.5 mm of clearance for a bore of 50.5 mm, a 3.6 mm wall and a 115 degree opening. The gap between the tips is about 42.6 mm. A narrower opening on a clip this large takes so much force to snap on that the screws work loose before the arms give. If the clip is a cradle that a hose drops into from above, open it to 150 degrees and it stops being a snap fit at all. PETG is the sensible material; PLA arms of this length creep open over a few months under constant load.
Printing
Place the clip on a C-shaped face. The footprint is about 106 by 45 mm, which fits any common bed, and the height is 28 mm. No supports are needed. Use five perimeters at a 0.4 mm line width so the 3.6 mm wall is solid, and a brim of a few lines if your bed adhesion is marginal: the two tab ends are the corners that lift first on a part this long.
Fixing it
Each tab is 24 mm long and 5 mm thick with a 5 mm hole. A filled 50 mm pipe is heavy: one metre holds more than a litre and a half of water. Use the clip to locate the pipe and let brackets made for the job carry the load.
Outline drawing
Schematic, not to scale. The clip is 28 mm wide along the pipe and about 44.8 mm high.
Parameters the generator will use
| Setting | Link parameter | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Model | model | pipe_clip |
| Pipe diameter | diameter | 50 |
| Fit clearance | fit_clearance | 0.5 |
| Clip wall thickness | wall | 3.6 |
| Clip width along the pipe | width | 28 |
| Opening angle, degrees | opening | 115 |
| Screw tab length | tab_length | 24 |
| Screw tab thickness | tab_thickness | 5 |
| Screw hole diameter | screw_diameter | 5 |
| Number of screw tabs | tabs | 2 |
All lengths are in millimetres. Outer size from these values: about 105.7 x 28 x 44.75 mm.
Open the generator with these values
This model needs the $7 licence key: one payment, one key, and it opens all five paid models. Get a licence key on Gumroad ($7)
The pipe and cable clip needs a licence key: without one the generator shows the model locked, lists the values from this link and fills them in as soon as you unlock. The fitted drawer organiser bin is the free model and downloads with no key.