BananArmor: Modular Banana Protector

If you have tried to transport bananas in a bag or backpack subject to rough handling or stuffed with a few too many things, you have probably encountered the annoying phenomenon of bruised or squished bananas. Instead of your tasty healthy snack, you find a brown deformed thing with an unsavoury gooey inside when peeled. Commercial solutions are available, often bulky boxes or tubes that only work with the most typical banana shapes. If you have a banana that is larger than usual, or disobeys the universally assumed truth that every banana is curved, it might not fit. Or otherwise, if you have a banana much smaller than the container, it risks rattling around and becoming bruised after all.

Hence this new approach to banana protection: BananArmor, a modular system of tube segments of various shapes, that can be mixed and matched to each particular banana shape.

Printing

When printed as-is, the segments have an inner diameter of 43 mm. This may be too small for larger bananas, hence I advise to print all the parts at 105% scale (45 mm). For really fat bananas, you can even scale to 110% (47 mm), but so far I haven't encountered a banana that did not fit in the 105% scale tubes. Every slicing program should have an option to print the parts at a custom scale. Just make sure you use the same scale for everything.

The ‘r’ in the file names refers to the radius of the curved part of each segment. The effective radius of the segment is slightly larger due to the straight push-fit section. I suggest to start by printing the following set of parts, which should allow to assemble protective shells for most common bananas. You can print additional parts when you encounter a banana that does not fit in this starter set.
1. 1× tip
2. 1× stem
3. 2× r60
4. 2× r80
5. 1× r120
6. 1× straight

Since only the banana peel comes into direct contact with the shells, food safety of the filament is not critical. I wouldn't use a filament that could release fumes though, therefore ABS might not be the best choice. PETG is great because it is both safe and impact resistant, but PLA will do fine too.

Using

Using your arsenal of printed segments, the goal is to assemble a tube that best matches the shape of the banana you want to transport. Whatever method you use, it is best to start with the tip and then add the best matching segments. You can either assemble the ‘box’ separate from the banana by just eyeballing it, or slide each part onto the banana. I find the first method easiest.

To release the banana from the tube, open it at the most practical point, usually the ‘stem’ part.

Credits

This was loosely inspired by Banana Jar (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1598663) by handya. Also thanks to RowanVRLab (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:321304), dricketts (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2667512), and Bennom (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4039757) for their 3D scans which I have used to verify that this could work before actually printing it.

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