After I did part 2 of this type of post (here is part 1 if you're interested), I started to realize just how much stuff I have actually printed in the last 4-5 years. It really does attest to the quality and usability of DIY 3D printing when you don't notice you are using 3D printed parts in your daily routine.
Here's some more - though still not all - stuff from around the house. A few are from thingiverse, but most of these are custom built with OpenSCAD. Feel free to ask if you want a certain model for something, and I'll be happy to share the probably terrible rough and ugly code with you.
I've just linked my blog to g+, hope it works out as it should.
Edit 05.05.2015: Fixed some spelling errors and added a little more information here and there.
Enjoy! :)
First out is my vesa-mounted raspberry pi (named Anton) which I intended to use with XBMC. I felt it was too slow, and just installed KODI on the desktop computer instead. The raspberry will be used for OctoPI instead.
The cool thing with custom casing is you only make holes for the connectors you need. I also built it so the SD card is located inside the casing to avoid it breaking of.
Next up is mounting clips for some mood lights inside a bookshelf.
I was worried the heat from the light strip would melt the PLA, but it holds up after more than a year of prolonged use.
More clips, this time for some extra support for a LED strip in the kitchen. There is tape on the back, so one nail is sufficient.
The LED strip above is driven by a small PSU, which I have mounted using some 3D printed brackets. The PLA holds up to the heat very good.
What do you do when the handle of your wife's new seam ripper is too short? You print an extender, naturally.
A custom built bed needs custom built lamps. The lamps are from IKEA, and come with a huge clip to attach it to a desk. I removed said clip, made a housing with a trapped M8 nut inside, and soldered on a new switch.
Another shot of the housing. As a extra feature it hides the screw I used to secure the headboard to the wall.
One of the mobile phone stand I have, which works pretty good. There are a lot of these around so I didn't take the time to design my own. This one is from thingiverse.
The shower soap cup from 2012 eventually broke, so I printed a stronger replacement. Also notice the hooks to the right.
And there are also matching towel hooks. PLA is surprisingly strong, and I have yet to break one of these off.
This neat nose glasses support is really tidying up the desk, and it help to recover misplaced glasses.
Another glasses holder. This one fits this type of eyewear frame very well.
Another bracket which takes a lot of daily abuse without any problems. I added a small piece of foam to the end of the rod so it is supported quite well between the walls.
You don't want your baking yeast all over the refrigerator? A 3D printed box is the solution for you! In this case I went for not only practical but also a little aesthetic. The weaved pattern was a fun OpenSCAD programming exercise!
A bit tough to photograph this one. We added some nice knobs to a dresser, but said knobs had some pretty nasty bolt heads which could rip clothing in said dresser. Tape? Nah, 3D printed cap of course. I heated it slightly with a lighter and pressed it on. Not one of them has fallen of yet.
Here's a painted knob on the same dresser as above, with a 3D printed butterfly silhouette. The filament is the great looking Galaxy Blue from Faberdashery.
Curtain rod holder? Sure!
Another one? Definitively, but lets sneak in a RepRap logo this time around.
Home sewn curtains needing a curtain band holder wall screw thingy? No problem!
IKEA RUSCH clock remastered with new numbers. The paint came off when reinserting the face plate, and the inner workings are not very beautiful. First time I glued the numbers on I hang the clock before the glue was totally dry, that resulted in a serious persistence of memory drooping. I consider this clock a failure, but hey, it works.
3D printing + textile ink = awesome. It did take a number of tries to make this work though. The first layer / glass side have to be a little overly squished to make clean edges appear, and the paint is best applied slowly with a brush. But the result is looking very professional!
This clip holds together the neck of a hair dressers apron my wife sewed.
Wall mounted shoes? No problem! Also notice the bootstyled clothes-peg at the bottom right corner. (I didn't remember I printed that until I saw this picture).
Tree rings holder in use for about three years now. The grey flower and the black owl is a few examples of all the jewellery I've printed.
Soggy water at the end of your tooth brush? No thank you!
Portal Waste Disposal Unit Accessory A have been working tireless for 2 years, but the arm of the man have finally broken. This is one of my favourite pieces.
So there you go! I, for one, is looking forward to what I'm going to print in the next year.
I've had access to a printer for several years now, and as I stated in the previous post about this, I've ended up using printer mostly for (or perhaps for mostly?) useful stuff around the house these days.
So here are - in no particular order - a few of the things you can make, if you have access to a 3D printer.
A clip to suspend a ceiling lamp.
Picture frame for Berry (from Clody with a chance of meatballs 2).
Cookie/cake cutters.
Custom made cup lid. (The green one).
Hook for trash can from IKEA.
I reused a model and printed more of these custom brackets I made years ago.
The magnetic knife holder had lost the end brackets, which we fixed.
I built a custom case for my computer to make it fit in an old desk. Of course I 3D printed a lot of parts for it, like the fan grille at the front. (Sorry about the dust, I really ought to clean it soon).
There is also a bracket to hold the DVD-RW in place, as well as legs to mount the hard drives. All custom made.
The old desk had a pretty smart way to lock all the drawers, but it was not very practical to have to unlock the drawers all the time. Thus I printed a wedge to keep the locks open.
And here's a new batch of filament from filament.no I'm going to try out.
Hope this inspired you to acquire and use a 3D printer on your own.
Feel free to ask questions, and have a nice day. :)
We often talk - and to be honest, brag ;-) - about how practical RepRap is, and all the things we could or plan to do. Still, most of the time we share things that look cool, but might have no practical application apart from being neat. Having a RepRap 3D printer in your home opens up an incredible world of DIY-solutions that have previously been difficult, impossible or expensive. Once you manage to "tune" your mind, and see the possibilities you have, there is no limit to what you can do.
Once my 2-year initial "look at all the cool stuff I can print"-phase slowed down, I find myself - apart from new printer parts - mostly using my RepRap for things around the house. I would therefore now like to share some images of objects I have designed and printed for a special practical application in mind.
This is one of the very first things I printed on my Sells Mendel back in 2010.
As some people are having problems with this, I present a small tutorial, as I believe I have found both an explanation and a solution. Inkscape is a wonderful program, and teamed up with OpenSCAD it makes a lot of cool stuff possible.
It works with Inkscape 0.47 and 0.48 without no extra plugins.
Update 2012.06.01 : Changed code on step 9 to use the preferred child import(). Update 2012.09.16 : Added information about "add nodes" on step 6. Update 2012.10.09 : Added information about "flatten beziers" on step 6. Thanks to zeptomoon for the suggestion!
If you don't want to read my ramblings, the trick is easy: Make all the curved segments lines before you export to dxf.
Now, commence indepth tutorial:
1 First off, let's make a simple object, like this ellipse.
Note the square and round handles on the object, which indicates this is an .svg style object which you can modify according to the specific rules of said object.
2 This is of course no good, as OpenSCAD / dxf can't read this format. What we need to do is convert it to a path. [Shift+Ctrl+C]
3 Select the node tool [N], and notice how the handles on the object now look like gray squares. This indicates we now have a path.
4 Drag-select, or press [Ctrl+A] to select every node. With the nodes selected, notice how the handles changed again. The lines with spheres at the end tells us the segments between the nodes are curved. (Try fiddling with the points if you like).
This, again, is no good for the standard .dxf plugin in Inkscape, which only exports straight lines. (See point 8).
5 With every node selected, press the indicated button to "Make selected segment lines".
The lines with spheres on the handles are gone, so we now have only straight lines between the nodes. This would work, but doesn't look very smooth, does it? Undo your last action and continue to next point in the tutorial, where you learn to do it the right way. (Sorry about that).
6 With every node selected, initialize some mouseclicking action on the indicated button "Insert new nodes into selected segments".
This, well, inserts new nodes into selected segments, following the curve.
Press a few times if you want a smoother object, but don't overdo it now, you hear?
You could also use "Extensions - Modify Path - Add Nodes" for dense, even distribution of nodes all over complex parts.
Even better is to use "Extensions - Modify Path - Flatten Beziers", which will only add nodes at curved areas, resulting in less useless nodes. A value of 0.3 is a good value to start with. Thanks to zeptomoon for the suggestion!
7 Feel free to once more click "Make selected segment lines".
This looks much better. The lines are straight, but due to the sheer numbers, they simulate a curve! Victory!
You can of course select only part of the nodes, if you only want part of the model smooth.
8 Now save the file as "test.dxf". You will need to select "Desktop Cutting Plotter (R13)" in the type drop down box.
Notice the help tells us we can only export certain elements. What we have done now is create only lowpolylines, which exports beautifully.
9 Start up OpenSCAD and use the following code to open up the file. (You need to put the .scad and .dxf file in the same directory).
linear_extrude(height = 10) import("test.dxf");
There you go! Enjoy your Inkscape paths in OpenSCAD.
10 This works fine with any objects, advanced or not. Just remember to union the different paths.
Also note the part "Rap" is not just white text, it's a proper hole made with difference.
You can of course export several .dxf files and combine them in OpenSCAD if you need different height on some parts.
It can sometimes be difficult work with the .dxf file in OpenSCAD, as Inkscape exports the entire page, and it can be a bit tricky to locate where the object are. I recommend you select everything, go to Document Properties [Shift+Ctrl+D] and "Fit page to selection". Edit: See below. The problem is a bit difficult to explain, but you'll understand it once you have experienced it.
Take care not to overwrite your original .svg file if you want to be able to edit things later. It's much easier to work with objects than paths.
Edit 16.09.2011: I have found it easier to align the objects to point 0x0 (the bottom left corner of the page in Inkscape) and not center the object in OpenSCAD. Then you can easily stack several .dxf files in different heights.
Now go forth and make something awesome! Remember to share your .svg files on thingiverse, to go with the .scad files!
I hope this helped, and clarified some things. If you have further questions or suggestions, feel free to comment.
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