Whether it’s under my desk or in a storage box, a tangled mass of wall-wart cables always get my blood boiling. So in the interest of deferring my stress-related demise, today I came up with a solution.
Project: 3D Printing
I don’t think of myself as a 3D Print Designer - I’m just a guy who owns a good 3D printer and likes to use it to solve problems. Every month I find a problem or two for which 3DP is the right tool in my kit, so I’m not going to create a new project here on CH for each and every one. That would be insane. Instead, I’m creating this catch-all project and I’ll report them all here.
Printer
I originally started printing on a MakerBot Replicator 2 back in 2017, which was the printer available in the maker lab I used, but I’ve owned a Prusa MK3S+ of my own since January of 2021, and that’s now the only printer I use.
Software
As a longtime user of Blender for animations, live action special effects, book cover design, etc., it was my obvious choice when I started 3D printing too. And while I still use it for visualization, and sometimes for modifying STL files that I get from somebody else, I have since moved on.
My design tool of choice is now OpenSCAD - an open source, constructive solid modeling tool that is both free and available on all OS platforms. Instead of having to learn a bunch of fiddly interactive tools, I much prefer OpenSCAD’s simple, logical programming-style interface.
For slicing, I stick with PrusaSlicer. It’s excellent, I’m familiar with it, and it works well with my Prusa printer.
And lastly, my sharing platform. I was on Thingiverse until it took a crap-dive, but I quickly pivoted to Printables (also by Prusa :-) and I haven’t looked back since.
Related Documents
Project Log Entries
FlipStand - An Adjustable and Retractable Bike Rack
I needed a way to organize bikes in a garage or shed when they weren’t being ridden. This is not for winter storage, so I wanted the bikes to remain accessible - just tidier. I also wanted my solution to be adjustable for wheels of different widths, and easy to flip out of the way when they’re not being used.
What I ended up with was simple, cheap (less than $4 per bike!) and extremely easy to build. I didn’t end up using any 3D printed parts, but this feels 3D-adjacent, so I’m including it here anyway.
Tolerant Gate Latch
The side gate into our yard has always been tricky. Due to geometry constraints, the only place to mount the latch pin was on a slightly wobbly post, and that wobble makes it hard for the latch to get a positive grab. So any time somebody goes through that gate, there’s a significant chance it won’t close properly behind them. And since it’s almost exclusively service people using that gate (meter reader, Amazon deliveries, etc.) it can take us a while to notice when it gets left open.
This week, however, it was the dog who noticed. So after spending a stress-filled half hour tracking her down on our busy street, I decided it was time to address the problem.