I found an interesting vase mode desk organizing system using dovetail joints. Of course, I had to modify it, make it parametric and give it more options. I find it interesting how well it prints in vase mode. All the joints & internal walls give it more support even with the single layer all around.
https://www.printables.com/model/626365-parametric-remix-of-ultimate-vase-mode-desk-organi
I added a vase mode 1x1 for the ALCH organizers. They print way faster and are sturdy enough for a lot of stuff (not bulk nails, but just about anything else). I wanted to make larger ones, but the feet aren’t conducive to vase mode. My other thought was to print the feet separately and glue them onto a vase mode. I hate putting 1kg of plastic into a drawer just to keep the stuff separate.
Have you seen Gridfinity? There are a billion different options now
Those are really nice. I have some. They use a lot more plastic. I think it is mostly because the base is thick and the containers are smaller.
Easy to do in vase mode though with a turned lip to use as a handle if you like. (There’s a small trick to crossing one module which I learned from Tom Stanton’s aeroplane wing structure if you are interested.)
Thanks for the Top Lip idea. That looked a very good option to add, so I put that option in there. I went thru 3 different iterations of the openscad hull() command. I first used a half sphere at the top, then a rotate extrude of a triangle to get rid of overhang on the slicing, then finally simplified it further using a cone. I also tapered the male dovetails to give them a better transition at the top. BTW the hull() command used to be very slow until they added the manifold option awhile back. I have been using that option since July & it really makes rendering times almost nothing. I’ll upload the new version once I test it some more.
Is that a “shell” command? To hollow a solid?
When you are designing stuff for vase mode, it’s much easier just to keep the object as a solid - the slicer will do the rest of the job!
If I get time today I’ll see if I can figure out how I built the base with dimples to suit gridfinity - I didn’t keep the drawing it was just a proof of concept - I was very much (and still am) enamoured with Tom Stanton’s method of creating endless outer walls -
Oh, and one more little trick that someone downloading one of my designs shared - he was printing with a .4mm nozzle and set the thickness to 0.8!
He said that was pushing it but you can get much thicker walls than the nozzle with an arachne based slicer. I got good results with a 1mm wall thickness with a .6 nozzle when mucking around, but didn’t push it further.
See if I can explain the the hull() command. It meshes two shapes together. You extrude two or more shapes separately & it meshes them together. Here is the manual’s description of it.
OpenSCAD User Manual/Transformations - Wikibooks, open books for an open world
I did use a wider width of .28 on my prints. I probably get more noise putting those dove joints together. I am not sure my normal E3D 0.4 nozzle could handle the flow of 0.8 at the 80mm/Sec. How fast was he printing at 0.8mm?
The openscad code below will create a rounded cube with a radius of 3 on the corners. The 1st inner hull() creates one side of the box, the 2nd inner hull() creates the other side of the box & the outer hull() creates the box from those two sides. The $fn=28 is the number of facets in the cylinder.
hull() //Outer hull
{
hull() //1st Inner hull
{
translate([3,3,0])
cylinder(d=6,h=12,$fn=28);
translate([51,3,0])
cylinder(d=6,h=12,$fn=28);
}
hull() //2nd inner hull
{
translate([3,51,0])
cylinder(d=6,h=12,$fn=28);
translate([51,51,0])
cylinder(d=6,h=12,$fn=28);
}
}
Thanks for that - my head sadly does not relate to OpenSCAD - and I would love it to!
Not very I would think - it was a good looking print in the photo - a funnel.
I added an organizer for SD cards & one for a combination SD & Micro SD cards. You can turn them upside down & they shouldn’t fall out.
Ha. That’s awesome
Please tell me you have a lil forklift to move those pallets around. Don’t want you to break your back
I made one of these a long time ago and published some wheels. I had all the parts for it in my bin and it worked great. We used it for a little friendly competition we have every fall with my wife’s family.
https://www.printables.com/model/17814-wheels-for-mini-track-loader-rc
Bossman: why did it take you a hour to markup this document?
Me: idk tell my forklift guy to hurry up the deliveries, he always takes his time bringing me my pens
A 5S work area would never be allowed that much stuff.
I really like this variation & it came out quite solid. This one is 27mm high which took about 1.5 hours at .24mm height. I’m going to try a 70mm high one next which will take over 2.5 hours at .28mm height.
For these internal hexagon shaped areas, I originally hard coded the line breaks in an AutoCAD clone with polylines & converted them to linear_extrude commands. I have a couple of programs to automate that, but it was a bit of hassle drawing all those polylines & I would have had to redraw them to adjust any of the dimensions. I rewrote the openscad code to do all the calculations for the breaks for internal hex shapes so I could vary the size of the breaks & hex sizes a little bit. I was cutting these at a little different places than the 1st method & ran into a problem of them not slicing correctly. It is difficult to follow the continuous path of the spiral by just looking at it. I would make some changes & import the STL file into PrusaSlicer & see how it looked. I got almost there this way by visually seeing where it was missing. I then came up with the idea to take a screen capture of the top view with the breaks cut all the way thru. I opened this image file in photoshop & painted over the outer openings in same color as main body so I could flood fill each area with a different color. I knew the area of where it was failing, so I filled those areas with red. Voila, I could then see that it was going in & coming out at a different place. I just had to add a few more lines of code to break those 2 areas in two. Here are a couple images to give a better idea of what I am talking about as this explanation is probably not clear until you see the pictures. You can see where the black infill goes out the same way it came in, but the red does not.
