Category: OpenSCAD
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Print your own LEGO Technic-compatible parts
Eleven years ago, I released LEGO.scad, an OpenSCAD library for generating 3D-printable LEGO-compatible bricks. Today, I present to you Technic.scad, an OpenSCAD library for generating 3D-printable LEGO Technic-compatible parts. Technic.scad can generate axles, pins, pin connectors, hubs, beams, bushings, elbows, gears, tires and wheels. All of the pieces are customizable, so you could generate nearly…
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Today’s Functional Print: Fitting round cups in a square drawer
I recently learned about Gridfinity, a modular open-source storage system created by Zack Freedman. It uses a baseplate grid of 42mm squares; you can 3D-print pre-existing bin designs, or you can design your own custom containers to fit into the grid. Our silverware drawer has been in flux since I remodeled our kitchen in 2023,…
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Today’s Functional Print: Baluster Retrofit Hardware
I’m in the process of remodeling the stairway in my house. I wanted to replace the old wooden balusters, some of which had broken and been repaired multiple times, with new metal balusters. Pictured above: the old balusters, minus the most-recently broken one that is missing. Ignore the green tape and in-progress trim. The old…
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All the LEGO ‘Round Here
Ben Zvan has very helpfully added support for round LEGO bricks to my LEGO modeling library, LEGO.scad. To circle your squares, specify type=’round’ in your call to block(). Thanks Ben!
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Generating Dovetails in OpenSCAD
I’ve written an OpenSCAD library for generating dovetail pins and tails. No longer will beautiful dovetail joints be solely in the domain of skilled woodworkers; now, anyone with a 3-D printer or CNC router can participate too. Include it in your OpenSCAD script like so: use <dovetails.scad>; dovetail_pins() will generate just the pins of a…
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Today’s CNC Carving: Doll Bunk Bed Insert
My wife and I decided that we were spending far too much money on factory-carved objects, so we bought our own CNC router — a 1000mm X-Carve from Inventables. I finished setting it up today, and the first carving on the agenda was a replacement insert for my daughter’s doll bunk bed: The bed broke…
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I Built a Tilt-Out Trash Can Cabinet
Just looking for the plans to make this? You can get the PDF plans for this double tilt-out garbage can cabinet on Etsy or download the SketchUp file for free. I’m going on a work trip later this month, and Christina asked me if I would be able to build something to hide the kitchen…
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Create LEGO-compatible Angle Plates with LEGO.scad
In response to a comment here, I wrote the first OpenSCAD module for generating complex brick shapes using my LEGO.scad project. LEGO.scad is great for creating bricks and wings of all shapes and sizes, but it isn’t suitable for making complicated shapes like angle plates. LEGO sells 90º angle plates (pictured); the new module can…
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Animating the Solar System with OpenSCAD
OpenSCAD is my language of choice for designing objects that will be 3D-printed, but I just recently learned that it also supports 3D animation. To familiarize myself with this feature, I decided to animate the movement of the planets in our solar system. Here’s a GIF excerpt of the animation generated by OpenSCAD; it covers…
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Today’s Functional Print: Board Game Piece Bases
In today’s “do you think this is some sort of game?” news, I’ve designed and printed some boardgame piece bases. These were printed specifically for my son’s “Thomas and Friends Tracks and Trestles” game, which was missing two of its bases, but the design is customizable to fit almost any size gamepiece. The OpenSCAD script…
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Today’s Functional Print: Stove Knob
In today’s “customizable knob” news, I’ve designed and printed a customizable knob. When we moved into our current house, the knob to control the stovetop fan was missing: After six months of procrastinating and one hour of OpenSCAD, it now looks like this: Now I don’t have to turn on the fan with a pliers!…
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Today’s Functional Prints: Train Track Repair Edition
In today’s “I choo choo choose to fix broken toys instead of buying replacements” news, I repaired two train track components: The track connector is a Thingiverse design by mrbenbritton, and the filling station support is just a run-of-the-mill dowel.
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Today’s Functional Print: Coat Rack Pegs
In today’s “I finally unpacked my 3D printer” news, I printed some pegs for a coat rack to replace the original pegs that we lost during a cross-country move. The base of each peg is flared to ensure a tight fit into the hole, but it also has a hole in the bottom to allow…
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LEGO Gender Equality
At the suggestion of Thingiverse user MrZaius, I’ve added support for female dual-sided bricks to my LEGO-compatible brick OpenSCAD library. The library already had support for male dual-sided bricks, so this is great progress towards eliminating the gender dual-sidedness gap. Female dual-sided bricks are twice as tall as their equivalent single-sided brick in order to…
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I Built a Table
Before we moved, we sold our kitchen table. We had bought it new a few years ago; it was expensive, but it got so thoroughly scratched and dinged up (and it couldn’t be refinished, since it was basically a plasticky veneer over fiberboard) that we didn’t want to bring it with us. So we sold…
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Print your own LEGO-compatible bricks
Given that I have a 3D printer and a five-year-old son, it was inevitable that I would eventually print some LEGO-compatible bricks.1 I knew that bricks were a popular “look what I can print” demo, but after I tried out a few of the popular printable LEGO-compatible models [1] [2], I found that none of…