Xmas Brain Decoration

Let me start this off by agreeing with you – yes, this is a weird idea!

But when you work at the Herston Biofabrication Institute and spend most of your days working on neurosurgery and other medical projects, it hopefully makes a bit more sense why anyone would 3D print a “Merry Xmas” brain to decorate our office Christmas tree.

The design of this was quite simple and was based on some tutorials I’ve previously written about mashups and remixes – basically, taking 2 (or more) different files and joining them together in a new and creative way. The brain itself was downloaded here, and then the letters were quickly modelled in Solidworks and exported as individual STL files. All of this was then combined in Meshmixer, which is my go-to software for this type of mashup project (and it’s free for anyone looking to do the same).

This was 3D printed on my Craftbot Flow IDEX XL 3D printer in PLA, with a small hole drilled on the top afterwards to thread a piece of string through. And of course, I’m giving this design away for free to anyone crazy enough to also want a 3D printed Xmas brain decoration! Just click the links below to your preferred 3D print file website and enjoy:

Thingiverse, Cults, MyMiniFactory, Prusa, Pinshape.

Merry Christmas and happy 3D printing 🙂

– Posted by James Novak

3D Printed Outdoor Lights in PETG

It’s official – my entire house now uses 3D printed light covers!

If you follow this blog you may have seen some of my previous indoor light covers, featuring a 3D scanned sea urchin shell and a pineapple. Of course, I couldn’t stop with indoor lights, especially since the outdoor wall-mounted lights on my house looked like the cheapest fittings available. They were desperately in need of an upgrade.

Luckily the fitting includes a piece that is easily unscrewed to accommodate standard DIY light covers. A few simple measurements, including the diameter of the fitting and distance of the protruding light bulb, meant that I had everything needed to create my own design in CAD. For this one I decided to use Fusion 360, just to keep my skills up as I’ve done a few projects in Solidworks recently. The only other limitation was the size of the Prusa MK3S+ build volume (250 x 210 x 210mm), as I wanted the light cover to be 3D printable in a single piece.

Putting all of this information in Fusion 360 gave me a starting point, and of course I began experimenting with a few simple ideas. The one that stuck was this collection of lofts that twist in different directions. Not overly complex, just a clean design that is easy to clean (a complex lattice would just invite spiders!) and protects the lightbulb from sun/rain. Because these are mounted quite high on the walls, what I really wanted was a cool effect when you are looking directly up at the light from below – see the top right image.

Something else I experimented with for the first time with this design was 3D printing using PETG filament – specifically, PETG from eSun. Why? Mainly because PETG has good UV stability so should last while out in the elements and sunshine. But what I’ve really enjoyed is how easy it is to print with – no warping, good adhesion to the build platform and no smelly fumes while printing. Happy days! I actually used the default PETG settings in PrusaSlicer and they seem to be dialled in nicely (no surprises really, thanks Prusa). The material also has a translucency, so the light shade has a bit of a glow when the light is on as you can see in the photos. If you’re looking for more details about the material properties and slicing settings for PETG, this article is a good starting point.

And of course, I’m giving this design away for FREE! Download from your favourite 3D file marketplace: Thingiverse, Pinshape, Cults, MyMiniFactory or PrusaPrinters.

Happy 3D printing.

– Posted by James Novak

3D Printed Pineapple Light

3D printing light covers and lamps are always fun projects, you can’t really go wrong.

Continuing from a previous post where I outlined the process of designing sea urchin light covers for my house, I’ve still been wanting to design another light cover to mix things up so each room isn’t the same. Enter the pineapple light! 🍍

Unlike the previous process of designing the sea urchin light from scratch using a 3D scan, this time I was able to find something on Thingiverse that was almost perfect – this model of a pineapple. The bottom part had a really nice geometric pattern that saved me hours of mucking around in CAD and designing the same thing from scratch. This is one of the things I love about the 3D printing community – the open sharing of 3D models to be remixed (also known as a mashup) just like a song or video into something new and creative. You can read more about remixing in one of my previous tutorials.

Similar to the sea urchin light, all the pineapple needed was to be scaled to the right size, hollowed, given a thickness, and have a neck piece added to connect with the light fitting. This neck piece was directly imported from my previous project in Meshmixer (free CAD software), and both pieces were joined together. Nice and easy!

Just like the sea urchin light, these pineapples were 3D printed on a Prusa i3 MK3S in a natural PLA from eSun – it’s a translucent material which I found from previous experiments to work really well for light covers when given a very light dusting of white spray paint. The painted exterior still allows the light to shine through nicely, but just helps define the form better than the natural finish on its own. If you want to see exactly how this compares to the natural filament on its own, or a pure white PLA, check out my sea urchin light post. This design can also be 3D printed without any support material.

Best of all, you can download my pineapple light cover completely free from Thingiverse, Pinshape, Cults and MyMiniFactory! Just like the original design of the pineapple which helped me in this project, I hope this remix will help you in your own project – even if you don’t have the same size light fitting as me, with a bit of editing in Meshmixer or another CAD program, you can easily modify this design to suit your own needs. Enjoy.

– Posted by James Novak

3D Print some Aloha

At this time of COVID-19 lockdowns, panic buying and general insanity, we could all do with a bit of aloha. Aloha of course is the traditional Hawaiian greeting, but it also has many other meanings and uses including love, peace and compassion.

If you need a little aloha, you can download this to 3D print for free from Thingiverse, Pinshape, Cults or MyMiniFactory.

This was actually designed to stick on our front door which is freshly painted in a very tropical blue. The design process was very simple:

1. Create the outline in Adobe Illustrator.
2. Export as a DXF file.
3. Open in Solidworks.
4. Extrude.
5. Export as a STL file for 3D printing.

Print it large, print it small, and spread some aloha vibes.

– Posted by James Novak

 

Surviving COVID-19 with 3D Printed Toilet Paper

Most of us would agree that some of the events of the last couple of weeks have overshadowed the seriousness of COVID-19 (Coronavirus). In particular, the panic buying of toilet paper, which seemed to start here in Australia and spread like the Coronavirus itself around the globe, has been quite ridiculous to watch. While there is a serious side to this issue, it’s become one of those situations that you have to have a sense of humour about in order to get through.

In response, I thought it would be fun to start 3D printing toilet paper rolls (aka. loo rolls). What started as a single 3D model last week, quickly turned into a series of different toilet rolls that can all be downloaded for free and stockpiled to your heart’s content! Simply select your preferred 3D file platform to download: Thingiverse, Pinshape, Cults or MyMiniFactory.

Collect them all:

1. Hotel Triangle: For a touch of class and those 5-star vibes.
2. Hanging Square: Fully stocked and ready to go.
3. Neat Perf: The clean-cut toilet roll.
4. Half: Nervous times, time to print some more.
5. Last Square: Oh dear….

They were all modelled in Solidworks at half the size of a regular roll of toilet paper. If you prefer a different size, just scale them up or down (i.e. scale 200% to be the same size as a real roll). Great to carry with you everywhere you go for any unexpected emergencies 😉

Divide them amongst your family members, share them with your neighbours, be generous and take a few spares to work – we’re all in this together during Coronavirus 2020.

– Posted by James Novak

 

3D Printed Model Aircraft Stand

What good is a model aircraft if it’s stuck on the ground? Planes are made to be in the air!

Unfortunately in our recent interstate moves the stand for this model aircraft was lost. But as I’ve said many times on this blog, including the previous post, 3D printing to the rescue! Projects like this really tick all the boxes for me:

1. From idea/need to the final solution can be done in a matter of hours.
2. No need to spend a lot of money buying a replacement (if you can even find one). With 3D printing you can make your own for next to nothing.
3. Bring the product back to life. While there was no need to throw this aircraft away now that it had no stand, some products are not so lucky. If you can replace a missing part, you can extend the use and enjoyment of it.
4. Share it – chances are someone, somewhere, may be looking for exactly the same part. Just as I’m doing here, by sharing what you make, you might save one more product from going to landfill.

Having said that, you can freely download and edit this model aircraft stand from your favourite 3D printing platform: Thingiverse, Pinshape, Cults or MyMiniFactory.

It was designed in Autodesk Fusion 360, and features 2 pieces that print nice and flat, making them strong and durable. Fitting them together is tight, you may need to shave off a little plastic with a file or knife depending on your print quality, but this ensures that you won’t need any glue, and it should hold a good amount of weight without wobbling. The critical dimensions you may be interested in are the size of the stand tip that slots into the aircraft: It measures 6.0mm long (front to back direction of aircraft), 2.3mm wide (wing to wing direction), and 6.0mm tall as pictured below.

If you need a different size, please feel free to make modifications to the files uploaded to the various 3D printing platforms, and then re-share them as a remix. I’m not an aircraft collector and don’t know how many different geometries there may be for stands, this was just the one we needed. Hopefully it is useful for someone else.

– Posted by James Novak

Mannequin Head Remix

Close but no cigar.

Sometimes you find something close to what you want on Thingiverse, Pinshape or other 3D printing platforms, but it’s just not quite right. Well, there is often something you can do about it, and it won’t cost a cent.

I’ve written several tutorials about using free software Meshmixer to make various modifications, for example creating a mashup of 2 different files or adding some text to a design. On this occasion I found a 3D scan of a styrofoam mannequin head on Thingiverse, which included all of the messy details you’d expect from a foam model (smaller head in the image above right). Great if you’re after realism, but not great when you want nice smooth surfaces for 3D printing. The model was also not at the correct scale, and I wanted a mannequin head to use as a model.

The scale was an easy fix, and of course could be done in your slicing software.  Cleaning up the surfaces was also quite simple using the ‘Sculpt’ tool and choosing one of the smoothing brushes. This essentially irons out all the rough details, smoothing out the model as you brush over it. A few minutes of work and a rough model is now clean and ready for 3D printing – which of course I’ve uploaded as a remix on Thingiverse so you can download it for yourself.

The above left image shows the 3D printed result from a Creality CR-10 S5, a very cheap, very large FDM machine with a build volume measuring 500x500x500mm. Obviously my settings weren’t great, the seam is in the worst possible position, and because I wanted a quick result I used only a single wall thickness and almost no infill, which split apart at the top. However, it’s fine for my purposes, and the surface quality on most of the model is fantastic.

Happy smoothing!

– Posted by James Novak

Update 20/02/2023

Below is an image showing the dimensions of the model around the head where you might need to fit a helmet or hat (in mm). If you need larger/smaller, you can just scale the model to suit.

Hex Business Card Holder Tiles

A new office and a new excuse to design and 3D print something! Like many people I end up with piles of business cards that I don’t know what to do with. They clutter my desk, get lost, and ultimately end up in the bin. Sure, there are loads of fancy solutions at stationery stores, and plenty of apps to digitise them, but where’s the fun in that?

Now that I have pinboards wrapping my desk I decided to design a simple, easy to 3D print hexagon business card holder that could be pinned up out of the way. After all, everyone loves hexagons right? While the design is extremely simple (a few extrudes and cuts in Fusion 360), the trick was to model it in a way that would allow it to be 3D printed without any support material – so, as you can see from the layers in the photos, they are (perhaps counter-intuitively) printed in the same orientation they are used. This was an important thing to consider during the design process, with no horizontal beams and all angles >30° from horizontal, and is an important part of what’s known as Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM).

There is a small hole and recess to fit a thumb tack, and you can 3D print as many as you need. As usual you can freely download and print this design for yourself from Thingiverse, Pinshape, MyMiniFactory or Cults, and I’d love to see photos of how big you can make your Hex Business Card wall!

Happy printing 🙂

– Posted by James Novak

 

Shim the 3D printed shim

We’ve all experienced that wobbly table at a cafe and struggled to wedge coasters and napkins under the legs to balance it out. This is where you need a shim, a small wedge that can fill the gap and ensure your drinks don’t go flying. Shim is also fun to say, quick to 3D print, and a good test of your print settings due to the top surface exhibiting the stair-stepped effect.

There are many designs available on popular 3D printing file websites, but I just wanted one that was a useful size (easy to carry with you in a small bag) and that said what it was. So here it is, Shim the shim! You can download it for free on Thingiverse, Pinshape, Cults or MyMiniFactory. Alternatively you can follow the basic outline of the design process below to make your own from scratch in your favourite CAD software. It’s similar to some of my previous designs including an “edditive” desk logo which might give you some inspiration for different ways to use text in 3D.

Shim was designed in Solidworks by using the text tool on the top sketch plane. The key is to squish all of the text together so that the letters intersect, meaning they will 3D print together as a single object (in Solidworks you can simply change the spacing of text within the text tool). The text was then extruded 10mm, creating solid geometry. All you need to do to create the wedge shape is then slice a triangular portion off the top, which in Solidworks uses the extruded cut tool. Save to STL and 3D print, it couldn’t be much simpler!

This is a nice quick 3D print and could easily be used as a keyring or give-away item, especially if you design your own. Enjoy, share and print!

– Posted by James Novak

3D Printed Webcam Mount

Whenever I travel I always have a small Guerrilla tripod to easily mount my cameras just about anywhere – the flexible arms make it perfect for wrapping around handrails or quickly levelling on uneven surfaces. Which made it my first choice when it came to mounting an old webcam so I can begin streaming my 3D prints to Youtube!

I’m seeing a lot of people like @wildrosebuilds posting awesome time-lapse videos of their 3D prints, and plenty of tutorials online showing how to build quite elaborate rigs to do so. I don’t really have time to deal with all of the video editing for each print, but the opportunity to live-stream prints directly to Youtube seems like a great way to share what I’m working on in real-time, and also allow me to monitor prints without having to physically be with the printer. However, webcams aren’t designed to mount to the typical screw mechanism used by tripods/cameras, so I had to design my own bracket to allow me to mount an old Logitech C270 HD webcam to the tripod.

The top right image shows the small slide-in clip that screws to the underside of a camera, and locks into the tripod. My first step was to reverse engineer this part with a set of calipers, modelling the geometry in Solidworks. I then added a vertical element to attach to the webcam, which has a hole on the back normally used by a bracket attaching the webcam to a computer screen. An extra lip on the front to hold the webcam in a vertical orientation, and voilà!

The blue bracket has been printed on my Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus in PLA, and a screw I had lying around holds the webcam to the bracket. A nice little solution that should see some action very soon. Subscribe to my Youtube channel or follow me on Twitter to be alerted when I begin streaming prints, I know it can be a bit like grass growing but watching 3D prints is still addictive to me. If you’d like to download this design for yourself, you can find it on Thingiverse, Pinshape and Cults – feel free to make your own modifications as needed and share, I know the C270 is quite a popular webcam.

– Posted by James Novak

UPDATE: If you want to see my first live-stream using this webcam mount, here it is:

Check out my channel to see more, and subscribe to be alerted when I go live.