Please share a model link in your comment if it’s relevant.
At work we have a bunch of phones that were just plugged in sitting at my desk randomly. I got tired of the mess and 3D printed a tower to put them in. Complete with trays to quickly slide them in and out, fans to keep them cool and, slide in filters for the fans.
I need to finish some last modifications before I share it all. But if anyone’s interest I’ll try to share the link.
Wow that’s awesome! If you publish it I would love an link!
My washing machine broke. Wouldn’t drain. I took it apart and realized it was going to be a huge pain to fix if I didn’t drain it first, but it wouldn’t drain on its own. So I designed and printed an adapter that would let me run the pump that drains the washer from my cordless drill. PLA isn’t the strongest material, so I went through like 3 of them draining the washer, but it worked fantastically. Very simple to design and a quick print. Big payoff.
Aside from that, wall mounts for my Nintendo Switch and accessories as well as a wall mount for my NAS solution, a shield for the face of my alarm clock so it didn’t shine bright digital-clock LED light in my face all night (but I could move it aside and check the time), mounts for SAD lamps in convenient places. Most of what I print is custom-designed stuff for utilitarian purposes.
Wall mount for a Switch, you say?
So, the one I used appears to have been removed from Thingiverse in the meantime, but I’m pretty sure it was V1 of this (which has been remixed a couple of times by someone else and is up to V3). It is a very tight fit, though. (Like maybe the original designer left zero tolerance.) If I had it to do again, I’d go for a different one, but I’d guess probably V2 and V3 have resolved the way-too-tight fit issue.
I made a couple of things myself for mounting my Joycon charger on the wall. (Definitely improvements that could be made to the wall mount one. Conical holes for the screw holes for one. But it does the job.)
Outstanding, thanks for the visual aid 😀
I started up Reddits functional print many years ago to serve as a gallery/showcase to inspire others that 3D printing has a lot of useful uses.
I left Reddit with the Exodus, but I believe it still exists, although it’s probably bot filled garbage now.
But it had a huge list of useful things.
I have a similar thead here on the fediverse, but the original site (kbin.social) died out and I haven’t bothered to get another going.
I loved those subreddits. Got so many great ideas from other people’s designs. Start one up here!
That’s one of the few subreddits that still has interesting stuff. I don’t care about benchies and shiny dragons.
If you don’t have at least a thousand benchies, temp towers and calibration cubes (mix and match allowed), you are not allowed here :)
I posted a couple things there early on but I’m generally terrible at documenting my work do there’s a decent back log of things I should share.
Thanks for getting that going way back, it was a nice place while it lasted.
I printed bushings for the augers we have on the bottoms of a couple grain bins. They’ve lasted for about 10 years in ABS, and the old ones were ridiculously expensive to replace even though they were just made of maple. Probably run a couple of million bushels of grain through those augers since I replaced them.
I also replace the impellers in a couple of pumps we use to pump river water up to cattle, and the design I cribbed is probably twice as effective as the originals, making it more efficient for the solar panels we use to power them.
I’ve replaced various implement parts around the farm with other prints, things like parts for our seeder and sprayer.
Some light fixtures using rbgw- including one that has a “secret” party mode. (It’s for my niece and it has a Stary Night, but with unicorns, screen.)
Various shelving, and such.
Probably the most stand out thing, though is a robotic snow sweeper. It’s very bespoke so I won’t be publishing it, but it goes out and clears my driveway whenever it snows. The chassis, wheels and sealed housing were all printed, as well as fairings to reduce snowy build up.
It doesn’t matter how bespoke. You should publish it!
Dude. We are about to sell our home because clearing snow off our long, steep driveway is a massive pain. It has taken years off our lives. We were seriously looking into snow removal robot but inflation and tariffs put that way outside our price range. You might be underestimating a potentially huge market. I would’ve never thought that’s something that could be DIY’d!
Dude, it takes a couple weeks just to map the area that needs to be cleared, and have exactly zero desire to monetize my hobby. figuring in my powerful need to eat, and have a home, if I even were to sell it, it’d be just as expensive as comercial options with far, far less support.
which is also why I’m not releasing the design files on it. I don’t want to deal with the inevitable questions.
Fair enough, life is complicated enough as it is! 🫡 Glad you were able to simplify at least one part of it. I completely understand not monetizing a hobby, as it would suck all the joy out of it.
A bunch of 10-inch rack minilab stuff.
edit: pic
So far, gridfinity and other storage management prints. It’s amazing that all the drawer organizers I’ve bought over the years just kind of mostly worked. Now with gridfinity everything is organized and clean.
Most useful was probably this holder for two 1/2in PEX pipes. Printed in ABS, it holds cold and hot pipes in parallel, and uses a #8 screw for attachment. All commercially available holders are for a single pipe, and use nails. Hammering nails in tight spaces (and doing so twice) is not particularly convenient for me, thus, this contraption was born.
Other than that, stuff that is so practical it is easily forgettable: wall mount for a garage door opener, Y splitter for an exhause fan, various covers and containers.
Earbud Charger Charger. Put your earbuds in the charger and put the charger in the charger charger and the charger charger keeps the charger charged.
In other words, an earbud case holder. The earbud case can charge wirelessly so I put a wireless charge coil behind where the case sits. I put a piece of metal on the back of it so it sticks to a magnet mount in my vehicle but I plan to 3D print part of my dash with this built into it.
But what charges the charger charger?
The vehicle. If the case goes dead you simply buy a vehicle, drive around until charged, then you can sell the vehicle or push it off a cliff or whatever
Probably most useful is Gridfinity for the desk drawers and multiboard for the wall. Not completely sold on multiboard yet - there are so many pieces and options that I haven’t got my head around it yet.
I printed my credit card wallet which has been ace.
I really want the stagetop table system to be useful, but I struggle with the print times and volume of parts to print and might wait until I have a faster printer.
I have literally printed hundreds of parts, most of them custom made.
From the top of my head:
- a box to transport extra Framework expansion cards
- custom hooks to attach luminous garlands to a tiled ceiling for my wedding
- custom attachments for various devices and tools
- kitchen and bathroom quality of life improvements
- a structure for my Volca mini-synths
- an ergo mech keyboard
- a 100% self designed F1-inspired sim racing wheel (WIP)
- etc.
A piece of plastic broke off from my laptop once. It was supposed to hold one of the two screws fixing the cover of the RAM & drive section and now there was just a larger round hole. I’ve measured the hole and the screw, designed a replacement in Blender (not identical, I wanted something more solid and reliable) and printed it; took two attempts to get the shape perfectly right. Have had zero issues with it in all these years.
I have one of those twelve foot tall skeletons for Halloween and the joints are pretty fragile resin for the weight, luckily they are replaceable and there is a pretty strong DIY community for them and you can download free replacement parts.
Every Halloween I take inventory of what needs replaced, print it, and it’s set for another year.
Every Halloween I take inventory of what needs replaced
I’ve found an infinitival copula deletion!
I had to fix some crap in the kitchen and needed custom brackets to attach lighting under the cabinets in certain spots. It is pretty satisfying to go from a few measurements to, in a few hours, having custom parts that 100% did not exist before and couldn’t be found in any store.
PLA+ is an awesome material.
The single most useful print is just a simple cylinder to repair a broken knob on a nearly brand new kitchen stove. A new knob cost $35 at the time and had a 2 month lead time from the factory, (it was during the covid lock down).
It took longer to turn on my computer and start up my CAD program than it did to design the repair part for the knob. 30 minutes later, I had the sleeve printed and super glued over the broken part and the knob reinstalled on the stove.
That’s been 7 years ago, the repaired knob is still there and in use daily. And one more knob got the same treatment. It probably took less than 10 cents of PLA and electricity for both repairs.
