clockspring3D

Square Flasks!

One final flask design, at least until someone says "hey, what about..." - the square flasks I mentioned in yesterdays Pixel Flask post!  These two flasks are in fact the same models, but without the pixel grid bit on the front.

So, those internal ceilings are, as mentioned before, designed for clean and easy printing by easing into the internal threads at a nice forty-five degree angle.  And, the screw-in lid is the same model as in all these flasks.

You won't be surpri...

Pixel Flasks!

Hey there wonderful people! 

Why have labels when we can have... dots!  This square take on the flasks includes a matrix of inset squares just waiting for tiny pixels to be pressed into them.  Arrange little squares to make whatever your heart desires, as long as it can be expressed in a 5x9 grid.  At the default size, the squares really are quite tiny, so you might want to get your tweezers ready :D

There are two different  sizes of flask, single and doub...

Micro Flask!

Hi, wonderful people!

One more variation on the screwtop flasks - this time a small, round one!  And, as you've probably noticed from the picture this one has an inset for a label, too!

Now, I personally decided that I liked having handwritten labels, so I printed the tag object and grabbed a sharpie.  However, you can always load up the STL into your CAD package of choice and pop some text on there that way, too:

2020-04-18 16:27:45 +0000 UTC View Post

Chained Hatch Container!

Howdy, wonderful people!  Did you know it's really easy to cross-thread 3D-printed screw mechanisms?... 

Yes, I destroyed a few test prints by getting this threaded lid completely and utterly stuck, to the point that even pliers just served to tear bits off without moving the lid at all.  You'll be happy to know that I changed the threads!

While I've made quite a few threaded designs in the past, I've always used very coarse threads for the sake of printability. &nb...

Oilcan Flask!

Hi, wonderful people! :D

You know what the oblique flask needed to really ramp up those oilcan vibes?  A handle!  While I was at it, though, I figured I'd refashion the overall shape in a hexagonal style, too.

The lid is the same model as the oblique flask, since I chopped out the threads from there and reused them in this model.   I liked the idea of carrying the lid ...

Oblique Flask!

Hi, wonderful people!

Screw-closures are about as secure as it gets for a 3D-printed container, and since I've been experimenting with such things lately, it got me thinking about screw-top containers.  Specifically, tubes!  Tubes are great - so practical!  But, I wanted to explore something with a bit more character.

I started with an old style oil can in mind - that class...

Side-Drive Geared Box!

Hey there wonderful people!  You know, I almost forget these days to say "hey, this one's print-in-place and support-free!" on these mechanical things.  But yes, that's the case with this model!  

The idea behind this box was to crank open the lid using an actual gear system so that the movement of the crank part can be different to the movement of the lid.   This same idea was behind the Linkage Crate, though this time the effect is opposite, and driven by gear...

Not so isolated!

Hey there, amazing people!

The start of March seems like a long time ago in a different world.  We're all in different parts of the globe, but I doubt any of us have escaped the impact of what's going on right now.  Let's hope that things don't get too much worse for many of us than having to stay inside and try to stay positive.

Staying hidden away is one thing, but thanks to all of you I'm not feeling so isolated :)  If there's one thing that's a shining light rig...

Flex Clip Box!

Boxes that stay closed?  What is this craziness?!

Well, wonderful people, this is the complete opposite of the Vault Box.  Rather than the most overly-complex approach to latching a box closed, this one is simple.  However, that doesn't mean that there isn't a bit of complexity to the forms.  Let's take a look!

First things first, the overall box design: as you'll no d...

Unfolder Hex Box!

Howdy, wonderful people!  

Somewhere between the endless hinges of the Articulator Dish and Slideback Box and the more sedate forms of the single-hinged boxes is this one - a three-part hinged lid.  The hinges aren't arbitrary, though, they correspond to a hexagonal side profile, and let the lid wrap around the upper half of the hexagonal box.

The hinges all seat firmly into ind...

Do you wanna build a cuboctahedrooooon?

Okay, wonderful people, one more bolted polyhedron, and now my to-do list is done!  Well, the one about bolted polyhedra, at least :P

Yep, it's a cuboctahedron!

Made up of squares and equilateral triangles, each vertex is still identical, which means we still only need one corner bracket design (yay!).  

So, for this one you'll need:

* Eight triangles

* Six squ...

Here Be Triangles! A Bolted Icosahedron

Hey there, wonderful people!

Times are strange right now, but let's make the best of it and make stuff!  Geometric stuff!  Hot on the heels of the bolted dodecahedron we now have a bolted icosahedron.  20 faces of excitement!   

So, you'll notice that we now have triangular panels.  The edge length is the same on these as it is on the squares, pentagons and h...

Colossus Vault! This time it's aaaall print in place :)

Howdy, wonderful people! :)

Yep, it's another take on the Vault Box!  This time the whole thing is one assembled design - the cog-driven locking lid is hinged to the body, and the whole thing prints in place!  And upside-down!

Now, this is certainly slightly crazier than the Vault Box, and it's certainly a much bigger and longer print, but I think the original Vault Box is probably more practical.  But that one isn't strictly fully print-in-place! 🤣

2020-03-23 15:56:28 +0000 UTC View Post

Keep it in The Vault!

Hey there, you fantastically-supportive people! 

A couple of people have commented recently that while I have many different box designs, and some of them are even practical, I haven't really focused on making things actually stay closed.  That's really had me thinking hard about how I might approach such things.

And then I figured I'd start with the most convoluted approach I could think of. 😁

2020-03-21 15:58:39 +0000 UTC View Post

Articulator Dish! Kind of like the Slideback Box, but More Silly :)

Hey, wonderful people! 😍

Some designs just make me laugh every time I pick them up.  Well, at least this one does.  It's not actually that silly, though.  It's more that with that lid flopped over it looks a bit deflated and defeated.  I'm laughing right now just typing it.

The thing is, I started out aiming for something elegant and sophisticated (okay, relative to other plastic things, at least), and the undiginfied puppy-with-its-tongue-out results are so...

Pentagons and Dodecahedra! More Bolts!

Hey there, wonderful people, let's bolt more things together!

This addition to the bolted cube brings pentagons.  The edge length and hole spacing is consistent with the square and hexagonal panels we already have, so there's plenty of scope to join things together. 

Right now we have:

* Pentagon-to-rectangle corner pieces, for making pentagonal prisms with square sides.

* Pentagon-to-pentagons corner pieces, for making dodecahedra! 

2020-03-15 09:40:35 +0000 UTC View Post

The Hidden Lid Box!

I love lids, as you've probably noticed, and print-in-place ones even more!  But one thing that's often a downside to a printed box with a lid is that unless the box has something heavy in it, opening the lid tends to make it fall over, or at least become poorly balanced.

Lids can also just plain get in the way sometimes.

So, that was the inspiration here!  Could I come up with a design that hides the lid away so effectively that it was like the box didn't have an integr...

Tidying the Tiers!

Howdy, amazing people!

This wont affect any of you wonderful people, since you're already supporting me, but I'm going to tidy up the tiers so it's less confusing to people who are signing up.  

I'll talk through the updates here, but you won't have to do anything, nor will anything change for you :)

So:

Almost everyone signs up to the $8 tier.  Now and again, someone signs up at $1, then amends that to $8 anyway.  So, I'll use Patreon's "unpublish" feat...

A Small Planetary Kaleidocycle Update

Hey there wonderful people!

Circular holes can be a pain to print, and this is a print that has some.  Now, usually the worst that happens is that the top of the hole gets a bit messy, but in this case there was one person who had the top of the bolt hole repeatedly warp, get hit by the nozzle, and detach from the bed.  Nobody wants that.

Fortunately, there's a fix to such things!  Rather than a circle, there's now a version with a teardrop-shaped bolt hole, where t...

The Bolts are Back! Hex Panels!

Hooray for assemblies!  Hi, fantastic people, we have more things to put bolts in!  You may recall the Bolted Cube model from a little while back, and the rectangle panels that went with it.  Well, now we have some hexagon panels, too!

The hexagons have the same edge length as the squares, so you'll be able to mix and match the parts accordingly.  The corner pieces are inten...

Cranker Console Box

Sometimes a form just names itself!  I couldn't call this anything else but a console, though I'm not even sure why.  It evokes feelings of some kind of slightly retro era, those inset dots, those curved ribs.  It's like a desk phone that never was.  And it has cogs!

Well, it has one primary cog that drives it all.  Hidden behind the lid is a suspended gear that matches...

The Failures of February! :)

 Hey there, wonderful people!  It's time to reflect on the missteps and disasters behind the scenes for February!  

I was thinking ahead to this post the entire time I was working on the Linkage Crate, and I very much expected it would be front and centre as the design that didn't make it.  It's hard to express the relief that came with finally solving the fragility issues that left my workbench awash with broken plastic struts...

But let's step back earlier in...

Linkage Crate - Print-in-place lever-opening box!

Hey there wonderful people! 😍 
Have I used levers in designs before?  This may be the first one!  Levers are really useful for controlling force, but here it's being used to magnify motion.  Push down the panel at the front of the box a little way and the lid opens far further thanks to the magic of physics!

 
Like it says in the title, this is a print-in-place desig...

Strata Box - Assembled Stripes with a print-in-place hinged lid!

Howdy, wonderful people!  While I was waiting for waterwheel prototypes to print (which took a long time) my mind wandered back to boxes.  I've done so much print-in-place stuff lately and those designs make it hard to use multiple colours.  Assemblies might not be quite as technically challenging, but they do have the advantage of being able to mix and match filaments.

This one started out as a variation on the Chevron Layer Box (was that what I called it) from a year or...

Planetary Waterwheel!

I'd wanted to do something with flowing water for a while!  This strange looking contraption is a waterwheel composed of planetary gears driven by pumping water in through concealed channel that runs from the lower back to the top of the wheel.  You can also just spin it with your fingers :)

I had a few versions of this before I found a workable size and shape for the wheel buckets. &...

A Quicker Print Test!

Howdy all! I've uploaded this little model to make it easier to test printer settings. It's just the gear setup from the Planetary Kaleidocycle, but made a bit more.... fidgety 🤣

You guys continue to give me great feedback on what works and what's tricky, and I really appreciate it. Hopefully this'll help with more quickly testing for the effects of elephant-footing and assessing overall print accuracy!

Creative Printer supporters will find this under Epicyclic Tester on D...

Locus Bottle: Back to the Vase Mode World!

Hey there wonderful people!  Have I ever mentioned how great vase mode is?  Having been a bit preoccupied with cogs and moving parts I haven't done nearly enough with vase mode recently, despite the little voice in my head going dooo something with only one unbroken perimeterrrrr.... We all have that little voice, right?  Right?!  Right!

Anyway!  I originally planned to put together a box much like the vase mode twist box, but with a screw thread instea...

Mechanical Rook Box

Hey, wonderful people!  Did I mention that planetary gears are cool?  Back when I was first working with them it occurred to me that you could make an interesting aperture-style opening box by having planetary gears rotate parts in unison.   As you've probably seen from the pictures, it worked out!

Ten individual cogs rotate between the box body and an outer ring, and each i...

A Kaleidocycle Catch-up!

It seems that putting comments quietly on posts is not a great means of announcing new versions of designs, so I figured I should post something a bit more useful!

Thank you all for the amazing feedback!  The main pic above is the direct result - a much more resilient planetary gear design.  I halved the number of teeth and doubled their dimensions, then added bevel rings to the outside of the cogs.  All of that means that things are much, much less likely to come apart o...

Evolved Kaleidocycle - a much easier-to-print design!

New and much more printable! :D

If there's one thing I really enjoy about problem solving it's the evolution of those solutions over time.  Each step along the way gives insight that can drive more refined versions - and that's what we have here!

It already feels like a long time ago that I was sketching tetrahedra and hinges and trying to work out how to make a kaleidocycle support-free and print-in-place at all.  It worked out, of course, and I was super pleased with t...