Compiling Code to Matter in My Living Room

Published on , 1169 words, 5 minutes to read

In a moment of weakness, my husband and I got a 3d printer. It's mostly been sitting around and not doing much since we got it, but recently I found a great use for it: I wanted a controller stand for my Valve Index controllers and VR full body trackers.

After doing some digging on Thingiverse, I found this stand that looked like it had promise. So I downloaded the model, sliced it and then sent it over to Kyubey. s

Mara is hacker
<Mara> Kyubey's name is a reference to Kyubey from Puella Magi Madoka Magika.

Once it was done I ended up with a stand that I could feed these cables I got from Amazon through. The tracker holes worked great, but the controller holes were just barely too small.

This was kinda frustrating and I almost gave up on the project, but then I remembered that OpenSCAD existed. OpenSCAD is a weird programming environment / 3D modeling hybrid program that I've seen used on Thingiverse. It works by letting you position platonic solids into a 3d environment, and from there you can create anything you want.

One of the primitives that OpenSCAD offers is a cylinder. So I wondered if I could use one of those to widen the hole in the index stand and then reprint the part with the wider hole.

Numa is dismay
<Numa>

Wait, you're using a CAD program to fix your 3D print by modifying the model instead of using, I don't know, a drill and 5 minutes to make it fit that way?

Cadey is enby
<Cadey>

There's no doing like overdoing!

After some finangling, I managed to get the cylinders in the right place with this OpenSCAD code:

//difference() {
    color("magenta") translate([0, 0, 0]) import("./assets/ValveTrackerDeckEditedByInugoro.stl");
    // bores for controller holders
    color([0, 1, 0]) translate([63, 44, 0]) cylinder(h = 55, r = 4.75);
    color([0, 1, 0]) translate([-63, 44, 0]) cylinder(h = 55, r = 4.75);
//}

And when I uncommented out the difference() block, it ends up looking good enough.

So then I took a good solid look at the rest of the 3D printed part to see if I could improve on anything else before I sent it to another round of the printer. The last stand took 14 hours to print and used a lot of material. I want to avoid waste.

Something I noticed is that the front of the print where all the cables come out was a bit too thin. All 5 of the cables wouldn't fit in there (my braided cables must have been thicker than the ones that the original modeler used). So again I grabbed a few platonic solids and managed to make it work out:

// widen the paths
color("green") translate([0, -16, 1.3]) rotate([0, 0, 90]) cube([10, 57, 7.8], center = true);
color("green") translate([0, 0, 1.7]) rotate([0, 0, 0]) cube([25, 30, 7], center = true);

Then I wanted to add some wedges into the underside of the part to help me get the print off the bed. Most people have a problem with bed adhesion being too little. I have too much bed adhesion. So I added some angled rectangles:

// wedges to help get the print off the bed
color([1, 1, 0]) translate([-120, 0, 0]) rotate([15, 0, 90]) cube([10, 11, 2], center = true); // right
color([1, 1, 0]) translate([120, 0, 0]) rotate([-15, 0, 90]) cube([10, 11, 2], center = true); // left
color([1, 1, 0]) translate([0, -85, 0]) rotate([0, 15, 90]) cube([10, 11, 2], center = true); // back
color([1, 1, 0]) translate([60, 56, 1]) rotate([0, -15, 90]) cube([10, 11, 2], center = true); // front left
color([1, 1, 0]) translate([-60, 56, 1]) rotate([0, -15, 90]) cube([10, 11, 2], center = true); // front right
color([1, 1, 0]) translate([32.5, 41, 1]) rotate([0, -15, 130]) cube([10, 11, 2], center = true); // front left inner
color([1, 1, 0]) translate([-32.5, 41, 1]) rotate([0, -15, 60]) cube([10, 11, 2], center = true); // front right inner

And then once I spun it around for a bit and thought it was good, I sliced it in PrusaSlicer and sent it off to Kyubey. It was going to take 14 hours, so I went off to do other things, ate dinner and then went to bed while the printer continued.

Then when I woke up, Kyubey was done.

I was excited and chiseled the print off the bed (the wedges helped a little, but it ended up making the print look kinda weird so I don't know if I will do that again), but the hole for the middle tracker didn't fit perfectly. Everything else did though.

Mara is hacker
<Mara>

If you want to get prints off your printer easier, see this video for the method we're starting to use:

I looked on my desk and found that a random pen that I had sitting around for months was about the right size, so I pushed it into and out of the hole a few times and then the cables fit perfectly. I assume some plastic was in a weird state or something.

Then I set everything up and I had my Index controller stand:

Cadey is facepalm
<Cadey>

I really need to get a table or something for this.

I've uploaded my modified version to Thingiverse. If you want to see the OpenSCAD code, you can check it out on GitHub here. I'm really liking OpenSCAD so far. It's very weird but it lets you do whatever you want by chaining together basic shapes to build up to what you want. I imagine I will be using it a lot in the future, especially once my husband's new sim racing gear comes in.

Having a 3D printer around is like having a very weird superpower on standby. You can compile matter in your living room, but you need a very pedantic description of what that should look like. You also can have any material you like as long as it's plastic. However when it's useful, it's a lifesaver. You can make something to fit a gap or mend something broken or even add functionality to something that lacked it. The cloud's the limit!

Facts and circumstances may have changed since publication. Please contact me before jumping to conclusions if something seems wrong or unclear.

Tags: openscad, 3dprinting