![]() ![]() ![]() I’ve used it for calibration towers, bowden extruders, filament spool adapters, storage boxes, etc and it was quick and easy. ![]() Being able to share just the source behind an object and have others generate exactly what they need in the browser is so nice, even with the server-side rendering and generation that thingiverse cobbled together ages ago. Sadly the best example of OpenSCAD’s power that I’ve used, the clunky thingiverse OpenSCAD tool, has been broken for quite some time. It’ll always be faster to make a fancy chamfered, curvy, one-off in something like Fusion/FreeCAD but if I need to quickly generate and export a vast multitude of widgets each with differing dimensions and possibly integrate the generation process into an external system, OpenSCAD might be better for the job. The killer-application of OpenSCAD is flexible parametric model generation for situations where many varied things are needed to be generated from one codebase. It was slow going and the market-of-one aspect of my needs didn’t jive with the labor needed to make clean, debugged scripts and ultimately led to understanding that using OpenSCAD’s Dancing about Architecture workflow to make a one-off is just plain stupid. I tried to use OpenSCAD exclusively for all the usual around-the-house functional prints that 3D printer owners encounter. Posted in how-to, Software Hacks Tagged 3d printing, openscad Post navigation Just want to make some boxes or airfoils? We have those in stock, too. Need help mastering OpenSCAD workflow? We’ve got that. Of course, you could always support ’s Herculean effort by buying the print edition and forcing yourself to type everything in instead of copy/pasting, or give it to someone to introduce them to all the program has to offer. ![]() There are plenty of printing tips along the way to help realize these projects with minimum frustration, and the book wraps up by covering extra functions not expressly used in the projects. ’s book opens with a nice introduction to OpenSCAD and it’s user environment and quickly moves into 10 useful projects of increasing complexity that start with simple stuff like wall anchors and shelf brackets and ends with recursive trees. Never fear, because had quite the productive lockdown and wrote a free comprehensive guide to mastering OpenSCAD. OpenSCAD’s own clickable cheat sheet and manual comes in handy all the time, but those are really more of a reference than anything else. Powerful as it may be, the learning curve is pretty steep. I couldn’t find any “full 3d” options that were stable / usable.OpenSCAD is a fantastic free tool for 3D modeling, but it’s far less intuitive to use for non-programmers than mouse-driven programs such as Tinkercad. I’ll say that compared to 3d printing – the open-source toolpathing options for CNC milling seem immature. It also likes niceties like being able to save your work. Instead of dealing with 3d objects directly – it converts 2d paths / areas into (3d) milling operations that you define manually. MakerCam is both quite useful – but also limited. The video above includes instructions on how to use ChainringGen in conjunction with other open-source tools to actually make a chainring out of 7075 aluminum using an inexpensive CNC mill. It’s a bit trickier than just exporting an STL file. I also wanted to explore ways I could get from an OpenSCAD design to an object created on my CNC mill. I primarily created ChainringGen because I thought designing / milling my own 110 BCD 39 tooth chainring would be the most practical and economic way to obtain one. You can control parameters like bolt-circle-diameter (BCD), number of bolt holes, number of teeth and other stuff. ChainringGen is an OpenSCAD script I wrote that can generate a bike chainring with any specifications you like. ![]()
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