Skip the HW Store 3d Print it Instead

Need a part to fix something in your house? Why not just 3d print it? In this video, I look at how to find parts for common repairs, how to modify them for your needs, and how to print them. I also discuss the impact of print orientation on strength.
Video Content
00:00 Introduction
03:14 What is OpenSCAD
04:28 Finding Models to Print
05:54 Customizing Models
09:37 How Strong are These Models
10:32 Print Orientation and Strength
11:13 Exporting as STL for Printing
12:22 Resizable Bracket Model
15:15 3d Printed Hinges
17:39 3d Printed Chains
21:43 3d Printed Nuts and Bolts
Here are links to the models I used in this video:
Bolts, Nuts, Screws
www.thingiverse.com/thing:193647
parametric hinges
www.thingiverse.com/thing:218...
Chain
www.thingiverse.com/thing:28405
Corner Angle (brace)
www.thingiverse.com/thing:581036
Shelf Bracket
www.thingiverse.com/thing:2226
MakeWithTech Shelf Bracket
www.thingiverse.com/thing:478...
Let's continue to learn together. Irv
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[@nicholaswillcox]

One of the coolest things about 3d printing now...is a lot of the concepts will carry over when metal 3d printing becomes more common place in the home...so this channel, these videos will be useful for decades. As always, thank you for the education! Keep up the great work.

[@skinned66]

Opinion: Such a likable fellow.

[@lgude]

Just thinking this morning of buying a metal nut/bolt/washer combo from the hardware so I can combine more than one weight to do an exercise where I don't want the weight on a bar or dumbbell. Now I can consider designing my own. Thanks, mate.

[@MakeWithTech]

Be careful. Plastic bolts are not as strong as metal.

[@makeitpunk6716]

I print everything I can .. Every day brings me a new opportunity.. I have designed things as involved as complete R/C cars where the goal is to print as much of the car as possible and still maintain peak performance, and as simple as a guitar pic..

[@rmudcavemob5447]

I am very new to FreeCAD, but thanks to your excellent KZbin tutorials my learning has been greatly accelerated. Many KZbinr tutorials are delivered at high speed, learners like me cannot keep up, your delivery pace is perfect. Please keep up the great work.

[@jjdawg9918]

I finally had to look up DrVax and to my joy it was in fact related to the old DEC equipment. I used to maintain a PD 11/44 and VAX 6000 back in the late 80s(reel-reel tapes and 18" wide disk packs omg). The good old bad old days I call them and went on to wireless broadband engineering. Oh how far we have come and grown. I am so happy to see you doing this now!

[@larrylockwood9393]

I got a 3D printer to make buildings and siding items for my model railroad. I'm mostly working to learn FreeCAD better for this type of use. This video showed a great way to extend the usefulness of our 3D printers. The hinges look really interesting.

[@TroyMackay]

The Customizer was such a unique and powerful tool for publishing parametric models to end users. Just fill out a web form and get a custom model, no software downloads required. Such a shame to see it neglected. None of the competing sites have anything like it. I bet it used some compute cycles, though.

[@thomasheisler]

you could also make moulding like floor to wall or corners, and you could even make them to interlock, then prime and paint

[@gordonjackson9955]

WOW. I'm new as of this week to 3D printing. This is just opening up my world. Thanks. I'm subscribed.

[@johnkelley9877]

I can honestly say I learn something new from your channel every time I watch it. Thank you for this very interesting tutorial.

[@MrMiniPilote]

Excellent video and another great introduction to SCAD. Thanks for the efforts, I appreciate them.

[@luischav3z]

Awesome. I just started learning 3d printing and didn’t know what those other files in thingiverse were for.

[@OregonFishingGuy]

Always love learning from you! Keep up the good work!

[@moby1387]

love it, you always put out practical and useful information

[@videolabguy]

The first thing I ever printed was a replacement handle for our picture window sliding screen door. Simple enough to model in Tinker cad. And it worked like a champ. Great video, Doc!

[@Jasonwutuber]

Thanks Irv! Being only 2 month into 3d printing I have never experienced a time when thingiverse was functional. I have noticed models saying customizable but only just learning Fusion360 I didn't understand how to customize. This video helps a lot.

[@ronm6585]

Great info. Thank you.

[@davidclark2702]

Thank you for teaching me about this, Doc. We learned something, together! :)

[@KiR_3d]

Very interesting ideas! Thank you!

[@dleivam]

Very useful tips, thanks for sharing

[@rdyer8764]

Highly useful!!!

[@swamihuman9395]

Super vid, Irv!:) OpenSCAD takes a certain mindset (at least to create from scratch), but it's so enticingly powerful. Actually, it's quite amazing what some people accomplish with it. This vid will serve as a nice intro to those unfamiliar with it, and will hopefully inspire them to go further. And hey, we learned something together! :D Till next time...

[@ivorsingh1245]

Thank you, once again an amazing video.

[@smaug1234]

thank you for the excellent tutorial :)

[@kleinerHippie]

Ganz Klasse Videos, vielen Dank dafür.

[@marcdraco2189]

One of the first things I printed was a replacement "head" for my daughter's tripod mount. She broke that in a few days so I made another one with an open core and put an 8mm bolt down the middle. She hasn't busted that (yet)!

[@fredstratford5104]

Nice video on a practical topic. With OpenSCAD avoiding code is not possible forever. Anyone with some coding experience should be able to pick it up. I note your comment on the hole placement. It is an important warning. Maybe that could be a parameter as well or perhaps automatically relocate the holes so that they fall halfway between the corresponding solid members.

[@nicholaswillcox]

I'm working on designing a new desk, shelves, etc and literally was thinking this same thing - what parts can I print to reduce cost? Love this channel so much.

[@lincolnmicrophonellc]

Thank you, I may find a lot of use for this. 1 off tooling can get expensive. I have not been impressed with 3D printing (sans a Stratasys) up to about 2015, ready to revisit.

[@arthurmorgan8966]

Uncle Vax. Learnt my first CAD from you.!

[@hobanlesomalion8468]

I really enjoy all the clips i see of you Last learn to use CAD to 3d print

[@karipenttila2655]

Mind you that any pla printer part that is under a load will eventually give. So designing a durable part requires a bit sturdier amount of plastic. Good example is a clamp; if you keep it tightly closed for long time it will bend. Petg or abs has much lesser that feature, but all plastics have similar tendencies

[@GregMcCarthyUK]

Great video. Just got my 3d printer and have been wondering how to print all these parts. Looked at OpenSCAD the other day and got completely confused.

[@gene_Code]

Dr. Vax: Download scad for nuts and bolts. Filename Nut_Job.scad Me: giggles

[@rustynutsnboltz]

I didnt see how you repositioned the bracket to print on its side. Thanks for the video.

[@pileofstuff]

I prefer to use the rotate and reposition functions in the slicer.

[@dennysawyer3980]

My 3D printer has paid for itself with useful prints in my workshop and for my camper, as well as printed parts for various broken items around the house. For example, rather than paying 10 bucks for the plastic insert for my router table, I printed one I found on Thingiverse for about 20 cents. Of course, it has also cost me a fortune in Benchys, toys, and other fun but useless junk! For those who say it's hard to find useful designs, use Yeggi.com or even DuckDuckGo for your searches (searches on Thingiverse rarely work) and be specific. "Dust port for Hitachi router" will be more likely to find what you need than just "dust port." If your search returns no results, you can make it less specific, but I've found that searching for exactly what I need saves browsing through hundreds of useless things. And if you're looking for a part for something, entering the model number will likely give you better results.

[@Thayes1979]

As an engineer of hinges i caution of printing hinges. Hinges actually have a lot of engineering required and standards that they must meet as for holding weight. The reason is because of of kids climbing on doors, the hinges you buy in stores are rated for a certain weight and the hinges that are found in cabinets have an even more weight bearing standard.

[@MakeWithTech]

Good point.

[@tasmedic]

If an engineer's hinge is required, maybe print them in prusa PC blend and do a bit of testing? Anyway, crossing the road is probably more dangerous than going for a ride on a door. And, I don't know what passes for parenting these days, but if I had tried to go for a ride on any doors when I was kid. I would have been in MAJOR trouble. I didn't even think of doing that. Maybe we should also make the doors out of foam so the kids can't slice their fingers off in the door jamb? This would also make the doors lighter and hence require less in the way of engineering for the hinges....? I wonder if standards have thought of that?

[@lakshminarayanaaithal1081]

Hi, I'm still waiting for your video on enclosure video for boards?

[@debonh3828]

How do you fit all the four screws in your shelf bracket? two are hidden behind the strut.

[@Duraltia]

I 3D Printed my own Dining Lamp ( imgur.com/gallery/2wJoAGu ) a few months ago after a) not having been able to find something suiting my taste and b) having to deal with the issue of the outlet not being centred above my table. Took me like 4 days to 3D Print all of the parts - At the beginning of 2020 I also 3D Printed this Arc Lamp ( imgur.com/gallery/4lb1Gzq ) I use during the build and painting of scale models to avoid seeing the shadow of my hand on the model from my other lights on the table I use as a workplace. Obviously both have been designed by myself which really makes me question the sanity of people that buy a 3D Printer but cannot create their own models thus relying on Repository Sites like Thingiverse as I can say without a doubt Iwas never able to find anything on those sites I could have used straight out of the box - In the end I always had to make my own version due to either aesthetic or dimensional reasons.

[@bakergraphics68]

I am an interested beginner to 3D printing and am looking for suggestions for a model to purchase in the $200-300 range.

[@stoneobscurity]

that shelf bracket wouldn't work without holes in the triangle bracket to get screws/driver into those trapped holes.

[@MakeWithTech]

Great idea. Thanks for suggesting.

[@arshamskrenes]

This is great. I started using FreeCAD because of your tutorials. Can we do this with FreeCAD? Should I switch to OpenSCAD? Or are they different tools for different tasks and therefore use both?

[@pileofstuff]

i use both for different applications.

[@mcorrade]

Hey Doc this is great and I appreciate the tutorial but, how come people don't upload the thingiverse with Fusion 360 files? Its a much better CAD program (in my humble opinion)

[@dennysawyer3980]

Some people are moving away from Fusion 360 because Autodesk keeps changing what's included in the free personal version. But I agree with you - I'll keep using it as long as it's still free, and the few times I've posted a design online, I include the files for whatever app I use (OpenSCAD, Fusion, or FreeCAD) so people can modify it to fit their needs.

[@kopiller]

Openscad is driving me "nuts" :P

[@davesage9190]

You kept picking the items from your computer. I believe you said you would link to the items presented in this video. I'm having a problem finding them.

[@MakeWithTech]

My bad. I forgot to add the links. Doing it now.

[@MakeWithTech]

Done

[@davesage9190]

@@MakeWithTech Thank You

[@barrywilliams2008]

Drvax have you ever tried tinkercad for models like this iv used tinkercad for years now all online no download for it and same as you iv always used it for projects like photo frames ect :)

[@MakeWithTech]

Absolutely. Use tinkercad, freecad and openscad depending on the project.

[@barrywilliams2008]

@@MakeWithTech one thing I am interested in though can this program round off edges that would be an awesome addition to tinkercad but it lacks that part :)

[@dvsmotions]

Extremely rare to find "practical" designs. All you see are octopus and benchys.