Please share a model link in your comment if it’s relevant.
I printed an ikea pegboard holder for my paper towels. It’s in use every day
What are the most useful things you've printed?
Submitted 7 months ago by Interstellar_1@lemmy.blahaj.zone to 3dprinting@lemmy.world
Comments
ClydapusGotwald@lemmy.world 7 months ago
orosus@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Miniature buildings, trees, walls and terrain parts for my Dungeons and Dragons campains.
icelimit@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Sink cover to catch bits. Every time I move to a new place, I print a new one. Just a simple PLA one lasts literal years. I had my last one for close to 4 years of daily pouring down boiling soup and other crap until I poured some 35% vinegar accidentally.
autriyo@feddit.org 7 months ago
What PLA resists deformation when subjected to boiling water?
icelimit@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Well it doesn’t fall apart and boiling water is only 100C, and it’s not like it’s sitting in the boiling water for long
UnpledgedCatnapTipper@piefed.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
I've printed some basic gridfinity bins (the vase mode ones are super quick and sturdy enough for what I'm doing) and baseplates.
I also custom modeled a hook for my headset that would only work for my specific desk.
burrito@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
First thing I ever printed was a spout to replace the elephant trunk on my Rancilio Rocky coffee grinder. It allows me to use the grinder with basically 0 ground retention so it was a huge improvement and allows me to accurately use the grinder for single doses. www.thingiverse.com/thing:101392
Another thing I made were some spacers to correct alignment on the freezer door of my French door refrigerator. They’ve been working great for years now and keep the door seal in perfect alignment. I custom made these and they’re unlikely to be useful to anyone else.
I also am very fond of some wire organizers I use for managing USB charging cables so they’re not a jumbled mess. www.thingiverse.com/thing:5340635
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I printed new treads for my beach cart in TPU.
Bluewing@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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.
nesc@lemmy.cafe 7 months ago
Drops for drones, drone parts.
icelimit@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Drops? Or props?
If props, do you use a generator that you might be able to share?
Mpatch@lemmy.world 7 months ago
New interior door handle for a john deere 450clc excavator. Red pla, so far, has outlasted the original
snrkl@lemmy.sdf.org 7 months ago
With the exception of crap fornrge kids and cake toppers, everything I print is to solve a problem I have.
Here are the gridfinity drawers I designed and printed for under my desk. printables.com/…/1129785-gridfinity-under-desk-dr…
I’m about to start printing triple stacks of these to put better drawers into my IKEA KALLAX shelves than the ones IKEA sells.
TomArrr@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Not sure it’s the most useful in a day to day sense, but was great for a d&day darksun campaign. I have got quite a few grom gloomykidminis, great quality
Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 7 months ago
A AAA-battery to AA-adapter. I randomly had 50 of the smaller ones lying around, so it really came in handy.
Can’t share a link, but there should be dozens of this kind of model on any site. “Can’t”, because the model I grabbed was definitely among the worse ones.
modus@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Another good one is the 9v to AAA adapter. 9v batteries are just six AAA batteries in series. They’re smaller diameter so you can print a little sleeve to fatten them up. They’re also slightly shorter so you can cram a little aluminum foil to meet the contacts. If you have a lot of 9v leftover from work like I do, and it’s a great tool.
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 7 months ago
They’re AAAA cells, not AAA cells, which is why you’re finding they’re too short and narrow.
XTL@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
Most useful as in something I wouldn’t have otherwise is probably some gridfinite thing. SD and usb stick holders maybe.
Most used is probably a plain headphone hook for office. Daily use and storage for years.
Most saved time and money? Jigs and dummy parts at work which have helped avoid more expensive processes and mistakes in more expensive processes.
RattlerSix@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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.
pipe01@programming.dev 7 months ago
But what charges the charger charger?
RattlerSix@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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
Yaky@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
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.
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
I’ve only made and printed a couple things on my own, but I find the outlet cover that goes up against my bed useful
ikidd@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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.
stelelor@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
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!
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It doesn’t matter how bespoke. You should publish it!
MolochAlter@lemmy.world 7 months ago
GhostlyPixel@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I have one of those twelve foot tall skeletons for Halloween and the joints are pretty fragile resin for the weight, luckily 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.
Threeme2189@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Every Halloween I take inventory of what needs replaced
I’ve found an infinitival copula deletion!
Senal@programming.dev 7 months ago
A bunch of 10 inch rack minilab stuff.
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
Probably my panel mounts for Anderson PowerPole connectors. I use them just about everywhere that I need a 12V DC power outlet.
RattlerSix@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I want to make this but rectangular. Are the connectors held in place solely by sticking something through the hole in the side?
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
The connectors are held in place with a roll pin that goes through the hole. They fit tightly in the panel mount. The pin just keeps them from pushing back out.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 7 months ago
Lightswich covers and NEMA boxes.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
I 3d printed a hair comb that’s been my daily use comb for like 8 months now.
I’ve also 3d printed a gauge pod for my car to hold a trans temp gauge. And since I drive every day that probably tops the list of useful prints.
007ace@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
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.
Panties@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Card holders for board games. Normally a thick deck tends to slip around, and the bottom card can be hard to pick up. We now keep a few holders for the standard sizes, and use them if a game needs any. So convenient.
ShadowRam@fedia.io 7 months ago
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.
nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
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.
Yaky@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
That’s one of the few subreddits that still has interesting stuff. I don’t care about benchies and shiny dragons.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
If you don’t have at least a thousand benchies, temp towers and calibration cubes (mix and match allowed), you are not allowed here :)
QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I loved those subreddits. Got so many great ideas from other people’s designs. Start one up here!
Yankee_Self_Loader@lemmy.world 7 months ago
TootSweet@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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.
discomatic@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Wall mount for a Switch, you say?
TootSweet@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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.)
nyan@lemmy.cafe 7 months ago
The very simple protector that keeps the cats from turning off my computer by stepping on the power button, while leaving the button itself accessible.