Messy Pen Stand

thingiverse

I needed a spot to stash my Surface Pen, so I built a holder for it. As a total newbie to 3D printing, this project is mostly about learning the ropes. I created it in Tinkercad, fine-tuning my geometry skills. The stand can clearly stand on its own without support, building smoothly at a 45-degree angle. To "prove" its 3D printed status, I added some elaborate, handmade cubes at weird angles – entirely unnecessary and harder to print – like a kid showing off. Yet, this stand turned out to be super effective in its job! The ring fits perfectly without interfering with pen clips, the pen stays put, you can make it sturdy by infilling, and I love how it looks. It holds pens, styluses, or tablet-style pens. You could even scale up for a high-end golden pen if it's not too oversized, or just scale it to fit a Sharpie – maybe – since one would look a bit cramped but you can print in bigger size variations as needed. I printed the design in red PLA at medium quality with .2 mm layers without rafts or supports and noticed that cubes turned out slightly messy in some cases but perfect under optimal conditions usually. Printing in those little glops is really something I'm still figuring out! It's lots of fun to learn, and I put up this thing on Thingiverse as my very first design, hoping for comments or ideas. Pictures of the model were printed in PLA using a Makerbot 5th Gen with medium quality settings .2 mm layers. To make your own print you could infill anything from minimal (default setting) to complete and fill with a type that you prefer – this can add up lots more weight but makes the pen even safer from falling – takes my printer roughly two and thirty minutes.