Novelty Equation Key Tag

thingiverse

This was created in response to thingiverse item 538098. The original item did not supply any design source files and instead provided only a single STL file. This STL file turned out to be difficult to edit. Since the original was commercially available, this wasn't surprising. However there are good reasons for wanting to be able to edit a design and one consisting entirely of text should be easy. This design provides a complete alternative and instructions for creating similar designs. In the spirit of open source, this current design is freely available to anyone without any restrictions. Instructions THIS OBJECT For this object you can simply slice the provided STL file and it should print well. I used 2.86mm diameter thermochromic PLA at 216 degrees on painters tape using an Ultimaker Original machine. I used CURA to generate the G-codes. Other settings were layer thickness 0.1mm and shell 0.8mm. (Thermochromic PLA changes color depending on temperature!) I have provided all the OPENSCAD source code as well. You simply need to copy all the *.SCAD files to a single directory and then open emc2.scad. You will be able to examine the code and see how it works. It is trivial to scale or move any of the elements. GENERAL FOR SIMILAR DESIGNS Of course your designs may include other letters or you may even prefer a different font. Here's what you do. I used Linux Mint but these instructions will work on other operating systems as well. Firstly I downloaded a few interesting fonts from http://www.dafont.com/. You can find millions of fonts on the internet. The most difficult thing is finding something nice. I used one called "KeepOnTruckin". Or you could use one that's already available on your PC. To create a basic graphic I use a program called INKSCAPE. This application outputs Scaleable Vector Graphics (SVG) files. You will also need to add the paths2openscad extension available from the net or from thingiverse thing number 559139. The basic method is as follows: Edit your page size to suitable dimensions. I used A7. Select the text tool and place characters on your page one at a time at a suitable size in your chosen font. Then select each individual letter ONE-AT-A-TIME... • Click on Path -> Object to Path. (Inkscape doesn't confirm this operation). • Click on Extensions -> Generate from Path -> Paths to OpenSCAD. • Select a suitable output file name and save the generated OpenSCAD file. • Close the dialogue window. When you've done each letter (or group if you want to retain the layout) • Open the output files in OpenSCAD and view the result so far. In this case I wanted to move the letters so they overlapped. So I simply imported each letter into OPENSCAD and used the translate command to reposition it. See the OPENSCAD source files to understand exactly what I did. Save your work regularly and press F5 to preview the result or F6 to compile the object for export as an STL. Then use your favourite slicing engine to generate the build file for your 3D printer. Simple!